CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

It is important to perceive and address job stress, because its elements badly affect
employee mental as well as physical health (Rana & Munir, 2011). Modern
societies face widely increasing in the number and size of organizations that
provide services to the community; these organizations employ and rely on
specialists and professionals whom supposed provided a suitable work
environment to perform their roles effectively. Since we live in an environment
dominated by different stimulus and motivations (physical, moral and
psychological), which in turn have an impact on the individual, not only at home
but also surpassed to work environment, these stresses make individual lives in a
state of anxiety, tension and emotion which affects the duties, functions, and
relationship with workers in the organization and even on his health and safety
(Revati, 2012; Soran et al., 2014).Many researchers confirmed increased interest of
researchers in the field of organizational behavior in studying factors affecting job
performance (Shockley-Zalabak, Ellis, & Winograd, 2000), such as job stress,
which made the organization strives to remove or neutralize the factors causing job
stress among individuals in order to improve job performance, many studies have
addressed the subject of job stress and performance and the relationship between
them in many sectors of society (Husain, 2013; Alnaqib, 2012; Dar et al.,. 2011;
Setar et al., 2015) while others focused on the impact of stress on performance in
the educational sector (Ali et al., 2014; Kholifat & Almatarneh, 2010; Vazi et al.,
2013; Hanif, 2004). Teachers are the foundation stone in developing and advancing
the construction of any society and they aspire to respect and appreciation, and
aspire for working in right atmosphere that enables them to perform educational
services well. Generally teachers can not complete their educational duties
appropriately, if adequate circumstances does not exist, matter which requires
identifying stress of work to which they are exposed and work to overcome them,
which prevents frustration or poor performance experienced by teachers and
address the problems that are an obstacle offering this noble service, because high
levels of job stress among teachers may affect the goodness of the graduates
quality, researches and publications they did. This study came to examine the
impact of job stress on job performance in education sector, and we will study only
organizational role factors that cause stress (workload, role ambiguity and role
1
conflict), because it is not appropriate to study physical factors in service
organizations such as university. The main aim of this study to determine the
impact of these organizational factors on the performance of employees in the
education sector in Sultanate of Oman, study instrument has been developed.

In any organization, there are diversified nature of workers from different

ethnicity, culture background, they came together to work in an organization. They
may differ with beliefs and thoughts, which may arise conflicts and unfavorable
conditions for them to work and to adjust in. The burden and loads of works leads
to frustrative thoughts and to mental breakdown. These are neither common nor
rare cases.

The diverse behaviors expressed in workplace have various effects to the

individuals who are working for the organization as well as for the whole
organization. In instance these behaviors happens together with the norms of the
organizations.

The norms of organizations are created by comprising languages, expected

behaviors; beliefs and principles which allow the workplace to behave at preferred
situation. Nevertheless, truth is not always the ideal case; work behavior can also
vary from the norms of the organization. Employees whoever lack the motivation
to follow to normative expectations of the social content become motivated to
violate those expectations.

Thus, the job stress created by those diversified environment can create serious
issues and problems in an organization as well as to workers. They can affect all
levels of organizations, containing with productivity, decision making and
financial costs. The resistance and tolerance level of workers may be crossed at
certain level which hampers their working capacity and behaviors in the
organization.

2
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Job stress will force a person to deviate from normal working due to change in
their psychological or physiological condition. Work over load, role conflict and
role ambiguity etc are the major issues and reasons for the job stress. So, for
solving such problems organizations have organized various programs to solve it.

Research Questions

1. What major factors are contributing for employees stress in organization?

2. Are your efforts valued by the university?
3. How work load have influenced your performance?
4. What are the effects of job stress on the enterprise?
5. What types of activities should be done to reduce job stress?

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This report entitled “Impact of Job Stress on Workplace Behavior” may be helpful
to people in various situations like theoretical and managerial fields. Theoretically,
it helps to prepare the projects after and gives ideas or information about the
mental and physical health of an employee, their level of productivity and stress
handling capability in an organization.

Managerially function for the organization because organization can use

information itself and they can implement ideas for following report which have
been prepared for the fulfillment of the requirement of the Bachelor of Business
Administration (BBA).

3
1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUIDY

The present study is based upon both the conceptual approach and practical
approach to analyze the impacts of the job stress on job performance. The
objectives can be pointed out as:

 To know the mental state of the employees.

 To know their level of motivation and motivating factors.
 To know their pressure handling capabilities and effects on their
productivity.
 To know impacts on physical and mental health.
 To know when job stress is too much.

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The research study is divided into five chapters and organized likewise
introduction, literature review, research methodology, results and summary.

1.6 LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of
current knowledge including substantial findings as well as theoretical and
methodological contribution to a particular topic. Literature review are secondary
sources, and as such, do not report any new or original experimental work. Job
stress has a profound impact on the performance and productivity of the
employees. It affects the health of the employees in a drastic way. From analysis
many relationship between work stressors like role ambiguity, workload pressure,
role conflicts researcher found that role conflict and role ambiguity have positive
correlation with stressors and negative relationship between other stressors and job
performance.
Nagesh and Murthy (2008) in their study titled Stress Management T IT call
centers analyzed 5 factors that contributed to job stress like job demands, control
over work, co-operation received from colleagues and management, role clarity
and organizational change. They had suggested measures in the form of training to
facilitate organizations and individuals to manage stress at workplace.
4
1.7 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

1.7.1. Job Stress

Stress is a status which happens when individuals recognize that the conditions or
strains facing them may be more than their endurance. The term job stress can be
defined as a group of external harmful factors in the work environment, which may
be psychological, physical or social (Greenberg & Baron, 2007; Arnold &
Feldman, 2000. (While Ivancevich, Jamal and others defined job stress as an
individual’s reactions and interactions to characteristics of the work environment
that seem morally, emotionally and physically threatening, mediated by individual
differences and psychological actions (Ivancevich & Matteson, 2002; Jamal, 2005;
Szilagy & Wallace, 1987). Job stress will be experienced, when the imbalance
between demands of work environment and the individuals’ abilities increases, so
at work, stress may be an awareness indicated by ambiguity, conflict and overload
arising from the work environment and the characteristics of the individual. We
can note three main components of job stress process (Alamian, 2005; Alsharm,
2005): (1) stimulus: Is the primary stimulants resulting from feelings of stress
which may come from the environment, organization or individual, (2) response:
psychological, physical and/or behavioral reactions, which individual represents as
anxiety tension and frustration (Sur & NG, 2014), (3) interaction: which explains
the relationship between stimulus and response elements. One of the Japanese
management rules says: The effectiveness of the organization depends on its
leader’s ability to harness the power of stress in themselves and employees, and
shift it into energy for success. Job stress study’s importance is clear when we
know that 40% of workers who report their job are extremely stressed (NIOSH,
1999), as Forbes website noted that work stress responsible for up to 8% of
national spending on healthcare in USA 2015, also according to (SWA.gov.au)
official Australian website mental stress costs Australian business more than 10 B$
yearly. Job stress can be classified into two types (Rizwan, Waseem, & Bukhari,
2014; Kotteeswari and Sharief, 2014; Kazmi et al., 2008) (1) eustress or positive
stress, which is beneficial in case we may feel challenged, but the reasons of stress
will be opportunities that are meaningful to us, they help in providing us with
energy and impulse in meeting our responsibilities and achieving our goals. This
model supposes that at a low level or non-exist of stress, the individual does not
face any challenge so he or she is not likely to offer any good performance, but at
medium level of stress individuals will offer a mediocre or high performance, for

5
example, as the manager puts the deadline earlier or shorter, because of stress
employees will work hardly and effectively to accomplish their organizational
goals. Some of organizations’ management think that setting a reasonable degree
of stress on employees can promote the employees’ performance (Zafar et al.,
2015), as Muse, Harris& Field, (2003) supported the positive relationship between
job stress and job performance; and a large number of researches indicate that as
job stress increases, performance may at first rise, but at some degree begins to fall
(Luthans, 2013), (2) distress is a condition which happens when an individual
perceives a loss or risk or when it badly affects him or her (Kolt, 2003).

1.7.2 Workload

Workload refersto the concentration or the amount of assignments and tasks, which
employee responsible at work (Ali et al., 2014). This aspect refers to the degree of
stress experienced by individuals due to the conception that they are unable to
adapt or be active with the amount of work assigned to them (Idris, 2011).
Workload can be classified into: (1) role overload: when individuals are expected
to do over than available
24 Moaz Nagib Gharib, Syed Ahsan Jamil, Moinuddin Ahmad and Suhail Ghouse
time, resources and their capabilities, individuals face many expectations from
direct boss, subordinates, colleagues, top management, local community and so on
(Ammar, 2006). Role overload can be qualitative or quantitative (Trayambak et
al., 2012), qualitative takes place when individual does not have sufficient abilities
to do work, while quantitative task happens when individual has huge tasks to do
or too time shortage to perform them (Conley & Woosley, 2000). (2) Role lower
load: when tasks and duties of the role are less than the level of individual
capabilities, which generates bored feelings or stress, in both last cases, individuals
face job stress, in the first case they may be afraid, tenses and fear not lead their
expected duties, and in the second they feel small work or lack of its importance,
so this affects job performance. We can set the following hypothesis: H1:
Workload has significant impact on job performance.

1.7.3. Role conflict

When role requirements of an individual are irreconcilable, it allows role conflict

to happen, also role conflict occurs when individuals face many contradictory job
tasks, or when they oblige to do things they do not have desire to do. It is a serious
situation, because commitment to the role requirement makes it difficult to involve
6
to the requirements of another (Seller & Damas, 2002). Role conflict can be
defined as individuals jointly do different roles which conflict each other.
According to Luthans, 2013 there are three types of role conflict. First one is the
conflict between the individual and the role. There may be confusion between the
personality of individual and the expectations of the role, second type is intra role
created by conflict expectations about the method of doing the role, it occurs when
role requirements are not agree with individual’s attitudes and values. Last type
inter role conflict which results from the contrast requirements of two or more
roles the individual must play at the same time. Taris and colleagues 2001 and
Gellespie and his colleagues 2001detected the impact of role conflict on faculties’
job performance. Thus we formulated the following hypotheses. H2: Role conflict
has significant impact on job performance.

1.7.4. Role Ambiguity

Role ambiguity describes lack of information needed by the individual in

accomplishing his or her role in an organization, such as information, limits of
authority and responsibility, policies and rules of the organization, and methods of
performance evaluation (Ammar, 2006). Role ambiguity comes when individual
does not have clear role to do the assigned job (Kahn et al., 1964), Rizzo and his
colleagues 1970 defined role ambiguity as employees who do not have clear
direction to the expectations of their role in the organization. Employees usually
face two models of role ambiguity: one about tasks and related activities; the
second related to feedback regarding to task performance. Feedback is critical to
enable the employees in evaluating their performance and to inform them about
progressing toward task accomplishing (Idris, 2011), role ambiguity related to job
performance (Bandura and Locke, 2003), so we set the following hypotheses. H3:
Role ambiguity has significant impact on job performance.

1.7.5. Job performance

Job performance of employees is the most critical subject which plays an important
Role in accomplishing organizational performance. Job performance can be
defined as set of managerial behaviors express how employees do their jobs
(Alawamlah, 2004). Schermerhorn, Hunt & Osborn, 2005 stated that job
performance contains a quality and quantity of results driven from individual or
group struggle completion. In another meaning job performance can be described
as the ability of individuals to achieve their respective work aims, then meet their
expectations, achieve bench marks or accomplish their organizational goals.
7
1.8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1.8.1. Research Design

This study is based on descriptive analytical method for exploring the impact of
job stress dimensions (workload, role conflict and role ambiguity) on job
performance of the academic staff at Dhofar University. Data for the current study
were collected by 26 Moaz Nagib Gharib, Syed Ahsan Jamil, Moinuddin Ahmad
and Suhail Ghouse two steps: (1) manually distributing: at first, survey was
distributed during fall examination time, so the response was slightly low because
faculties were busy with proctoring and examination duties, that was the reason
why we moved to next step, (2) E-distribution: we designed the survey on Google
Form website, then the survey link was circulated to all academic staff, which is
more easily and confidential because they can answer by the link survey which in
turn sends the results automatically to the form without mentioning the
participant’s name, so the results became better than manually method.

1.8.2. Population and Sample

This study population consisted of all academic staff from all colleges at Dhofar
University. The survey was distributed to all academic staff members at DU,
whom 221 members representing the entire research population, the number of
received questionnaire which valid for analysis was 102, so the response rate was
more than 46% from population’s study.

1.8.3. Measures

We developed this questionnaire from many validated scales (Chandhok& Tyagi,

2012; Parker & DeCotiis, 1983; NIOSH, 1999; Cousins et al., 2004; Caponetti,
2012; Shahriari 2013). Some changes were done to fit educational context. It
consisted of 22 items and included 5 items for each dimension (workload and role
ambiguity) and 6 items for (role conflict and job performance). Likert-5-point
type- was used for measuring survey questions, ranged from minimum scale
number 1 (strongly disagree) to maximum scale number 5 (strongly agree).

8
1.8.4. Sources of Data

1) Primary Sources
a) Questionnaire
b) Interviews
c) Observations
d) Websites

2) Secondary Sources
a) Published Reports
b) Internal source
c) Books and magazines

9
 CHAPTER II

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

2.1. Frequencies of demographic variables

Frequencies of sample’s members are outlined in Table 1, which show 85% of
sample are males, about 59% are middle aged 35-45 years group.
Table 1
Frequencies of Demographic variables

S.N. Variables Elements Frequency Percent

1 Gender Male 87 85.3
Female 15 14.7
TOTAL 102 100
2 Age Less than 35 16 15.7
35-40 26 25.5
40-45 34 33.3
45-50 21 20.6
50 and above 5 4.9
TOTAL 102 100
3 Position Lecturer 17 16.7
Assistant Professor 77 75.5
Associate Professor 6 5.9
Full Professor 2 2
TOTAL 102 100
4 Experience Less than a year 27 26.5
1-3 38 37.3
3-5 27 26.5
5 and above 10 9.8
TOTAL 102 100
5 Salary Less than 15000 16 15.7
15001-20000 80 78.4
20001-25000 5 4.9
25001 and above 1 1
TOTAL 102 100
6 Marital Status Single 7 6.9
Married 95 93.1
TOTAL 102 100
10
2.2. Scale Validity and Reliability

Reliability of the instrument has been estimated by using Cronbach’s Alpha, where
the results show good values of consistency for all variables except high value for
Role Ambiguity, as illustrated in Table 2.

Table 2
Mean, standard deviation, items no, Cronbach’s alpha and correlations
among variables

S Variables Mean SD Items 1 2 3 4

N no.
1 Workload 3.352 0.771 5 0.685
2 Role Conflict 2.727 0.787 6 0.335 0.741
3 Role 2.607 0.988 5 0.295 0.528 0.870
Ambiguity
4 Job 3.656 0.607 6 0.370 -0.294 -0.060 0.704
Performance

2.3. Descriptive Analysis

Table 2 showed that recognizing Job Stress dimensions by academic staff at

Dhofar University was medium for workload and low for two others, also showed
that, level of job performance of academic staff at Dhofar University was 3.656
more than average.

2.4. Correlation Test

We used this to test determine the correlation coefficient among study variables,
because if correlation coefficient was high and more than 80% it means there is
strong correlation among variables, which requires the integration or merging of
some variables together. Table 2 showed that correlation coefficients amongst
variables were significant except the relation between Role Ambiguity and Job
Performance was very low and not significant.

11
2.5. Hypotheses Testing

Hypotheses of the study have been tested by using multiple regression analysis,
using the statistical program SPSS.

Table 3
Results of multiple regression analysis for the effect of Job Stress dimensions
on
Job Performance
SN Variables B Beta T Sig R2 F Sig
1 Workload 0.094 0.119 2.108 0.02 0.21 70.71 0.649
7
2 Role conflict -0.089 -0.116 -2.95 0.03
4
3 Role -0.021 -0.034 -0.284 0.77
Ambiguity 7

Table 3 showed that the proposed model appears valid as the value of F was
(70.71) with a level of significance (0.49). The results showed that only workload
and role conflict have statistically significant effect on job performance, while role
ambiguity does not have statistically significant effect on job performance that’s
mean H3: (role ambiguity has statistical significance effect on job performance) is
not supported. Beta values showed that work load has more effect than role
conflict on job performance. The explanatory power has reached to 21%.

2.6. Major Findings

Results of this study require to be viewed in light of study limitations. First, study
sample are academic staff at Dhofar University, so none academic staff are
excepted, which restricts the generalizability of the findings. Second, data was
collected during fall examination till first of spring semester, while academic staff
stressed by examination duties such as proctoring and student’s marks. We hope
future researchers to do more studies about additional variables that related to job
stress factors as job demand, job control and job support, and to apply studies in
other fields.
 12
CHAPTER III

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

3.1 SUMMARY

3.1.1 Job Stress

Mean of job stress dimensions by Dhofar University’s academic staff was slightly
low, because means of role conflict and role ambiguity were less than 3, and
workload’s mean was somewhat medium. This was due to the policies and new
bylaws which university applied. The results showed that workload dimension got
first rank with mean 3.35. This indicates that academic staff practice and face
medium levels of stress related to capacity and amount of duties and tasks they
required to do, attending meetings was most affecting factor in workload. Role
conflict got the second rank with mean score 2.73. This means that academic staff
experience low level of conflict as they do tasks and activities which does not
coincide with their principles, values and past experience they have. In final place
was role ambiguity dimension with mean 2.61. Thisshows clear and defined roles,
activities and tasks performed by academic staff such as teaching, examinations
activities and advising roles. These results differ in terms of the order of the job
stress dimensions with study of (Kholifat & Almatarneh, 2010) which showed that
role ambiguity dimension came first, followed by role conflict dimension and
finally workload dimension.

3.1.2. Job Performance

Job performance’s mean of academic staff at Dhofar University was somewhat

high, the mean was 3.66. This is due to interest of Dhofar University about
commitment of academic staff regarding qualityof education services that
provided, and the university values all efforts consideration which made by
academic staff effectively. In addition, increasing concern of DU with continuous
awareness sessions about performance scales and appraisal, quality standards and
mentoring.

3.1.3. Workload and Job Performance

The results showed that workload has significant effect on job performance. This
13

result clarified that workload’s levels at DU academic staff were medium and
within normal and accepted rates, the reason may be new comers (26.5% of
academic staff being in DU for less than one year, and nearly 58% less than three
years), this consisted to (Lease, 1999) which explained that new comers usually
practice high levels of workload. As beta value was positive, workload positively
related to job performance.

3.1.4. Role Conflict and Job Performance

Study found significant effect for role conflict on job performance. This result
indicated that role conflict’s levels were low, that’s mean academic staff do not
face confusion during performing regular duties. As beta value was negative at
significant value 0.034 less than 0.05, we can say role conflict negatively relates to
job performance.

3.1.5. Role ambiguity and Job Performance

Study found no significant effect for role ambiguity on job performance. This
result indicated that role ambiguity’s levels were low, that’s mean academic staff at
DU do not face vagueness related to academic activities of teaching, research and
other professional services, because they know their job description in details, like
teaching hours, goals of other activities like proctoring, meetings, student advising,
and they receive feedback about performance. As beta value was negative at
significant value 0.777 which more than 0.05, we can say there is no significant
effect of role ambiguity on job performance.

3.2. CONCLUSIONS

This study reaches to following findings: Job stress not bad all times, as medium
workload’s level by academic staff at DU affects positively on job performance.
Also the level of role conflict and role ambiguity at DU is low. In addition, role
conflict has a significant effect on job performance, while role ambiguity does not
significantly affect on Job performance. Finally, academic staff’s job performance
level at DU is somewhat high.
 14
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Other related researches