JOB STRESS AND EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING:A CROSS-CULTURAL EMPIRICAL STUDY

MUHAMMAD JAMAL*, PhD

Department of Management, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

SUMMARY

This study examined the relationship between job stress and employee well-being among teachers in Canada andPakistan. Job stress was operationalized in terms of perceived experiences at the job which were chronic in nature.Employee well-being was operationalized in terms of burnout and its three dimensions (emotional exhaustion, lack ofaccomplishment and depersonalization), intrinsic motivation, job involvement and turnover intention. Data werecollected by means of a structured questionnaire from teachers in metropolitan cities in Canada (N � 420) andPakistan (N � 335). Pearson correlation and moderated multiple regression were used to analyze the data. In bothcountries, job stress was signi®cantly related to a number of well-being variables. Moderated multiple regression didnot support the role of gender as a moderator of the stress±well-being relationship. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.

KEY WORDS Ð job stress; well-being; Canadian and Pakistani employees

This study examined the relationship betweenjob stress and employee well-being variablesamong teachers in Canada (N � 420) and Pakistan(N � 335). While job stress has long been recog-nized as an important factor a�ecting employees'health and well-being in industrialized countries, ithas rarely been studied systematically as a factor foremployees' well-being in developing countries.1±3

In the western industrialized countries, job stresshas often been labeled as one of the mostserious occupational hazards of modern times.4±7

Work-related stress a�ects employee health, with50±80 percent of all diseases being psychosomaticor stress-related in nature.8,9 In addition, job-related stress results in organizational problems ofjob dissatisfaction, burnout, high absenteeism, loworganizational commitment and marginal jobperformance.10±16 Moreover, the reported cost of

work-related stress has been increasing rapidly inindustrialized countries. For example, losses tothe economy associated with job stress wereestimated to be $150 billion per year in the UnitedStates.3,4 In the United Kingdom, the cost toindustry associated with replacing sta� who under-perform due to stress is estimated to be around£3000 million.3,17

Job stress can be viewed as an individual'sreactions to work environment characteristics thatappear psychologically threatening. It generallyindicates a poor ®t between the individual'sabilities and the work environment, in whichexcessive demands are regularly made of theindividual or the individual is not fully equippedto handle a particular situation.18,19 Implicit in thisconceptualization of stress is the chronic nature ofjob stress, which implies that chronic stress ariseswhen the individual does not fully recover betweenworkdays, causing lasting physiological strainwhich may result in stress-related disease or end-organ dysfunction.8,20 In contrast, acute stress isconceptualized in terms of short-term, temporarysituations such as taking examinations or dealingwith short-lived extraordinary workloads like thosefaced by accountants at the end of the ®scal year ordepartmental clerks with the Christmas and NewYear shopping rush.21 Investigations which employthe acute stress perspective generally measure

CCC 0748±8386/99/030153±06$17.50Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

STRESS MEDICINEStress Med. 15, 153±158 (1999)

*Correspondence to: Dr M. Jamal, Department of Manage-ment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, CanadaH3G 1M8. Tel: (514) 848-2935. Fax: (514) 848-4292.

Contract/grant sponsor: Social Sciences and HumanitiesResearch Council of Canada.Contract/grant number: 410-92-0203.Contract/grant sponsor: Fonds pour la formation de Cherch-eurs de l'aide aÁ la recherche.Contract grant number: 97-ER-0506.

changes from, and return to baseline states,whereas studies which employ the chronic stressperspective usually rely upon self-reports ofpsychological states and a range of symptomsassumed to be related to the enduring character-istics of particular occupations or types of jobs.9,20

In this cross-cultural study, the person±environ-ment ®t model of chronic job stress was employed.However, other researchers have used di�erentconceptualizations of stress in their investigationsand these are reported elsewhere.22 Our choice ofthe person±environment ®t model was based on itsincorporation of both chronic and acute stress, andits popularity in the behavioral sciences as well asits solid empirical support.6 Notwithstanding con-ceptual variation, job stress usually results in dis-ruption of the individual's psychological andphysiological homeostasis, forcing deviation fromnormal functioning in interactions with job andwork environment. In the face of chronic job stress,an individual's deviation from normal functioningis more likely to move towards the dysfunctional.This happens because by nature most employeesare extremely averse to chronic job stress thatcreates an uncomfortable situation in the work-place.1,12

As mentioned earlier, this study was conductedamong teachers in a developed country (Canada)and a developing country (Pakistan). Though jobstress has been the focus of a large number ofempirical studies in developed countries, only a fewstudies have been conducted in developingcountries.1,3,23 Moreover, the paucity of empiricalstudies involving employees both from developedand developing countries in the same study is evenmore acute.24±26 In this respect, the present researchcontributes to international job stress literature byexamining the relationship of stress and well-beingamong teachers in Canada and Pakistan. Sampleequivalence and measurement similarity in bothcountries were maintained in order to enhance themeaningfulness of the ®ndings of the present study.Employee well-being was operationalized in termsof feelings of overall burnout and its threedimensions (emotional exhaustion, lack of accom-plishment and depersonalization), intrinsic motiv-ation, job involvement and turnover intention. Anumber of hypotheses were developed and testedand these are presented below:

Hypothesis 1: Job stress will be positively relatedto burnout and its three dimensionsin both countries

Hypothesis 2: Job stress will be negatively relatedto intrinsic motivation and jobinvolvement in both countries

Hypothesis 3: Job stress will be positively related toturnover intention in both countries

METHOD

Research setting

The present study was carried out in twocountries: Canada and Pakistan. In both countries,college teachers were invited to participate in thestudy in order to maintain sample equivalence.Both in Canada and Pakistan, teachers werelocated in large metropolitan cities and wereteaching in publicly funded colleges.

Procedures

In both countries, data were collected by meansof a structured questionnaires. In the Canadiansample, approximately 940 questionnaires weredistributed among teachers. With one follow-up,420 completed questionnaire were returned yield-ing a response rate of 46 percent. In the Pakistanisample, approximately 550 questionnaires weredistributed among teachers. With one follow-up,335 completed questionnaires were returned yield-ing a response rate of 61 percent.

A higher response rate among the Pakistaniteachers might be due to the novelty of stresssurveys, which are rarely done in Pakistan, and thesupport of the college administrators in datacollection.

Sample characteristics

In the Canadian sample, the majority of therespondents were tenured teachers (66 percent),were male (57 percent) and were married (52 per-cent). The average respondent was 42 years of age,had 15 years of teaching experience, 12 years ofseniority in the college, 18 years of education andhad previously taught in three di�erent establish-ments. In the Pakistani sample, the majority ofthe respondents were permanent (tenured) teachers(82 percent), were male (65 percent) and weremarried (88 percent). The average respondent was38 years of age, had 11 years of teaching experience,9 years of seniority in the college, 17 years ofeducation and had taught in two di�erent colleges.In both samples, respondents were quite similar tothe total population of teachers in their respectivecities.

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Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Stress Med. 15, 153±158 (1999)

Measures

In both countries, the same standardized scaleswere employed to assess the study's variables inorder to make comparisons meaningful. Perceptualsimilarity among respondents in both countrieswere expected because of their professionalsimilarity. Descriptions of scales are presentedbelow.

Job stress. Job stress was assessed with the13-item scale developed by Parker and DeCotiis.27

This is a Likert-type scale with 1±5 responseoptions, 1 indicating strong agreement and 5 indi-cating strong disagreement with the item. A higherscore on the scale indicated a higher degree of jobstress. This scale is frequently used to tap overalljob stress and has good psychometric properties.9,10

Burnout. Burnout was assessed with the MaslachBurnout Inventory.28 This scale measures perceivedburnout in terms of three dimensions: emotionalexhaustion, lack of personal accomplishment anddepersonalization. It is a Likert-type scale withresponse options varying from strongly agree tostrongly disagree. A higher score on this scaleindicated a higher degree of burnout. This scale hasbeen widely used in behavioral sciences and hasexcellent psychometric properties.10,13

Intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation wasassessed with the seven-item scale of the job

diagnostic survey.29 Each item of the scale has 1±7 response categories, 1 indicating low intrinsicmotivation and 7 indicating high intrinsic motiv-ation. Motivation potential scores (MPS) werecalculated to indicate the strength of intrinsicmotivation. A higher MPS score indicated a higherdegree of intrinsic motivation.

Job involvement. Job involvement was assessedusing the Job Involvement Questionnaire (JIQ)developed by Kanungo.30 It is also a Likert-typescale with 10 items. The response format for eachitem was 1±5, 1 indicating strong agreement and5 indicating strong disagreement. A higher scoreon this scale indicated a higher degree of jobinvolvement.

Turnover intention. Turnover intention wasassessed by asking each respondent to give his orher probability of staying with the same employer2 years from the day the questionnaire wascompleted. This measure has been reported as areasonably valid measure of actual turnover.6 Ahigher score on this measure indicated a higherdegree of turnover intention.

RESULTS

The means, standard deviations and reliabilitycoe�cients (alpha) of variables are presented inTable 1.

Table 1 Ð Means, standard deviations and reliability coe�cients of study variables

Variable No. of items Means SD Alpha reliability

1. Job stress 13a

(13)2.33(2.07)

0.76(0.81)

0.87(0.88)

2. Overall burnout 22(22)

2.37(2.18)

0.5(0.63)

0.85(0.89)

3. Emotional exhaustion 9(9)

2.26(2.27)

0.84(0.61)

0.86(0.81)

4. Lack of accomplishment 7(7)

2.27(2.13)

0.61(0.58)

0.72(0.82)

5. Depersonalization 5(5)

1.96(2.11)

0.69(0.64)

0.82(0.84)

6. Intrinsic motivation (MPS) 7(7)

136.32(119.29)

77.88(83.40)

0.82(0.78)

7. Job involvement 10(10)

2.81(3.09)

0.73(0.68)

0.87(0.85)

8. Turnover intention 1(1)

1.90(1.75)

1.171.01

ÐÐ

aNumbers without parentheses are from the Canadian sample and numbers with parentheses are from the Pakistani sample.

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Reliabilities varied from 0.72 (lack of accom-plishment) to 0.87 (job stress) in the Canadiansample. In the Pakistani sample, reliabilities variedfrom 0.78 (intrinsic motivation) to 0.89 (burnout).In both samples, reliabilities were judged reason-ably good for survey research.

Intercorrelations among seven dependent vari-ables were computed and are presented in Table 2.Overall burnout and its three dimensions weremoderately correlated with turnover intention andintrinsic motivation in both samples. Similarly,intrinsic motivation was weakly correlated with jobinvolvement and turnover intention in bothsamples. Since none of the intercorrelations wastoo high, all the dependent variables were kept forfurther analysis.

Pearson correlations were computed to test therelationship between job stress and the dependentvariables. These correlations are presented inTable 3 for both samples. Job stress was signi®-cantly positively correlated with overall burnoutand its three dimensions in both samples, thusclearly supporting our hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 2predicted that job stress will be negatively related tointrinsic motivation and job involvement. In bothsamples, job stress was found to be signi®cantlynegatively correlated with intrinsic motivation,thus partially supporting hypothesis 2. However,contrary to hypothesis 2, job stress was positivelycorrelated with job involvement in the Canadiansample, while no relationship was found betweenjob stress and job involvement in the Pakistani

sample. In sum, hypothesis 2 was only partiallysupported by the data in the present study.

Hypothesis 3 predicted that job stress will bepositively correlated with turnover intention. Inboth samples, job stress was found to be signi®-cantly positively correlated with turnover inten-tion, thus supporting our hypothesis 3.

Moderated multiple regression was used toexamine the role of gender (male vs female) as amoderator of the job stress±well-being relationship.Out of a possible 14 relationships between job stressand seven dependent variables in two samples, nosigni®cant interaction e�ects were found involvinggender. Thus, in the present study, the data did notsupport the role of gender as a moderator of the jobstress±well-being relationship.

Table 2 Ð Intercorrelation among dependent variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Overall burnout Ð( Ð )

2. Emotional exhaustion 0.89(0.86)

Ð( Ð )

3. Lack of accomplishment 0.68(0.72)

0.39(0.69)

Ð( Ð )

4. Depersonalization 0.69(0.65)

0.46(0.66)

0.30(0.38)

Ð( Ð )

5. Intrinsic motivation(MPS)

ÿ0.31(ÿ0.35)

ÿ0.21(ÿ0.28)

ÿ0.26(ÿ0.23)

ÿ0.31(ÿ0.36)

Ð( Ð )

6. Job involvement 0.02(ÿ0.11)

0.08(ÿ0.07)

ÿ0.01(0.09)

ÿ0.11(ÿ0.14)

0.20(0.23)

Ð( Ð )

7. Turnover intention 0.43(0.33)

0.43(0.38)

0.22(0.25)

0.30(0.25)

ÿ0.27(ÿ0.31)

ÿ0.17(ÿ0.27)

Ð( Ð )

Notes1. Correlations without parentheses are from the Canadian sample: N � 420, r � 0.11, p5 0.05, r � 0.14, p5 0.01.2. Correlations with parentheses are from the Pakistani sample: N � 335, r � 0.13, p5 0.05, r � 0.15, p5 0.01.

Table 3 Ð Pearson correlation between job stress andemployees' well-being variables

Variable Canadiansample

(N � 420)

Pakistanisample

(N � 335)

1. Overall burnout 0.59** 0.39**2. Emotional exhaustion 0.66** 0.43**3. Lack of accomplishment 0.28** 0.31**4. Depersonalization 0.26** 0.28**5. Intrinsic motivation (MPS) ÿ0.13* ÿ0.33**6. Job involvement 0.30** ÿ0.087. Turnover intention 0.27** 0.26**

*p5 0.05; **p5 0.01.

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DISCUSSION

The results of the present study derived fromteachers in Canada and Pakistan indicated that jobstress was signi®cantly related to overall burnoutand its three dimensions. It was also found to besigni®cantly related to intrinsic motivation andturnover intention in both countries. These ®nd-ings are in complete agreement with the bulk of theexisting literature on job stress, which is primarilybased on studying employees in developedcountries. Before the ®ndings are discussed further,a note of caution is necessary about the perceptualnature of various measures used in the presentstudy. For future research, it is desirable to usesome objective measures along with perceptualmeasures in cross-cultural stress studies.

The ®nding that job stress is related to burnoutand its three dimensions is in line with a recentmeta-analysis of burnout by Lee and Ashforth.31

Lee and Ashforth analysis indicated that job stressand stressors such as role ambiguity, con¯ict,overload and work pressure were signi®cantlyrelated to emotional exhaustion, lack of personalaccomplishment and depersonalization in studiesthey included in their meta-analysis. Since most ofthe studies of burnout were done in industrializeddeveloped countries, the ®ndings in Pakistaniteachers on burnout further extend the pervasivee�ects of job stress on employee emotional well-being.

The ®ndings of adverse e�ects of job stresson intrinsic motivation and turnover intentionare regularly reported in the stress literature indeveloped countries.4,8,32 Two recent studies ofemployees in developing countries also tend to besupportive of the ®ndings of adverse e�ects of jobstress on employee well-being variables.1,33 Jamaland Preena1 found that job stress was signi®cantlyrelated to organizational commitment, overall jobsatisfaction (JDI) and satisfaction with pay, co-workers and supervision among airline employeesin a developing country. Similarly, Parker andBaba33 found that job stress was positively relatedto burnout, depression, role con¯ict and roleoverload among ¯ight attendants employed by anational carrier in a developing country.

Although job stress has been found to be relatedto a number of well-being variables in the predicteddirection in both countries, a few noticeabledi�erences were found in the two countries. Bothoverall burnout and emotional exhaustion weremore strongly related to job stress for the Canadian

teachers than for the Pakistani teachers. Perhapsthe downsizing and budget cuts in the educationalsector are not as serious in Pakistan as they havebeen in Canada in recent years. Or perhaps,because of its paternalistic oriented society, it waseasier for Pakistani teachers to cope with stressthan for their counterparts in Canada.34

In addition, the countries' di�erences in corre-lations of job stress with intrinsic motivation andjob involvement also merit further exploration. Jobstress was positively correlated with job involve-ment and slightly negatively correlated withintrinsic motivation for Canadian teachers, sug-gesting that perhaps Canadian teachers were moreinvolved and more committed to their professiondespite a higher degree of job stress. For thePakistani teachers, stress did not seem to a�ecttheir job involvement but a�ected their intrinsicmotivation more seriously than their counterpartsin Canada. Perhaps the phenomenon of the self-selection of teaching profession was important forPakistani teachers. Future researchers shoulddevelop and test speci®c hypotheses, keeping inmind the cultural di�erences of respondents toenhance further stress research and knowledge.

In sum, the present study discovered moresimilarities than di�erences among Canadian andPakistani teachers concerning the adverse e�ects ofjob stress on employee well-being variables. Jobstress and well-being models are generally devel-oped and tested in developed industrializedcountries.32 Their portability and usefulness tothe developing countries are rarely tested despiterepeated suggestions that this should be.1,2 Thepresent study, in a modest way, attempts tocontribute to international job stress literature byexamining the relationship of job stress andemployee well-being in a developed and a devel-oping country among employees in the sameprofession.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was supported by grants from theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Councilof Canada (410-92-0203) and Fonds pour laformation de Chercheurs de L'aide aÁ la recherche(97-ER-0506). The author acknowledges the assist-ance of Mehdi Farashahi, Barry Kaufman andRobert RivieÁ re in data collection and analysis.

JOB STRESS AND EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING 157

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