Managerial stress, job satisfaction and health in Taiwan

62 L. LU, H-J. TSENG AND C. L. COOPERstress±strain relationships were signi®cant, exceptthose involving personal health habits. Taking intoaccount the previously mentioned characteristics ofthe Chinese culture, these results corroborateprevious ®ndings. 20±22 Furthermore, the relationshipbetween perceived work stress and turnoverintentions warrants attention from managerialpractitioners. As mentioned earlier, there exists asubstantial shortage of adequately trained managersin the fast-growing Eastern Asian countries,and the turnover rate within the managerialcommunity has remained rather high. Reducingwork stress may be a promising approach tocontaining the high turnover rate, which, in turn,will save considerable resources for the organizations.In this study, there was no signi®cant relationshipfound between job stress or job strain andthe global Type A behaviour pattern, nor withits `drive' subscale (hard-driving and competitiveness).However, the `impatience' facet (rushedbehaviour and abrupt manner) was signi®cantlycorrelated with both mental and physical health(r ˆ0.22, p 5 0.001 and r ˆ0.14, p 5 0.01respectively). `Impatience' was even a signi®cantpredictor of physical health (Table 4), explainingabout 5 percent of the variance. These resultsare consistent with the existing evidence indicatingthat the speed±impatience component, and notthe competitive drive, is associated with psychologicaldistress. 26 These ®ndings also underlinethe importance of treating Type A behaviour as amultidimensional construct, with some of itscharacteristics relating directly to work strainwithout moderating the stress±strain nexus.Some researchers even claim that certain speci®ccomponents of the Type A behaviour pattern mayeven be bene®cial to psychological well-beingamong executives. 18 Furthermore, the Type Abehaviour pattern may possess desirable characteristicsand healthy attitudes, 27,28 so that Type Apersons are perceived as better performers andare more likely to be promoted to managerialpositions. This may partially explain the fact thatthis sample of Taiwanese managers was moreType-Alike than their counterparts in the generalworkforce, yet signi®cantly less Type A-likecompared to the British or German managers(t ˆ5.23 and t ˆ4.29, p 5 0.001). 18 However,caution must be exercised when generalizing acrossmeasures as the components of Type A behaviourare not themselves highly interrelated (ref. 26 andthe present study).Internal control was associated with lower levelsof personal work stress. It was also related to awide range of strain indicators, both behavioural(smoking, absenteeism and turnover intentions)and psychological (job satisfaction and health). Itpresented the only signi®cant moderating e€ect onthe stress±strain nexus (Table 4). However, theseresults defy a simple proposal of the underlyingmechanism. On the one hand, the main e€ects ofinternal control on reduced stress and strain wereconsistent with previous research in both organizationalcontexts 3,7,18,29 and were congruent with thecharacteristics of internal control as feeling con®dentand in control of what happens to oneself, andin the potency of one's decisions and action forpersonal outcomes. On the other hand, themoderating e€ects of control have been inconsistentin the work context. 3,18 The present study,unexpectedly, found a vulnerability e€ect ofinternal control on the stress±mental healthnexus. Explanations may be found within thecharacteristics of the Chinese culture pertainingto organizational life. In fact, in most Taiwaneseorganizations traditional authoritarian rather thandemocratic, paternalistic rather than egalitarian,culture still prevails. Workers, blue-collar, whitecollarand middle-level managers alike, havevirtually no control and in¯uence with regard tothe organizational processes: decisions are made atthe top, implemented with top-down communication,and only very recently have some companiesopened channels for workers to expresscomplaints and discontent. Also in accordancewith the traditional Chinese ethic of respect forthe elder, job promotion is again unrelated toperformance, but rather to seniority within theorganization. If nothing drastic happens (whenwork stress is low), internal control may serve tosafeguard one's personal con®dence and psychologicalwell-being; however, if work stress is high,preserving one's beliefs in personal control andactually striving for it, as persons of internalcontrol habitually do, may be counterproductivein a paternalistic and autocratic work scene likethat of Taiwan. This emic interpretation is consistentwith other empirical evidence collected inTaiwanese organizations. 12,25 Once again, theimportance and necessity of conducting crossculturalcomparisons on occupational stress andstrain to qualify the generalizability of westerntheories and ®ndings and to discover new patternsand meanings from a di€erent culture's vantagepoint are highlighted.Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Stress med. 15, 53±64 (1999)