62 L. LU, H-J. TSENG AND C. L. COOPER<strong>stress</strong>±stra<strong>in</strong> relationships were signi®cant, exceptthose <strong>in</strong>volv<strong>in</strong>g personal <strong>health</strong> habits. Tak<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>toaccount the previously mentioned characteristics ofthe Ch<strong>in</strong>ese culture, these results corroborateprevious ®nd<strong>in</strong>gs. 20±22 Furthermore, the relationshipbetween perceived work <strong>stress</strong> <strong>and</strong> turnover<strong>in</strong>tentions warrants attention from managerialpractitioners. As mentioned earlier, there exists asubstantial shortage of adequately tra<strong>in</strong>ed managers<strong>in</strong> the fast-grow<strong>in</strong>g Eastern Asian countries,<strong>and</strong> the turnover rate with<strong>in</strong> the managerialcommunity has rema<strong>in</strong>ed rather high. Reduc<strong>in</strong>gwork <strong>stress</strong> may be a promis<strong>in</strong>g approach toconta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the high turnover rate, which, <strong>in</strong> turn,will save considerable resources for the organizations.In this study, there was no signi®cant relationshipfound between <strong>job</strong> <strong>stress</strong> or <strong>job</strong> stra<strong>in</strong> <strong>and</strong>the global Type A behaviour pattern, nor withits `drive' subscale (hard-driv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> competitiveness).However, the `impatience' facet (rushedbehaviour <strong>and</strong> abrupt manner) was signi®cantlycorrelated with both mental <strong>and</strong> physical <strong>health</strong>(r ˆ0.22, p 5 0.001 <strong>and</strong> r ˆ0.14, p 5 0.01respectively). `Impatience' was even a signi®cantpredictor of physical <strong>health</strong> (Table 4), expla<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>gabout 5 percent of the variance. These resultsare consistent with the exist<strong>in</strong>g evidence <strong>in</strong>dicat<strong>in</strong>gthat the speed±impatience component, <strong>and</strong> notthe competitive drive, is associated with psychologicaldi<strong>stress</strong>. 26 These ®nd<strong>in</strong>gs also underl<strong>in</strong>ethe importance of treat<strong>in</strong>g Type A behaviour as amultidimensional construct, with some of itscharacteristics relat<strong>in</strong>g directly to work stra<strong>in</strong>without moderat<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>stress</strong>±stra<strong>in</strong> nexus.Some researchers even claim that certa<strong>in</strong> speci®ccomponents of the Type A behaviour pattern mayeven be bene®cial to psychological well-be<strong>in</strong>gamong executives. 18 Furthermore, the Type Abehaviour pattern may possess desirable characteristics<strong>and</strong> <strong>health</strong>y attitudes, 27,28 so that Type Apersons are perceived as better performers <strong>and</strong>are more likely to be promoted to managerialpositions. This may partially expla<strong>in</strong> the fact thatthis sample of <strong>Taiwan</strong>ese managers was moreType-Alike than their counterparts <strong>in</strong> the generalworkforce, yet signi®cantly less Type A-likecompared to the British or German managers(t ˆ5.23 <strong>and</strong> t ˆ4.29, p 5 0.001). 18 However,caution must be exercised when generaliz<strong>in</strong>g acrossmeasures as the components of Type A behaviourare not themselves highly <strong>in</strong>terrelated (ref. 26 <strong>and</strong>the present study).Internal control was associated with lower levelsof personal work <strong>stress</strong>. It was also related to awide range of stra<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dicators, both behavioural(smok<strong>in</strong>g, absenteeism <strong>and</strong> turnover <strong>in</strong>tentions)<strong>and</strong> psychological (<strong>job</strong> <strong>satisfaction</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>health</strong>). Itpresented the only signi®cant moderat<strong>in</strong>g e€ect onthe <strong>stress</strong>±stra<strong>in</strong> nexus (Table 4). However, theseresults defy a simple proposal of the underly<strong>in</strong>gmechanism. On the one h<strong>and</strong>, the ma<strong>in</strong> e€ects of<strong>in</strong>ternal control on reduced <strong>stress</strong> <strong>and</strong> stra<strong>in</strong> wereconsistent with previous research <strong>in</strong> both organizationalcontexts 3,7,18,29 <strong>and</strong> were congruent with thecharacteristics of <strong>in</strong>ternal control as feel<strong>in</strong>g con®dent<strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> control of what happens to oneself, <strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong> the potency of one's decisions <strong>and</strong> action forpersonal outcomes. On the other h<strong>and</strong>, themoderat<strong>in</strong>g e€ects of control have been <strong>in</strong>consistent<strong>in</strong> the work context. 3,18 The present study,unexpectedly, found a vulnerability e€ect of<strong>in</strong>ternal control on the <strong>stress</strong>±mental <strong>health</strong>nexus. Explanations may be found with<strong>in</strong> thecharacteristics of the Ch<strong>in</strong>ese culture perta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>gto organizational life. In fact, <strong>in</strong> most <strong>Taiwan</strong>eseorganizations traditional authoritarian rather th<strong>and</strong>emocratic, paternalistic rather than egalitarian,culture still prevails. Workers, blue-collar, whitecollar<strong>and</strong> middle-level managers alike, havevirtually no control <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>¯uence with regard tothe organizational processes: decisions are made atthe top, implemented with top-down communication,<strong>and</strong> only very recently have some companiesopened channels for workers to expresscompla<strong>in</strong>ts <strong>and</strong> discontent. Also <strong>in</strong> accordancewith the traditional Ch<strong>in</strong>ese ethic of respect forthe elder, <strong>job</strong> promotion is aga<strong>in</strong> unrelated toperformance, but rather to seniority with<strong>in</strong> theorganization. If noth<strong>in</strong>g drastic happens (whenwork <strong>stress</strong> is low), <strong>in</strong>ternal control may serve tosafeguard one's personal con®dence <strong>and</strong> psychologicalwell-be<strong>in</strong>g; however, if work <strong>stress</strong> is high,preserv<strong>in</strong>g one's beliefs <strong>in</strong> personal control <strong>and</strong>actually striv<strong>in</strong>g for it, as persons of <strong>in</strong>ternalcontrol habitually do, may be counterproductive<strong>in</strong> a paternalistic <strong>and</strong> autocratic work scene likethat of <strong>Taiwan</strong>. This emic <strong>in</strong>terpretation is consistentwith other empirical evidence collected <strong>in</strong><strong>Taiwan</strong>ese organizations. 12,25 Once aga<strong>in</strong>, theimportance <strong>and</strong> necessity of conduct<strong>in</strong>g crossculturalcomparisons on occupational <strong>stress</strong> <strong>and</strong>stra<strong>in</strong> to qualify the generalizability of westerntheories <strong>and</strong> ®nd<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>and</strong> to discover new patterns<strong>and</strong> mean<strong>in</strong>gs from a di€erent culture's vantagepo<strong>in</strong>t are highlighted.Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Stress med. 15, 53±64 (1999)
MANAGERIAL STRESS IN TAIWAN 63Cross-cultural reliability <strong>and</strong> validity of the OSI-2As far as the use of OSI-2 (a brief version used <strong>in</strong>the present study) <strong>in</strong> <strong>Taiwan</strong> is concerned, the<strong>in</strong>ternal consistency of its various scales wasacceptably high, except the global Type A behaviourpattern (Table 2). This pattern of results isconsistent with previous ®nd<strong>in</strong>gs us<strong>in</strong>g a longerversion of the OSI <strong>in</strong> <strong>Taiwan</strong> 3,7 <strong>and</strong> HongKong. 16,17 Furthermore, the pattern of structuralrelationships among the OSI scales is rather similaracross <strong>Taiwan</strong>, Hong Kong, Brita<strong>in</strong> 10 <strong>and</strong>Germany. 18 In the present study, the work <strong>stress</strong>scale demonstrated good predictive validity(Table 4) <strong>and</strong> criterion validity (Table 3), whereasthe control scale showed good convergent validitywith another established work locus of controlscale (Table 3). The available OSI data for frontl<strong>in</strong>eemployees accord with the ®nd<strong>in</strong>gs of managerial®gures reported <strong>in</strong> the literature. 3,7,10,16 Overall,these results <strong>in</strong>dicate that the OSI-2 is a promis<strong>in</strong>g<strong>and</strong> relatively brief <strong>in</strong>strument <strong>in</strong> measur<strong>in</strong>g work<strong>stress</strong> <strong>and</strong> its related factors <strong>in</strong> a Ch<strong>in</strong>ese organizationalcontext.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTThis research was supported by a grant from theCAPCO Cultural <strong>and</strong> Educational Foundation,<strong>Taiwan</strong>.REFERENCES1. ILO. World Labour Report. ILO, New York, 1993.2. Matteson, M. T. <strong>and</strong> Ivancevich, J. M. Controll<strong>in</strong>gWork Stress. Jossey-Bass, London, 1987.3. Lu, L., Chen, Y. C. <strong>and</strong> Hsu, C. H. OccupationalStress <strong>and</strong> its Correlates. IOSH, Taipei, 1994.4. Chang, F. M. 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