Managerial stress, job satisfaction and health in Taiwan

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54 L. LU, H-J. TSENG AND C. L. COOPERthe Far Eastern Economic Review and the AsianBusiness News interviewed executives of topcompanies in 10 Asian countries. Half of them(50.6 percent) conceded that they did not havesucient numbers of quali®ed managers to meetthe needs of organizations in their own countries.Training for more candidate managers is certainlyone way to close this demand±supply gap; e€ectivemanagerial work stress reduction is another way todevelop and improve existing managerial humanresources. To develop suitable prophylacticmeasures, it is necessary to identify the sourcesand e€ects of job-related pressures.One of the very few studies investigatingmanagerial stress in non-western countries was inHong Kong. Researchers 9 identi®ed six sources ofstress among 1000 business executives: jobassignedstressor, responsibility stressor, work/organizational climate stressor, career stressor,job±value con¯ict stressor and role ambiguitystressor. Each of them was related to respondents'self-reports of physical health, depending on theirgender, age and experience in a managerialposition. Although Hong Kong and Taiwan areboth industrialized Chinese societies, there mightstill be di€erences as well as similarities in managerialstress, due to di€erent historical/political/socialforces at work in two places. For instance, HongKong has long been exposed to the western style ofmanagement, while Taiwan remains paternalisticand autocratic in its organizational life. Therefore,it is worthwhile obtaining data from Taiwanesemanagers to identify sources of managerial stress,which in turn, might a€ect managers' work morale,health and behavioural outcomes (such as smoking,drinking and absenteeism).It was with this in mind that we adopted thewidely used diagnostic instrument the OccupationalStress Indicator (OSI) 10 to examine managerialstress in Taiwan. The OSI is still a relatively newtest, but its reliability and validity in a Taiwanesework context have been established and are generallysatisfactory. 11,12 The instrument was originallydeveloped based on a comprehensive theoreticalframework which adopts a transactional view ofoccupational stress and emphasizes not onlystressors and outcomes, but also potential moderatingvariables such as personality (Type A andinternal control) and coping strategies. Fig. 1presents a modi®ed theoretical framework for thisstudy.The primary purpose of this article was to presentresults of a study investigating the sources of stress,job satisfaction and health among a heterogeneoussample of managers in Taiwan. As such, the presentstudy is perhaps the ®rst attempt in investigatingmanagerial stress and health in diverse organizationsin a Chinese context. Another purpose ofthe study was to test the moderating e€ects ofpersonality and coping strategies.METHODSSubjectsA purposive sampling strategy was adopted,intended to recruit a heterogeneous populationof Taiwanese managers working for various typesof organizations (public vs private, indigenous vsmultinational, large vs small) and ranked atdi€erent levels within the organizations. We alsoattempted to cover major sections of the economy,including manufacturing, construction, bankingand ®nancing, social and personal services, commerceand trading. Participants were contacted:(1) through social organizations, such as theRotary Clubs (N ˆ 125), (2) through commercialassociations, such as the local Association ofImport and Export Dealers (N ˆ 125), (3) througheducational classes o€ered to managers by the localuniversities (N ˆ 52), (4) through personal socialnetworks (N ˆ 51). Questionnaires were distributedto potential respondents, yielding a response rate of50 percent. After discarding those questionnaireswith excessive missing data, the ®nal sample was347. Those managers were all based in central andsouthern Taiwan.MeasurementThe questionnaire battery included:1. Demographic and work information: age,gender, education, marital status, occupation,tenure, rank, size of organization, personalhealth habits, absenteeism, etc.2. The Chinese OSI-2. Seven of the scales were:(a) Job satisfaction scale (12 items): two subscalesmeasuring `satisfaction with the jobitself' and `satisfaction with the organization'.(b) Stressors scale (40 items): eight subscalesmeasuring `workload', `relationships',`home/work balance', `managerial role',`personal responsibility', `hassles', `recognition'and òrganizational climate'.Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Stress med. 15, 53±64 (1999)
MANAGERIAL STRESS IN TAIWAN 55(c) Coping strategies scale (10 items): twosubscales measuring `control' and `seekingsupport'.(d) Physical health scale (6 items): two subscalesmeasuring `calmness' and ènergy'.Higher scores indicated better physicalhealth.(e) Mental health scale (12 items): three subscalesmeasuring `contentment', `resilience'and `peace of mind'. Higher scores indicatedbetter mental health.(f) Type A behaviour scale (6 items): twosubscales measuring `patience' and `drive'.(g) Control (4 items): measuring perceivedin¯uence at work.3. Work locus of control: Spector's 13 16-itemWork Locus of Control Scale (WLCS) wasused to measure the belief that work is underone's own control (internal) or under thecontrol of chance, fate or powerful others(external). In the present study, the WLCSwas scored in the direction of ìnternal' control.RESULTSThe ®nal sample of 347 managers was drawn from awide variety of organizations, including manufacturing,construction and real estate, commerceand trading, ®nancing, industrial and businessservices, and social services. The contents oftheir work were also diverse, including personneland administration, sales, production, research,®nancing and accounting, as well as medical care.There were roughly equal ratios of males andfemales (these ratios did not change signi®cantlywhen managers from the medical services, mainlynursing ocers, were excluded). Overall, thissample was middle-aged, well-educated, marriedwith youngish children, long-serving, middlelevelmanagers, who worked in companies withfewer than 100 employees and for slightly longerhours (the statutory working hour in Taiwan is44 hours per week). In terms of demographicand work-related characteristics, this sample wasquite representative of Taiwanese middle-rangemanagers. Detailed sample characteristics are presentedin Table 1.Reliability of scalesTable 2 presents the reliability of scales used inthe study. One item (4) in the OSI Ð control scalewas deleted due to its low item±total correlation(ITC) coecient (r ˆ 0.06), to improve scaleparsimony and consistency. Overall, aggregatedscales yielded higher reliabilities than their subscalesand stress±strain scales were more reliablethan personality scales. With the exception of theType A scale, all of the scales were acceptablyreliable.Managerial stress and strainAmong the eight categories of work stressorsmeasured by the OSI, Taiwanese managersreported `personal responsibility' as the moststressful (item mean ˆ 4.33 on a six-point scale),followed by `workload' (item mean ˆ 4.05),`relationships (item mean ˆ 4.04), òrganizationalclimate' (item mean ˆ 3.96), `recognition' (itemmean ˆ 3.95), `home/work balance' (itemmean ˆ 3.89), `hassles' (item mean ˆ 3.82) and®nally, `managerial role' (item mean ˆ 3.68). Theoverall level of work stress for managers wassigni®cantly higher than for the general workforcein Taiwan 11 (t ˆ 16.41, p 5 0.001).There were three broad indices of work strain:work morale (job satisfaction and turnover intentions),health (physical and mental) and ®nally,behavioural outcomes (smoking, drinking, exercise,absenteeism). Overall, the Taiwanese managerswere `satis®ed' with their jobs (item mean ˆ 3.95on a six-point scale); furthermore, this level of jobsatisfaction was signi®cantly higher than the generalworkforce in Taiwan 11 (t ˆ 6.04, p 5 0.001). Ascan be seen in Table 1, most managers (40.2percent) only `sometimes' considered quitting thepresent job, indicating no strong turnover intentions.Both avowed mental and physical health werenear the midpoint tilting towards the better ends onsix-point scales (item means ˆ 3.97 and 4.19).However, these levels were signi®cantly poorerthan the general workforce in Taiwan 11 (t ˆ 3.40and 3.61, p 5 0.001). As for behavioural outcomes,results were more encouraging: by far the majorityof managers did not smoke or drink, managed anìdeal' exercise programme and had very few dayso€ due to personal sickness (Table 1).When demographic di€erentials were examined,a series of chi-square tests demonstrated that therewere signi®cantly more male managers in the topand senior ranks than female managers; the trendwas reversed in the middle and junior positions (chisquareˆ 12.90, df ˆ 3, p 5 0.01). There were moremale managers who smoked or drank than femalesCopyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Stress med. 15, 53±64 (1999)
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