| dc.description.abstract |
Occupational stress is becoming a major issue in both corporate and social
agenda .In industrialized countries, there have been quite dramatic changes
in the conditions at work, during the last decade ,caused by economic,
social and technical development. As a consequence, the people today at
work are exposed to high quantitative and qualitative demands as well as
hard competition caused by global economy. A recent report says that
ailments due to work related stress is likely to cost India’s exchequer
around 72000 crores between 2009 and 2015. Though India is a fast
developing country, it is yet to create facilities to mitigate the adverse
effects of work stress, more over only little efforts have been made to
assess the work related stress.In the absence of well defined standards to assess the work related
stress in India, an attempt is made in this direction to develop the factors for
the evaluation of work stress. Accordingly, with the help of existing
literature and in consultation with the safety experts, seven factors for the
evaluation of work stress is developed. An instrument ( Questionnaire) was
developed using these seven factors for the evaluation of work stress .The
validity , and unidimensionality of the questionnaire was ensured by
confirmatory factor analysis. The reliability of the questionnaire was
ensured before administration. While analyzing the relation ship between
the variables, it is noted that no relationship exists between them, and
hence the above factors are treated as independent factors/ variables for the
purpose of research .Initially five profit making manufacturing industries, under public
sector in the state of Kerala, were selected for the study. The influence of
factors responsible for work stress is analyzed in these industries. These
industries were classified in to two types, namely chemical and heavy
engineering ,based on the product manufactured and work environment and
the analysis is further carried out for these two categories.The variation of work stress with different age , designation and
experience of the employees are analyzed by means of one-way ANOVA.
Further three different type of modelling of work stress, namely factor
modelling, structural equation modelling and multinomial logistic
regression modelling was done to analyze the association of factors
responsible for work stress. All these models are found equally good in
predicting the work stress.The present study indicates that work stress exists among the
employees in public sector industries in Kerala. Employees belonging to
age group 40-45yrs and experience groups 15-20yrs had relatively higher
work demand ,low job control, and low support at work. Low job control
was noted among lower designation levels, particularly at the worker level
in these industries. Hence the instrument developed using the seven factors
namely demand, control, manager support, peer support, relationship, role
and change can be effectively used for the evaluation of work stress in
industries. |
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