The correlation between work locus of control and occupational stress among team leaders working in it companies in Bangalore

The correlation between work locus of control and occupational stress among team leaders working in it companies in Bangalore

Job related stress is one of the highest health risks influencing employees, regardless of the size of the organization or the work sector. Most of the researchers view stress as an interaction between the person and some environmental event or stressor. Job stressors are defined as job demands, constraints, and or opportunities and job related events or situations that might affect the individuals feelings of stress. The fact that employee stress is an increasing problem in almost all organizations has indeed been the driving force for a variety of researches on occupational stress. The literature on occupational stress recognizes its inevitability in many jobs where pressures of work begin to build up and cause adverse strain on the emotion of employees, their thought process and their physical condition. Stress vulnerability has also been major focus to determine how stress effects differently across similar jobs. During the 1980s, personality[Type A/ Type B, locus of control] was found to be related to job stressors[ work load, role conflict, lack of autonomy], job strains[ job dissatisfaction, anxiety, health complaints]. The research aims to investigate the relationship between Work locus of control and occupational stress of team leaders working in IT companies in Bangalore. The purpose of research is to study whether the team leaders have an internal or external locus of control, which in turn determines how they perceive situations and life events, and how stressed they are due to this. It was hypothesized that the higher the internal locus of control of the team leader, the lower level of occupational stress they experience and the higher the external locus of control of the team leader, the higher the level of occupational stress. A sample of 100 team leaders working in three different IT companies were examined by administering the Occupational stress index by AP Singh and AK Srivastava and Work locus of control scale by Paul E Spector. The extent of work stress was examined on its twelve sub-scales, i.e. role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, unreasonable group and political pressure, responsibility for persons, under participation, powerlessness, poor peer relations, intrinsic impoverishment, low status, strenuous working condition and unprofitability of Occupational stress index. A structured questionnaire was designed to gather information on the socio demographic profile of the respondents. The statistical analysis was done using SPSS. The level of significance was fixed at 0.005(p<0.005). Correlational analysis reveals that team leaders with external locus of control score high on all twelve sub scales of occupational stress and team leaders with internal locus of control have low scores on all twelve sub scales of occupational stress i.e. role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, unreasonable group and political pressure, responsibility for persons, under participation, powerlessness, poor peer relations, intrinsic impoverishment, low status, strenuous working condition and unprofitability. There is a significant difference with regard to occupational stress between team leaders with external locus of control and team leaders with internal locus of control. The correlation between occupational stress and external control was found to be positive and significant as predicted (p=<0.001). The correlation between occupational stress and internal control was found to be positive and significant as predicted (p=<0.001).

Sundaresh Noopura

Centre of Research