Occupational Stress in Academic life: A Study of Academics of Malaysian Public Universities
Citation
Export citationIdris, M. K. (2009). Occupational Stress in Academic life: A Study of Academics of Malaysian Public Universities (Thesis). The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/2597
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/2597
Abstract
Stress can lead to poor health and loss of productivity among employees acrossoccupations. Stress does not only affect individuals but also organizations bycausing work absence and staff turnover. Academics in Malaysian publicuniversities are no exception. Due to the rapid developments in tertiaryeducation, academics in Malaysian public universities are believed to beexperiencing increased job demands that potentially lead to increased stress.This study was carried out to examine: i) the direct effect of role stressors (i.e.role overload, role ambiguity and role conflict) on strain; ii) the direct effect of strainon the outcomes of strain (i.e. cynicism, professional efficacy, and organizationalcommitment); iii) the moderation effects of organizational support, peer support, andself-efficacy on the relationships between role stressors and strain; iv) the mediationeffect of strain on the relationship between role stressors and strain; and v) themediation effect of outcomes of strain (i.e. cynicism, professional efficacy, andorganizational commitment) on the relationship between strain and intention to leaveamong those academics.This study used a non-experimental two-wave panel design. Eleven of the 12study variables were measured using pre-existing scales except for self-efficacy,iiiwhich was measured by items specially developed for this study. A longitudinalsurvey with a six-month time interval yielded 357 respondents (academics) at time 1and 210 respondents at time 2. Data were analyzed using multiple regression,hierarchical regression, and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test for directeffects, moderation effects and mediation effects respectively.The findings of this study indicate that academics who experienced increasedlevels of role stressors were more likely to have increased levels of strain.Subsequently, the strained academics were more likely to show higher levels ofcynicism and lower levels of professional efficacy and organizational commitment.The predicted moderators (i.e organizational support, peer support, and self-efficacy)had no significant influence on the relationships between role stressors and strain.Mediation analyses consisted of two parts. In the first part, I found that strainstrongly mediated the relationship between role ambiguity and outcomes of strain(i.e. cynicism, professional efficacy, and organizational commitment). In thesubsequent mediation analysis, I found that cynicism and organizational commitmentfully mediated the relationship between strain and intention to leave, but notprofessional efficacy.
Date
2009Type
Degree Name
Publisher
The University of Waikato
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