Anxiety, Stress and Satisfaction among Professionals in Manufacturing and Service Organizations

Abstract

In today’s era of globalization and increased competition, executives working in an organization cannot remain unaffected from changing values and demanding working conditions. Increased anxiety, stress and job dissatisfaction/satisfaction are some of the psychological outcomes of a person’s belief and value system as well as job conditions. Value system, which promotes high achievement orientation and competition both at the individual and organizational levels, is one of the critical issues that need to be addressed. The present article is an exploratory study on the above mentioned issues, wherein the relationship between certain independent variables identified as ‘personal values of executives, work values promoted by organizations’ and dependent variables construed as positive job outcome (satisfaction) and negative job outcome (stress and anxiety) was studied. The study also looked into the influence of ‘demanding job conditions’ on dependent variables. Data was collected using structured interview schedule as well as mailing questionnaire online from 150 junior-, middle- and senior-level managers working in service and manufacturing organizations in Mumbai. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to find out strength of association among variables. Results reflect both positive and negative relationship between independent and outcome variables, suggesting that individuals’ values and work values in the organizations are related to perceived stress and anxiety as well as satisfaction among working professionals. Personal values predicting stress and anxiety are different from those predicting satisfaction. Demanding job conditions have negative impact on professionals as it leads to perception of stress, anxiety and dissatisfaction among professionals.