Stress in organizations: between efficiency and the institutionalization of fear.
| Autor | de Vasconcelos, Flavio Carvalho |
INTRODUCTION
The notion is currently very popular that organizations that are noted for their stable working procedures. Cordial internal and external relationships and friendly atmosphere are examples of collective indolence and tend to lose competitive advantage vis-a-vis more aggressive organizations that look for continuous innovation and that have working relationships marked by change and stress (Aubert, 1990; Hirchhorn, 1997).
This notion, which is mainly popular in that strand of writings dealing with administration and managing people, is based on the assumption that advocates the possibility of, and even the need for, management by stress and fear as a necessary motivator of ideal behavior on the part of workers. This possibility is however questioned and denied by various strands of organizational theory and by various analytical currents of people management. Even so it continues inspiring the actions of managers and organizations alike which, without the support of any empirical indicators in their favor, keep adopting policies and practices that induce fear and anxiety and consequently create stress among employees, as a way of obtaining greater productivity and efficiency (Mangematin & Thuderoz, 2003).
This article aims to explore the possibility of providing a response to those actions that are deliberately directed at the control and strategic use of stress in organizations. Based on the institutional theory in organizations and on the notion of recursiveness between structures and social actions, we have tried to put together a study proposition that will allow for both explaining the use of stress and fear induction, as well as dealing with the consequences from the point of view of those workers who are submitted to these techniques.
We propose that these aspects can be described by means of what is called in this article, the principle of necessary stress, which allows for some degree of equilibrium between the predominant intentions within the internal context of organizations -- between managers and workers--and the degree of legitimacy that these intentions receive from the external environment; the most important and fundamental aspect of this equilibrium is to be found in the process of interpretation by organizational agents.
With this proposal we intend also to offer an alternative for understanding the important aspect of human behavior in organizations that goes beyond the approach that is merely behavioral and centered on the individual because it brings together and makes the specifically individual aspects that are centered on agency capacity interact with aspects of a social nature--interpretation and legitimacy, linked mainly to what conventionally is defined as the institutional environment. Consequently we have a systemic explanation of stress in organizations, its intended use as a management resource and the levels of conformity in relation to those attempts.
STRESS IN ORGANIZATIONS: FEAR MANAGEMENT AND FEAR AS A MANAGEMENT RESOURCE
Definitions of stress in organizations vary from it being conceived of as based on the type of response of individuals to the circumstances that are presented to them, to being conceived of as a process that can be directly stimulated by external conditions (Perrewe & Ganster, 1989). In general, stress is conceived of as anxiety and dissatisfaction (Perrewe & Ganster, 1989). Research into stress within the sphere of social and organizational psychology in general dichotomizes the explanations as far as its origins are concerned, acknowledging that contingent elements, or individual psychocognitive elements, are sufficient explanation for its appearance among workers. The dispute therefore comes down to the definition of stress as an individual response, or as an environmental factor that causes certain psychological reactions (Caplan & Jones, 1975; Matteson & Ivancevich, 1987; Perrewe & Ganster, 1989).
As Meyerson (1994) also suggested, the strongest tradition in the studies into stress in organizations assumes that stressful circumstances are necessarily harmful to individuals, and therefore undesirable. She suggests that in these studies the classic dichotomy of objective vs. subjective prevails as an explanatory parameter for the antecedents of stress, in other words, the localization of the sources of it in objective contextual conditioners, or alternatively, the attribution of stress strictly in the way that individuals perceive and interpret their experiences. In this latter sense the whole of the problem is located purely in the individual and, generally speaking, the importance of contextual conditions is either denied or ignored.
Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey and Toth (1997, pp. 164-165) also defined stress as "[...] the subjective feeling that work demands exceed the individual's belief in his or her capacity to cope []", which creates the sensation of anxiety and tension that in turn are the evidence of stress. These authors believe that these circumstances can be costly for organizations and individuals to the extent that they generally result in an enormous loss of time, a reduction in production and the occurrence of accidents. The perception of the workers with regard to organizational policies and the support that organizations offer are determining factors in the level of stress among workers.
But, in fact, if the suggestion of Meyerson (1994) is accurate when she points out the tradition of organizational studies relating to stress, it reveals, above all, the degree of innocence with which the issue is handled, since generally speaking this tradition omits the possibility of any intentional strategic use of the circumstances for obtaining responses and actions from the organizations that are considered desirable as far as the people engaged in them are concerned.
For example, Parasuraman and Alutto (1984) analyzed a series of contextual and personal factors that are related to the role occupied in the organization as being factors that play an intermediary role between the elements that cause stress and the attitudes and behavior of workers in relation to these elements (`job stressors`). In this model we can see that discussion of any underlying intentionality, or the strategic use of processes based on the spreading of stressful situations or elements, are avoided. Likewise (and more importantly for purposes of this paper), the analysis introduced by these authors is strongly endogenous, in other words, the contextual characteristics are only admitted as intervening elements in the perception of those elements that cause stress. They are looked at only within the sphere of the organization itself and within the context of the most immediate work (characteristics of the task, type of leadership, organizational level of operation), and at no time is the possibility of a relationship between stress (either its intentional use or its occurrence or even the perception of it on the part of the workers) and wider institutional conditions, or of it being the result of the institutionalization of the process, ever considered.
The problem of stress is thus limited to the organizational plan, as if referring to an undesirable consequence of organizational life and work, thereby hoping that in this way it will be eliminated, or at least minimized.
It was in this sense that Perrewe and Ganster (1989) developed their study, by looking to analyze organizational intervention that is carried out with the intention of reducing or eliminating stressful conditions that become apparent in the working environment. According to the authors, these interventions do not merely result in the construction of factors that absorb the impact of the stressful environmental characteristics, but also in the putting together of mechanisms that can alter the perception of individuals as far as their own context is concerned, since this aspect is also recognized as a source of stress.
Therefore, stress management implies both intervention to eliminate stressful factors, as well as training employees to deal better with situations that cause stress. However, for Perrewe and Ganster (1989) there is a certain reluctance to recognize the need for the second stress management mechanism and, according to them, this is due to the fear of managers that, by increasing tolerance to stress, these training mechanisms lead to a consequent decrease in productivity.
This notion implies recognition of the common belief that a degree of stress is necessary for maintaining productivity at work. Perrewe and Ganster (1989) assumed this belief when they explained that the reluctance of managers is partially justified by the absence of studies relating stress management to an increase in productivity. In this sense it seems plausible to conclude that what is called stress management explicitly admits the need to control stress levels among employees, but at the same time does not implicitly deny the managerial premise of the need for some degree of stress for maintaining productivity. The idea of stress management, therefore, can be pointed to as referring, if only partially, to the strategic use of stress as an element for controlling and managing individuals within the context of work. It is not the elimination of stress conditions, but their control at levels that in some way, or by some criteria, are considered optimum for provoking the hoped-for and desired reactions from workers.
Using a contingential argument on the other hand, Fenwick and Tansig (1994) related the perception or sensation of stress to macro-economic conditions, by suggesting an addition to the literature that emphasizes immediate working conditions as a source of stress. For them macro-economic conditions are important factors when it comes to determining working conditions in organizations and, in this way, may be indirectly, or even directly, cited as stressful factors. It should be noted...
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