Karoshi, or death from overwork, is a tragic modern work event. Continuous occurrence of karoshi in Japan offers an opportunity to reconsider the contemporary working environment, and especially the workers' compensation system. Strongly bound by the traditional notion of work accident, the Japanese workers' compensation system has shown difficulty handling karoshi cases. This fact calls into question the adequacy of the current workers' compensation scheme in the work environment it is meant to oversee. To analyze the issue, this thesis will use a comparative law method. The basis of comparison will be Ontario, Canada, which shares a system similar to Japan's, but does not produce karoshi cases. Particular emphasis will be put on stress claims and claims from women, since both share some similarities with karoshi claims. The findings from this comparison will offer a valuable basis for discussion of the current and the future of workers' compensation and other protection systems in Japan.

Police officers are subject to stressors from traumatic incidents, day to day policing duties as well as organizational sources. This quantitative study examined 195 serving police officers in the Vancouver Police Department to determine what if any relationship existed between any prevalence of traumatic symptoms and their years of experience as police officers. Trauma symptoms were measured through the use of the Trauma Symptom Inventory, which was administered to a randomly selected sample. The sample was divided into seven groups based on years of completed service; recruits, 0<2 years, 2<5 years, 5<10 years, 10<15 years, 15<20 years and 20+ years. While the recruit group showed a spike on the validity scale of Response Level and there were spikes in Anger/Irritability and Depression among the 2<5 years and 20+ groups respectively, most of the significant scores were among the group 10<15 years. This group showed significantly elevated scores in Atypical Responses, Anxious Arousal, Anger/Irritability, Depression, Intrusive Experience, Defensive Avoidance and Impaired Self Reference. In terms of support the respondents indicated through a demographic questionnaire that Family Support was the one most frequently endorsed at the high level, followed by Social Support and then by Peer Support. There was also low levels of endorsement of the Critical Item on the TSI that had to do with hurting others and problems due to alcohol consumption and sexual behaviour. Empirical support and personal experiences of the researcher are provided as explanations for the trends. The number of females in the latter groups was limited due to the demographics of the population. Several recommendations are made for future research as well as recommendations to the Vancouver Police Department to address the findings with their sworn members.

This study investigated what helps and what hinders RCMP officers in being meaningfully engaged in their work. Experiencing workplace engagement is becoming increasingly meaningful and important for both workers and employers in the new economy. The study is important to the field of counselling, and related fields such as organizational psychology, in terms of both theory and practice, as it concretely expands our understanding of the experience of workplace engagement for workers. In this study, the participants consisted of 14 male RCMP officers and 11 female RCMP officers. Participants were all posted in the Greater Vancouver area at the time of the study, although officers had previously been posted at a variety o f locations throughout Canada. Officers were individually interviewed using a semi-structured, open-ended interview consistent with Flanagan's (1954) Critical Incident Technique. In total, 370 critical incidents were elicited from the 25 participants. Critical incidents helping officers experience meaningful engagement in their work totaled 197. Critical incidents hindering officers in experiencing meaningful engagement in their work totaled 173. The critical incidents were then grouped into 19 categories based on the nature of the incident and the meaning the incident held for the officer. To address reliability in categorizing incidents, two independent judges categorized a sampling o f incidents. In both cases judges agreed with the researcher's categorization in over 90% of incidents. Four participants were also presented with their own critical incidents, and asked to categorize them. Again participants agreed with the researcher's categorization in over 90% of incidents. The main categories identified in this the study were supervision, police incidents, perceived organizational support, transfer, personal circumstances, and peers. In each of these categories both helping and hindering critical incidents were identified by participants. This study provides a detailed description and analysis of the critical incidents that help or hinder RCMP officers in being meaningfully engaged in their work.

Siekiant geriau suprasti verslo organizacijų darbuotojų patiriamą darbinį stresą ir pasitenkinimą darbu, jų ryšio nustatymas pasirinktas šio tyrimo tikslu. Kad jį atskleistume, naudojome tris metodikas: Veiksnių, Sukeliančių Stresą Darbe, Įvertinimo Klausimyną (Gulbinaitė, 2007), Pasitenkinimo Darbu Skalę (Spector, 1985) ir Streso Įveikos Klausimyną (Grakauskas, Valickas, 2006), kuriomis ištirta 118 tiriamųjų. Gauti rezultatai parodė, jog vyrai, labiau nei moterys, patiria didesnį darbinį stresą, susijusį su darbo reikalavimais bei darbo santykiais. Tuo tarpu moterys, skirtingai nuo vyrų, patiria didesnį pasitenkinimą darbu, susijusį su darbo organizavimu. Skirtumų tarp jaunesnių (18-25m.) ir vyresnių (26-40m.) tiriamųjų darbinio streso ir pasitenkinimo darbu nenustatyta. Tačiau rasta, jog vyrų ir moterų grupėse darbiniam stresui didėjant, pasitenkinimas darbu mažėja. Taip pat gauta, jog ne visos streso įveikos strategijos susijusios tarpusavyje, su darbiniu stresu ir pasitenkinimu darbu. Nustatyta, jog trijose tiriamųjų, patirianči���� skirtingą darbinį stresą ir pasitenkinimą darbu, grupėse naudojamos streso įveikos strategijos skiriasi tik iš dalies. / In order to understand better the job stress and job satisfaction experienced by workers in business organizations, its link is chosen as the aim of this study. For this reason, there were used three methods: The Evaluations Questionnaire of Variables, That Cause Job Stress (Gulbinaite, 2007), Job Satisfaction Scale (Spector, 1985) and Coping with Stress Questionnaire (Grakauskas, Valickas, 2006). 118 participants took part in this study. The results indicated that men comparing with women experience a bigger job stress, connected with job requirements and job relations. Whereas women, differently than men, experience a bigger job satisfaction, connected with job planning. It was also found that there are no differences of job stress and job satisfaction in groups of younger (18-25 years) and older (26-40 years) participants. Moreover, the results indicated, that when job stress is going up, the job satisfaction is going down in men and women groups. Besides, just some stress coping strategies are interdependent, have connection with job stress and job satisfaction. Finally, stress coping strategies differ just in part in three participants groups, who experience different job stress and job satisfaction.

An integrated model of teacher burnout is presented as the backdrop to a personal history of one distressed teacher. Using a series of collaborative interviews, Sarah's experiences as a classroom teacher are explored as part of a search for the contributors to her feelings of distress and disatisfaction with teaching. A number of themes are identified which relate to Sarah's life in the classroom, her search for autonomy and proximity, and the diversity of her roles within the bureaucracy of the school and the network of her family. Sarah has developed an inventory of coping resources compatible with her values, goals, commitments and personal style. She includes problem-focused, emotion-focused, and preventive strategies. As the study progressed, we came to believe that the fundamental stressors in Sarah's life have arisen out of the fact that she is a woman, doing a woman's work of teaching and nurturing a family, and experiencing all of the expected and unique stressors that are a part of that experience. The complex role of women in teaching is discussed, and the suggestion is made that the nature of schooling would change if women had greater access to decision-making levels within their profession. Suggestions are also made regarding inservice and preservice training for teachers in order to increase their coping resources. / xi, 164 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.

Almost 40% of the Canadian workforce shows signs of progressive burnout. For a variety of reasons, stress within the workplace appears to be increasing. The popular press and academic journals suggest that chronic job stres, burnout, will be most significant workplace issue in the new millennium. Although both men and women suffer from stress and burnout, it appears that women are at a greater risk than men. Unfortunately, research on the relationship between women's stress and their heatlh has not kept pace with the popularization of the problem. We could understand this relationship better if we had more information about women, their health history (including phases of development over the life span), and occupational history. Relatedly, as the baby-boomer generation ages to mid-life, there appears to be a sea change on the horizon: one in which women are demanding answers and knowledge about the process of menopause and its effect on their lives, inside and outside the home. To fill this void, the proposed research will address the life change of women, and specifically, how their stages of development and occupational and health histories relate to the experience of burnout. / xv, 126 leaves ; 29 cm.

<p>Much evidence exists that nurses are leaving the public health sector for the private sector, or leaving the country to seek better working conditions and higher salaries. Studies conducted on the job satisfaction of nurses are proof that there is a need to know more about the factors that influence their sense of job satisfaction. Most of these studies focus on the general nursing context. Due to its unique circumstances, many studies abroad have identified the field of psychiatric mental health nursing to investigate job satisfaction of nurses. The minithesis is an attempt to fill the gap that exists in job satisfaction studies in South Africa of nurses in a provincial psychiatric hospital. The study was a cross sectional, correlational, survey design study. The instrument was a self-administered questionnaire, combining a quantitative questionnaire with one qualitative open-ended question. The study was conducted on nurses of all categories in a provincial psychiatric hospital in the Western Cape. Sixty- eight nurses participated in the study. The data was analyzed statistically using the SAS v9 statistical software and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The open-ended question was analyzed qualitatively. The results revealed that the participating nurses were dissatisfied with remuneration, recognition and appreciation, training and development, as well as benefits and incentives. Nurses were most satisfied with supervision and support, interpersonal relationships, and rendering patient care. The study identified the factors influencing job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction of nurses in a provincial psychiatric hospital. Recommendations were made based on the results of the research.</p>

This ethnographic study of nurses at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban, South Africa was designed to seek insights into the lives of women as nurses during the socio-political transition of the 1990's. It suggests that this period of dramatic political change in the country created spaces for redressing uneven social relations and chronic disparities faced by nurses in their personal and professional lives, particularly those constructed through the social engineering of apartheid policies. The study describes the particular evolution of nursing in South Africa, the process undertaken to unify the professional nursing associations formed through the 1980's and the national labour unrest that rippled through the health care system between 1994 and 1996. It considers the diverse locations of nurses as the backbone of the healthcare system, primarily in their capacities as professionals, managers, care-providers, team-players and colleagues and describes practices that operate to constrain nurses as women and health care practitioners. Feminist, post-structural perspectives framed the theoretical approach taken in this qualitative study. These were guided by Foucauldian theories of knowledge, power and discourse, and feminist contributions regarding resistance and agency. Over the course of four years in the field, methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews were employed to develop insights into the subject locations of nurses in their private and public lives. Twenty-six nurses of the professional and subprofessional categories contributed to the main narratives. In addition, a series of interviews were undertaken with key informants from the medical, paramedical, nursing and administrative services. The study illustrates the practices of patriarchal, institutional and organisational relations of power that intersected and dominated the realities of the nurses in all spheres of their day-to-day lives. Within the post-colonial moment in South Africa, these were conceptualized as subaltern institutional relations. The study found that as a consequence of their subjugation within the subaltern institutional relations, the realities of nurses were diverse, divergent, and fragmented. It argues that these relations imbued a lack of professional and personal coherence that impaired the capacity of nurses to contest the chronic professional and work place disparities. Often multiple and compounding in their manifestation, these relations and practices reinforced the isolation of nurses, compounding their incapacity to meaningful challenge professional and personal obstacles during the socio-political transition of the 1990's. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

This is a study conducted in a telecommunications call centre called the Greater Brand Company; located in KwaZulu Natal, in a suburb North of Durban. I conducted fieldwork for a complete year whilst working full time in the call centre. Although the call centre had over 400 call centre agents employed at the Durban branch, I had access to 121 agents who worked a similar shift as me. The experiences of these agents are brought to life through this piece of research. The Great Branding Company (pseudonym) is an inbound call centre, which means it handles incoming calls and offers customer service to these callers. It has been argued that “since their appearance on the scene in the early 1990s, call centres have become the most important single source of customer contact in the developed information economies. They have also become huge employment generators, with jobs numbering in the millions” (Rusell, 2008: 01). The call centre industry is growing globally and South Africa is in line with this growth. The nature of the work is also very fast paced and challenging, yet monotonous, for the faceless employees who are working in this environment. The research aims to bring an understanding of these challenges and offer insight into the activities that agents engage in as ways to cope with their jobs. I carefully chose research methodologies that I believed were going to add value to the research. Writing from the emic perspective offers an opportunity to be able to be part of the study and share my views with very little inhibitions and thus offering a richer ethnography. My research was conducted using purely qualitative research tools because it examines the lives of the call centre agents and there is no better way to showcase this than through qualitative research. Participant observation being the key tool that I used to gain information in true Anthropology style. Being a participating observer did not mean I was devoid of barriers to entry; it did however put me at an advantage to gain better rapport amongst the research participants who considered me to be one of their own. In supplementing participant observation I also used focused groups, unstructured interviews and semi structured interviews for those questions that required greater probing. The combination of all these research methodologies allowed me an opportunity to gain a greater understanding into the lives of agents and thus write some detailed ethnographic chapters. The study adds to the field of Industrial Anthropology and hopes to spark a greater interest into this field thereby creating a platform for more researchers to conduct studies on call centre employment in the South African context. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of certain demographic and personality factors to the experience of burnout in teachers. A number of other studies recommended the investigation of these variables as possible factors influencing burnout. Using a sample of 141 teachers from both Private and State schools in the Pietermaritzburg area, certain variables were investigated. The demographic factors included age, gender, marital status, number of children, class size, and type of school. The personality factors included five factors of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience and Agreeableness, as measured on the Neo-Five Factor Inventory. Burnout was measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. A Correlation Matrix was used to determine the relationship of the demographic and personality factors to the dimensions of burnout. A Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis was done to determine which factors related best to the dimensions of burnout. Results indicated that certain aspects of personality and demographic variables such as Neuroticism, Extraversion, age, marital status, number of children, type of school, and class size were significantly related to the components of burnout. The research findings indicated that younger teachers are more prone to burnout than older teachers; that single teachers experience more stress and burnout than married teachers; and that having children acts as a buffer against stress and burnout. Male and females did not appear to differ in their experience of burnout. Of the personality variables explored, people scoring high on Neuroticism and low on Extraversion were found to be prone to burnout. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.