The experience of occupational stress has long been implicated in the development of
negative outcomes for the individual employee and the employing organisation. General
well-being as well as levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment have been
identified in the literature as decreasing as a result of the experience occupational stress.
The intertwined relationship between occupational stress and emotion has also been
proposed to play a role in the stress�outcomes relationship. Although emotions are an
integral and inseparable part of everyday organisational life, they are difficult to measure
and as such have generally been ignored in the organisational literature.
Recent research has begun to focus on the role of emotions in the workplace and a
development from this approach has been to conceptually examine the relationship between
cognition and emotions. This movement has largely been attributed to new research around
the construct of Emotional Intelligence (EI). Emotional Intelligence involves behaviours
related to the experience of emotion; specifically EI involves expressing, recognising,
understanding and managing emotions. Despite the interest in workplace EI, very little
empirical research has examined the role EI may play in occupational stress. This thesis
systematically examined the relationship between EI and the occupational stress process,
including stressors, strains (health), and outcomes of stress (job satisfaction and
organisational commitment). The first study of this thesis involved the administration of a
questionnaire to 320 employees. The results of Study 1 indicate that four dimensions of EI
were particularly important in the occupational stress process: Emotional Recognition and
Expression, Understanding Emotions, Emotional Management and Emotional Control. It
was concluded that utilising EI was related to the experience of occupational stress, and to
the outcomes of occupational stress (both health and attitudes), such that employees who
reported using EI were less likely to report feelings of stress, ill-health and lowered
satisfaction and commitment.
The results of Study 1 provided a rationale for the development of an EI training program, a
program to teach employees how to utilise the dimensions of EI more effectively in the workplace and to teach them how to deal with the negative emotions that arise from the
experience of occupational stress. The prevalence of occupational stress in the Australian
workforce is increasing and as a consequence many stress management intervention
programs have surfaced in the literature, although none with emphasis on utilising emotions
more effectively. The aim of Study 2 in this thesis was to develop, implement and evaluate
an EI training program which had an emphasis on stress management.
Study 2 involved the development of a five-session group training program and a
standardised training manual. The training program was evaluated in terms of the variables
identified in Study 1 (EI, occupational stress, strains, and outcomes of stress). The sample
consisted of 79 teachers (55 with complete data sets). Baseline measures were taken at two
time intervals prior to participation in the EI training program. Participants were assessed
immediately after participation in the program and at a five-week follow-up interval.
The findings of Study 2 demonstrated the effectiveness of the EI training program in terms
of improving levels of EI, decreasing feelings of stress and strain and improving the
outcomes of stress. These changes were evident immediately after completion of the
training program and were maintained (or improved upon) at the follow-up time period.
However there were some limitations to Study 2. Specifically, the short duration of the
training program, the short follow-up time interval (of only five weeks) and the use of
secondary stress management prevention tools were each limitations of this training
program. Further research is necessary to address these limitations and to more accurately
determine the efficacy of the training program developed in this thesis.
Despite the limitations of Study 2, the EI training program implemented and evaluated in
this thesis illustrated that a training program focussed on the emotional experiences of
employees is able to successfully engage employees and assist them in dealing with the
experience of occupational stress and the consequences of stress. Furthermore, these results
demonstrate that the EI training program was successful in improving the employee�s level
of EI, providing support for the theory that EI can be learned and developed.
Overall, the development and implementation of an EI training program, in this thesis,
demonstrated that behaviours underpinning the dimensions of EI can be learned and that
training programs focussed on the emotional experiences of employees in the workplace
can be effective in improving employee well-being and in decreasing feelings of
occupational stress. The results of this thesis therefore provide support for including EI
training programs as part of stress management for employees.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216557 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Gardner, Lisa, lgardner@swin.edu.au |
| Publisher | Swinburne University of Technology. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.swin.edu.au/), Copyright Lisa Gardner |
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