Work Stress and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Introduction

Workplace stress is becoming more and more common in many companies worldwide, including the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is emerging as an important business center in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions. The service industry, especially the retail sector, has become one of the most competitive sectors over the past decade. Workplace stress can also be caused by inattentive management that sets unrealistic goals for employees due to high demand and low preparedness. Many employees struggle to meet the strict goals set by their companies, which leads to stress that negatively impacts employee productivity.

Research objectives

The study explores the relationship between organizational stress and its impact on corporate citizenship behavior in the United Arab Emirates. Stress affects employees’ behavior and willingness to do their best in performing routine tasks. In this regard, the work pursues the following goals:

Assess the relationship between workplace stress and effective employee management.
Identification of the causes and consequences of organizational stress.
Assess different types of organizational citizenship behavior.
Assess the impact of organizational stress and its impact on corporate citizenship and employees.

Research questions

How common is work stress, and what are its manifestations?
Do employees manage to maintain a balance between work and personal life?
Does the employer provide enough time for their employees to complete daily work tasks? Is enough time allocated for daily work tasks?
Do employees receive sufficient support to perform their tasks in the workplace?

Literature review

The data in this study were obtained from primary and secondary sources. Secondary data was obtained from books, journal articles, and trusted online sources. Primary data were collected from a sample of volunteer participants and aimed to fill the knowledge gaps identified in the review. Conservation of Resources Theory was chosen to explain the impact of work stress on civic organizational behavior. A strong resource pool is the main predictor of successful coping with stressful circumstances and post-traumatic growth.

Recommendations

To help eliminate stress and promote OCB:

The firm’s management must ensure that employees’ skills and experience are always appropriate for their job duties to increase their satisfaction.
Employees should receive regular training to enhance their skills and abilities to eliminate or reduce work-related stress.
The firm should regularly investigate and eliminate stress related to work and personal life among employees and find ways to eliminate or minimize them.

Methodology

Research Philosophy: A Pragmatic Approach

Research approach: inductive reasoning

Study Design: Mixed Analysis

Sample: random sample

Sample size: 12 respondents

Tool: interview, survey, questionnaire

Time horizon: cross-sectional study

Research strategy

Observations were made based on volunteer participants’ responses to understand better the causes of stress in the workplace and how it affects employees in different ways. The results were then used to determine how stress affects OCB.

Data collection

Inclusion criteria were that the individual must have worked in retail/services in the country for at least the past 5 years. Gender, age, and religious affiliation were not considered when selecting the target group. 12 people aged 30 to 65 were chosen for the study.

Data collected from volunteers were analyzed using a mixed methods study. Qualitative analysis revealed the relationship between stress in the workplace and OKB. The data were statistically analyzed using an Excel spreadsheet, and the result was presented in graphs and charts.

Ethical Considerations

Participants have been assigned codes from Respondent 1 to Respondent 12 to maintain confidentiality.

Gibbs’ reflective cycle

This study aimed to examine how workplace stress affects the performance of employees in the service/retail sector in the UAE. The idea was to compare the available studies with the results of this study and, based on the findings, make recommendations to support workers and reduce stress in the workplace. Initially, the study was supposed to contain a large sample to make the answers more convincing. However, due to the closed culture and fear of participating in this kind of research, this became impossible.

Feelings

As a result of the work done, the researcher was overcome with mixed feelings. On the one hand, they felt satisfaction from work done in such a short period of time. On the other hand, there was a sense of incompleteness caused by insufficient evidence, which could undermine the study’s relevance. The author understands that he has yet to achieve a 100% result, and there is still a lot to be done to make the study have strong evidence.

Evaluation

I was helped by the experience of communicating with people in the business field to provide the necessary evidence of safety and the need to pass interviews and surveys. I also find it helpful that the study was conducted using a mixed method. It allowed not only to collect the necessary information but also to find possible pitfalls that could be covered in the study. It should also be taken into account that the author worked with feelings such as stress in the workplace, and tension, which could cause ill will; however, data collection went without any problems.

Analysis

The experience in the survey was, for me, the most difficult during the study; this was also one of the most critical points in the work. Thus, at the beginning of the task, I felt that it was challenging to complete. However, in the end, thanks to this research work, I improved my professional academic communication skills and answered the main research questions. That helped to highlight the main problem areas and describe recommendations for their elimination. I was also good at time management and proud that it seemed like a challenge; the opportunity served as a great learning opportunity. The main thing I learned from this research is that relationships are essential, especially when performing tasks that involve communicating with people, both with respondents and with the manager.

Action Plan

When working on similar studies in the future, I will pay special attention to the data collection methodology. Perhaps in a still rather closed culture, personal interviews are still feared, and it is better to send anonymous surveys or questionnaires. It will allow me to work with more data and make my research more meaningful.

Conceptual framework

The framework explains the relationship between workplace stress and organizational citizenship behaviors. As shown in the diagram, the firm’s management is responsible for managing stress in the workplace. Managing stress in the workplace starts with identifying the root causes of the problem.

Limitations

The small number of volunteers who participated in the study shows the study’s main limitation is the relatively small sample size. It was caused as a result of the closed culture in the country, where few people are willing to participate freely in such research.

The inability to collect data from employees of numerous organizations around the country to understand the prevalence of the problem.

References

Baykal, E. (2020) Handbook of research on positive organizational behavior for improved workplace performance. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Sendjaya, S. (2019) Leading for high performance in Asia: contemporary research and evidence-based practices. Springer.

Li, Z., et al. (2022), ‘Full of energy, the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and task performance: a conservation of resources perspective’, Personnel Review, 3(1), pp. 4-11.

Foy, T., et al. (2019), ‘Managing job performance, social support and work-life conflict to reduce workplace stress’, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 68(6), pp. 1018-1041.

Haque, A., and Oino, I. (2019) ‘Managerial challenges for software houses related to work, worker and workplace: stress reduction and sustenance of human capital’, Polish Journal of Management Studies, 19(1), pp. 170-189.

Gibbs’ reflective cycle. Expert Program Management. (2019). Web.

Click Here To Order Now!