Stress to Eustress: Role of Official Hierarchy

Abstract

Occupational stress is an adaptive response to a work place situation that is perceived as challenging or threatening to the person’s well-being and predictably reduces quality of work. There is also a positive side of stress, called eustress that refers to the healthy, positive, constructive outcome of stressful events and the stress response. Maximum organisational effectiveness depends on achieving the highest degree of job involvement among members of an organisation. Demographic variable like the hierarchical status is found to play an integral role in perceptual overhauling of stress into favourable outcomes. A sample of 400 executives from public sector steel plants, were randomly selected. ANOVA with test of simple effects was above. Findings revealed that occupational stress does affect job involvement in an inverse manner, but top management expressed higher job involvement when work stress was high, showcasing positive outcomes of stress. Occupational stress converts to eustress when perceived by senior executives. Cognitive disparity in the perception of occupational stress across various hierarchical ladder emerges very starkly in this study.