ABSTRACT

Work stressors have major consequences for employees’ health and performance. Although organizations often ask employees to fill out work stress surveys regarding stressors and resources, the literature on survey responding offers only limited advice on how to formulate work stress surveys. Furthermore, self-, supervisor-, and co-worker-reports show only low convergence. To deepen our understanding of motivational and cognitive processes when individuals respond to work stress surveys, we used a qualitative, grounded theory approach. We interviewed employees after they responded to representative items, asking them about their thoughts, motivational processes, potential factors that might have biased their responses, and the contexts they considered when responding. Since organizations are often also interested in other-reports of stress at work, we also interviewed supervisors and co-workers. We reached theoretical saturation after 31 interviews. A multi-stage coding-process with three raters resulted in new theoretical findings regarding motivational processes, comparisons, and differences between self- and other-reports. For example, employees sometimes deliberately distort answers for fear of consequences. Furthermore, employees, supervisors, and co-workers undergo different comparison processes. The findings of this study suggest that more specific and context-rich wording of items may lead to a more reliable and comparable assessment of stressors and resources at work.

摘要

工作压力源对员工的健康和绩效产生重大影响。尽管组织经常要求员工填写有关压力源和资源的工作压力调查，但有关调查响应的文献仅就如何制定工作压力调查提供了有限的建议。此外，自我报告，主管报告和同事报告的收敛性很低。为了加深我们对个人应对工作压力调查的动机和认知过程的理解，我们使用了定性，扎实的理论方法。在员工回答代表性项目后，我们采访了他们，询问他们的想法，动机过程，可能使他们的回答产生偏见的潜在因素以及他们在回答时所考虑的环境。由于组织通常也对工作压力的其他报告感兴趣，我们还采访了主管和同事。经过31次采访，我们达到了理论上的饱和。具有三个评分者的多阶段编码过程导致了关于动机过程，比较以及自我报告与其他报告之间的差异的新理论发现。例如，员工有时会因担心后果而故意扭曲答案。此外，员工，主管和同事要经历不同的比较过程。这项研究的结果表明，对项目的措辞更加具体且内容丰富，可能会导致对工作中压力源和资源的评估更加可靠和可比。比较，以及自我报告与其他报告之间的差异。例如，员工有时会因担心后果而故意扭曲答案。此外，员工，主管和同事要经历不同的比较过程。这项研究的结果表明，对项目的措辞更加具体且内容丰富，可能会导致对工作中压力源和资源的评估更加可靠和可比。比较，以及自我报告与其他报告之间的差异。例如，员工有时会因担心后果而故意扭曲答案。此外，员工，主管和同事要经历不同的比较过程。这项研究的结果表明，对项目的措辞更加具体且内容丰富，可能会导致对工作中压力源和资源的评估更加可靠和可比。