Examining the effects of job stressors on strains: a longitudinal study

Stress is a phenomenon commonly encountered at workplaces that is considered to be harmful for both the employees and the organizations. While there are numerous studies in the literature that investigate work stress and its effects, most of these are cross-sectional. However, cross-sectional designs are criticized due to various reasons; namely, not enabling causal outcomes, common method variances, disregarding some important variables that are time-dependent but person-independent. Due to the fact that cross-sectional studies commonly employ such restraints, the aim of this study is to examine the effect of work stress on organizational strains such as satisfaction with performance, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and intention to leave from a longitudinal perspective. This study subjected 183 individuals from a pharmaceutical company in Turkey. Job Stress Appraisal Scale and Organizational Strain Measures from the Job Stress Battery used for the research. Data was collected twice, with six months time lag, and linear regression analysis was applied in order to test the research hypotheses. The outcomes revealed that while Work Stress did not have any lagged effect on Satisfaction with Performance or Organizational Commitment; there was a positive lagged effect on Intention to Quit, and a negative lagged effect on Job Satisfaction. Upon further examinations regarding stressors' effect on strains, Insecure Relationships showed a negative lagged effects on Satisfaction with Performance; while Physical Work Demands' lagged effect was positive. On top of these, Insecure Relationships showed negative lagged effect on Job Satisfaction; while Organizational Norms and Practices showed a positive lagged effect on workers' Intention to Quit. These findings, together with related past studies, were discussed with the intention to prove beneficial for the organizations, and suggestions for future studies were presented accordingly. Key Words: Longitudinal, Work Stress, Stressor, Strain, Performance, Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, Intention to Quit