Linear relationships among stressors, mediators and coping

Occupational stress is a principal workplace concern because of the deleterious effects it can have both for employees and the organisation. Much research has investigated the impact of workplace demands on the physical and mental health of employees and related organizational outcomes, such as loss of productivity and intention to quit. Such studies often have included factors such as job control as a mediating variable and role demands as stressors. Despite sophisticated analyses, the relationships among these factors have not been elucidated clearly or consistently. It is the aim in this paper to explore the linear relationship among three distinct groups of factors previously identified in the literature, stressors: workplace demands, work to family conflict; mediators: job control and sense of challenge; and outcome variables: burnout, somatic symptoms, job satisfaction, professional efficacy and intention to quit in a sample of 126 call centre representatives (59% female; age M = 27.3 years, SD= 8.18) from 11 call centres in metropolitan Melbourne. The results of a Multidimensional Scaling Analysis indicate four clusters: work related variables including role ambiguity, excessive performance monitoring, thoughts of quitting, role conflict; personal outcomes: work-family conflict and somatic symptoms; job impact outcomes: depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion, to positive outcomes: professional efficacy and job satisfaction. These quadrants can be used to suggest a progressive relationship from stressors through job control, a sense of problem-solving to either positive or negative outcomes. While these results are cross-sectional and must be interpreted with caution, a pivotal point of the MDS map suggests that participants' level of timing and method and attention demanded by their role might be factors which differentiate the two outcomes.