Rlchard Pettlnger

Fig. 2.1 Individual roles.

12 STRESS MANAGEMENT
Stress is caused where there are role uncertainties and ambiguities, role overlap (especially between work and non-work), role incompati- bility, and role overload and underload. Each of these elements is dealt with extensively in Chapter 6.

Organization culture

Organization culture is the summary of attitudes, values, beliefs, and activities carried out. Often summarized as ‘‘the way things are done here,’’ it is a combination of:

» the origins, history, and traditions of the organization;

» its strategy and policies;

» the nature of its activities;

» the relationship between technology and the workforce, work design, organization, and structure; and

» levels of stability and change.

Culture is reinforced by the stated and actual purposes, priorities and attention given to performance, staff, customers, suppliers, the community, and the environment, and to progress and develop- ment.

Creating an effective and positive culture, and one in which the presence and potential of stress can be acknowledged and managed, is dependent on:

» the extent to which dominant values, attitudes, and beliefs advocated by the organizations can gain universal acceptance;

» the nature of the philosophy of the organization, especially whether this is precise, positive, and stated, or allowed to emerge unstructured and undirected;

» the ways in which norms and patterns of behavior are developed, and the reasons for these; and again, whether they are positive and engaging, or negative and coercive; and

» the climate of the organization, which is conveyed by the environ- ment, the physical layout, the ways in which participants interact, and relationships between different levels in the hierarchy.

Stress in working relations is caused where there is a lack of fundamental identity or cohesion from any of these points of view. In these cases,

WHAT IS STRESS MANAGEMENT? 13
staff groups retreat into themselves. Their loyalties become tainted and divided. High status, professional, and expert groups identify with each other rather than with their organization, and this leads to the formation of canteen cultures and bunker mentalities (see Summary box 2.1).