A Multilevel Model of Economic Stress and Employee Well‐Being
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sinclair2010 - p. 2
Therefore, the central purpose of this chapter is to develop a multilevel model that describes the relationship between economic stress and well-being. We will extend a model of economic stress proposed by Probst (2005a), distinguishing individual, organizational, and macroeconomic antecedents of employees’ economic stress.
sinclair2010 - p. 2
Probst (2005a) drew from prior work by Voydanoff (1990) to offer a general definition of economic stress as “aspects of economic life that are potential stressors for employees and their families and consists of both objective and subjective components reflecting the employment and income dimensions of the worker-earner role”
sinclair2010 - p. 2
ears’ (2008) review of the income-related stress literature highlights the many ways researchers have measured objective income stressors, including total household income (e.g., Sinclair & Martin, 2006), financial resources (e.g., Conger et al., 1990), debt-to-asset ratios (e.g., Simons, Lorenz, Conger, & Wu, 1992), and composite measures of financial need based on demographic variables such as marital status and family size (e.g., Brett, Cron, & Slocum, 1995; Doran, Stone, Brief, & George, 1991; Shaw & Gupta, 2001).
sinclair2010 - p. 3
Our model assumes that subjective economic stress mediates the relationship between personal economic antecedents and these outcomes.
sinclair2010 - p. 4
Employees’ objective financial and employment situations (e.g., unemployment, household income, debt) should be strongly associated with subjective economic stress (e.g., McKee-Ryan et al., 2005; So-hyun & Grable, 2004) as should individual differences in saving tendencies (e.g., Anderson & Nevitte, 2006), or debt accumulation (e.g., Norvilitis et al., 2006).
sinclair2010 - p. 4
Personality traits also may contribute to economic stress by making employees more vulnerable to subjective economic stress either through their more negative appraisals of the environment or their own ability to manage the environment.
sinclair2010 - p. 5
Relationships between economic stress and outcomes may depend on several individual factors, although research on any particular factor is limited and sometimes yields inconsistent conclusions.
sinclair2010 - p. 5
The organizational level concerns the policies and practices organizations use to respond to changing competitive conditions and environmental constraints. Organizational theorists have described the strategies organizations use to adapt to their environments and defined several effectiveness criteria, including stakeholder satisfaction, goal accomplishment, market share, and long-term surviva
sinclair2010 - p. 6
An organization’s financial status is perhaps its most important characteristic, as it influences organizational policies and practices likely to affect employees’ economic stress.
sinclair2010 - p. 6
Improving financial performance boils down two basic strategies: increasing revenue and reducing costs. Worker pay and benefits account for a large share of operating expenses, leading companies to cut costs through workforce reductions or downsizing (Said, Le Louarn, & Tremblay, 2007) and related strategies, such as mergers.
sinclair2010 - p. 6
Organizational-level moderators influence the individual-level relationship between antecedents and subjective stressors or between stressors and outcomes. For example, income-related stressors might have stronger effects on well-being for workers in a declining industry because the stress caused by income deprivation might be exacerbated by their limited future prospects.
sinclair2010 - p. 7
We define the macroeconomic level broadly to include economic systems, cultural issues, and industry-level influences. These factors influence economic growth and contraction through basic market forces such as supply and demand and include factors such as monetary policies, industry practices, and international trade/regulatory agreements. Macroeconomic forces affect individuals both directly and indirectly. The direct effects refer to individuals’ reactions to macroeconomic conditions, such as when income-related stress stems from perceptions of regional or national economic conditions. Indirect effects operate through changes in organizational strategy, such as when organizations introduce furloughs as a strategic response to declining revenues.
Note: Aqui a discussão de financial stress index
sinclair2010 - p. 7
Both national/regional and industry-level unemployment rates provide useful indications of macroeconomic conditions related to employment (Reynolds, 1997). As unemployment rates rise, workers become more concerned about losing their jobs.
sinclair2010 - p. 8
Little research has examined the effects of cultural, socio-economic, and/or political systems on economic stress. However, cultural variables offer a promising direction for future research.
sinclair2010 - p. 8
Individualism/collectivism is perhaps the most frequently studied cultural dimension (
sinclair2010 - p. 8
A less studied but equally pertinent cultural variable is uncertainty avoidance. According to Hofstede (2001), uncertainty avoidance (UA) reflects the society’s level of tolerance for unstructured, unknown, or surprising situations.
Note: Relação com financial stress indices
sinclair2010 - p. 8
Forexample,theInternationalLabourOrganization (2004) research distinguishes countries in terms of their emphasis on labor market security. Pacesetting countries (e.g., EU countries, Canada, Israel, Japan) demonstrate a strong constitutional and policy commitment to social welfare, and protect their citizens’ economic security. The United States is described as a pragmatist country because of its relatively limited attention to workers’ economic security and failure to ratify ILO conventions. Conventional countries (e.g., Russia, Eastern bloc nations) have relevant governmental policies but little actual economic security because of other governmental challenges.Finally,much-to-be-done countries (e.g.,many African and Middle Eastern nations) neither have policies to promote economic security, nor do they score well on economic indicators such as GDP and unemployment.