Towards the Conceptualization and the Operationalization of the Construct of Occupational Stress

Abstract

Occupational stress is a prominent risk factor amongst adversely affecting job inter-related factors among employees of diverse global industrial contexts. The purpose of this study is to afford a comprehensive conceptualization and operationalization of the construct of occupational stress while developing a complete measuring instrument. The archival method was adopted in this research. The systematic review, together with critical review processes, has encircled published research articles between 1872 and 2020 in the arenas of Human Resource Management, Psychology, and organizational behaviour. Accordingly, 126 articles were initially scrutinized, and 96 were systematically reviewed. Thus, “Occupational Stress” can be defined as the employee’s responsiveness to personal dysfunction as a result of perceived workplace conditions and harmful physiological, psy- chological, and emotional responses caused by these uncomfortable workplace conditions Accordingly, six main dimensions, namely, “Responsibility Pressure”, “Quality Concern”, “Role Conflict”, “Job Vs Non-Job Conflict”, “Workload” and “Employee Dysfunction Responses” have been recognized for the construct of “Occupational Stress”. Along with, the explored dimensions, elements, and question items could be utilized to develop a comprehensive instrument to measure the construct of “Occupational Stress”. This study is limited to instrument development; nevertheless, there is enormous scope for utilizing the instrument to empirically measure occupational stress linked to diverse global industrial contexts in future studies.