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3 Interpersonal demands: Stress due to other employees—little or no social support from colleagues; poor interpersonal
relationships.

4 Organization structure: Stress due to excessive rules; no opportunity to participate in decisions that affect an employee.

5 Organizational leadership: Stress due to managers’ supervisory style in a culture of tension, fear, anxiety, unrealistic
pressures to perform in the short run, excessively tight controls, and routine firing of employees who don’t measure up.

Personal factors:
Life demands, constraints, opportunities of any kind
need to be understanding of 2
1 employees’ personalities
Family issues, personal
—type A or type B.
economic problems, and
so forth.
• type A personality—chronic sense of
• Can’t just ignore! Managers
time urgency, excessive competitive drive,

these personal factors. 26 and difficulty accepting and enjoying lei-
sure time; more likely to shows symptoms
of stress.
A Question of Ethics • type B personality—little to no sense of

One in five companies offers some form of stress manage- time urgency or impatience.
27
ment program. Although such programs are available, many • Stress comes from the hostility and anger
employees may choose not to participate. They may be reluc-
tant to ask for help, especially if a major source of that stress associated with Type A behavior. Surpris-
is job insecurity. After all, there’s still a stigma associated ingly, Type Bs are just as susceptible.
with stress. Employees don’t want to be perceived as being
unable to handle the demands of their job. Although they may
need stress management now more than ever, few employees
want to admit that they’re stressed.

If your professor has assigned this, go to the Assignments
section of mymanagementlab.com to complete these
discussion questions.
Talk About It 3: What can be done about this paradox?

Talk About It 4: Do organizations even have an ethi-
cal responsibility to help employees deal with stress?

Type A personality
People who have a chronic sense of urgency and an excessive
competitive drive
Type B personality
People who are relaxed and easygoing and accept change
easily
Beyond Fotomedia GmbH/Alamy
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