EMPLOYEE ADJUSTMENT TO STRESS - THE ROLE OF COPING RESOURCES, SITUATIONAL FACTORS, AND COPING RESPONSES

The present study was designed to examine further the stress-adjustmen t relationship in employees. Specifically, the relations among employe es' coping resources (self-esteem, generalized control beliefs, neurot icism, and social support), their appraisals of a recent stressful eve nt experienced at work (appraised stress, self-efficacy, and situation al control beliefs), the coping strategies (problem- and emotion-focus ed coping) used to deal with the event, and levels of employee adjustm ent (psychological well-being and job satisfaction) were examined. Dat a were collected from 153 male and female employees in a public sector department, employed in a range of middle-management administrative a ctivities. The data provided support for a modified version of a model that proposed that both situational appraisals and coping strategies are mediating processes in the stress-adjustment relationship. There w as evidence that employees' coping responses to the recent stressful e vent experienced al work were related to concurrent levels of adjustme nt. As predicted, the use of problem-focused coping, in general, had p ositive relationships with the measures of adjustment, whereas the eff ects of emotion-focused coping were generally negative (there was, how ever, some evidence that the effects of coping were dependent on event controllability). There was also evidence that coping resources had b oth direct and indirect effects (via coping and via situational apprai sals) oh employee adjustment. The latter effects were most marked for generalized control beliefs and self-esteem Situational appraisals (in particular, efficacy expectancies) also had indirect effects on emplo yee adjustment, through their effects on coping responses.