Objective of the report
Understand job stress and its nature,
Understand theoretical viewpoints of stress,
Discuss how it has affected employees in United States and Japan.
1.Introduction
Modern businesses are complex and highly competitive consequently employees, management of the organization as well as organization itself under contentious strain to accomplish higher targets (Rothmann et al, 2005). In recent time's organizations around the world restructuring, outsourcing and downsizing, leaving its workers feeling stressed undervalued and insecure (Rothmann et al, 2005). According to three studies done by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's " Stress at work" report, between 26% -40% of employees think that their jobs are stressful. (Global Cosmetic Industry, Sep 2005)
Stress at work place has been investigated for many years (Michailids et al, 2003) and lately it has become a major concern due to its effects on employee performance as well as the efficiency and productivity of organizations.
There are many factors that cause stress in work place. They are broadly can be categorized as Individual Level stressors, Group level stressors, Organizational level stressors and non-work stressors. According to North western National Life Insurance Company, one forth of American employees think that their jobs are the number one stressor in their lives (NOISH, n.d).
Japanese people are known to be hardworking and highly committed to their jobs. The word "Karoshi" has been derived because of the hardworking nature of Japanese workers. The word "karoshi" means death from work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi). That is occupational sudden death due to stress from work. Job burnouts are other challenge that American co ...