EXECUTIVES: ENGINES FOR POSITIVE STRESS

Abstract

The occupational stress and well-being literature often focuses on specific causes of stress as health risk factors to be managed, on attributes of work environments that are stressful and/or risky, or on prevention and intervention strategies for managing these causes of stress as well as individual stress responses at work (Quick & Tetrick, 2003). The occupational stress literature has not focused on how executives and organizations can cause positive stress for people at work. In this chapter, we explore a principle-based framework for executive action to create positive, constructive stress for people at work.

The first major section of the chapter discusses seven contextual factors within which the principle-based framework is nested. The second major section of the chapter develops nine principles for executive action. The third and concluding section of the chapter turns the focus to a set of guidelines for executive action in managing their personal experience of stress.

Citation

Campbell Quick, J., Mack, D., Gavin, J.H., Cooper, C.L. and Quick, J.D. (2003), "EXECUTIVES: ENGINES FOR POSITIVE STRESS", Perrewe, P.L. and Ganster, D.C. (Ed.) Emotional and Physiological Processes and Positive Intervention Strategies (Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being, Vol. 3), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 359-405. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3555(03)03009-9