INTRODUCTION

In this high technology and modem era, where high performance is expected to be the norm, many organizations demand a high level of quality, service and overall business success. Therefore, the pressure is felt on individuals at all levels of organization. Performance targets are becoming tougher to meet with each succeeding year and the management staff is experiencing difficulty in fulfilling the challenge. Work stress is common among staff and there are grave concerns on how it may affect health.

   The demand and pressure in the workplace place is an important source of stress. The factors in the workplace that have been to be associated with stress and health risks can be categorized into those  related to the content of work and those  related to social and organizational context of work (Michie, 2002). The factors that are intrinsic to the job include long hours, work overload, time pressure, difficult or complex tasks, lack of breaks, lack of variety, and poor working environment.

   Ivancevich and Matteson (1980) suggested that the increase in mental health problems reported by workers in industrialized countries was a result of psychological stress and excessive job demands in the workplace. Karasek (1980) reported that job stress could be divided into two factors, job demand and job decision latitude or job control. He explained that a high job demand and a low decision latitude state were the most stressful. Much of the research regarding work stress was based on the model developed and refined by Karasek. He proposed that work-related mental strain and the associated psychiatric disorder may result from combinations of, and interactions between, four different employment factors: heavy job demands, limited input to decision making processes, lack of skill discretion within the job and poor work-based social support (Mausner-Dorsch & Eaton, 2000). These factors, in particular those concerning decision making and lack of social support have been found to be most challenging for those in the lower grades of employment and to be less common among employees in higher ranking positions (Cropley et al, 1999).

   Persistent stress had been linked to many physiological problems. Initially, the effects may be psychosomatic, but with continued stress, the symptoms can present as actual organic disease for example gastric or duodenal ulcers and coronary heart disease. Fraser (1997) grouped human reactions to workplace stress into 5 categories:  (i) subjective or emotional, for example anxiety and aggression; (ii) behavioral, for example trembling sleep problems; (iii) cognitive, for example lack of concentration and inability to make decisions; (iv) physiological, for example increased heart rate and blood pressure: (v) organizational, for example absenteeism and poor productivity.

   The international tobacco company in the study is one of the largest tobacco companies in Malaysia. At the time of study, this company had 1,200 employees -340 management employees and 860 employees who are involved in the full spectrum of the tobacco industry, from leaf buying, processing and manufacturing, marketing and distribution. There are nine management departments in the company, i.e. human resources and security affairs, finance, trade marketing, brand marketing, information technology, production, supply chain, corporate and regulatory affairs, legal and leaf departments.

   The objectives of the study were to examine the prevalence of work stress among the management staff in the international tobacco company and to investigate the factors contributing to work stress. The justification of the study was to find out the prevalence of stress because of the stressful nature of work, and secondly, no similar study has ever been done in a tobacco company in Malaysia before.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted in May 2004. Self-administered question-naires were used in the study, involving 185 management staff. The inclusion criteria were all permanent management executives and managers. The exclusion criteria were directors, expatriates, contract staff, and temporary staff. The sampling method was universal sampling. The subjects were given a questionnaire based on the Personal Stress Inventory by O’Donell (1984). The questionnaire com-prised of 4 parts. The first part consisted of socio-demographic data and job history. Socio-demographic measurements in-cluded gender, age, marital status, number of children, medical illness and smoking habits. The job data included occupation, department, salary, length of service and job promotion. The second part of the questionnaire measured stress level based on reported symptoms.

It comprised of 52 items, which are the symptoms of stress. The third part con-sisted of 12 items which were questions on the perception of personal stressors.  The last part of the questionnaire were  questions on  stressors at workplace relating organizational policy, organi-zational structure, organizational process, work environment, recognition and appreciation and work process. It also included two questions that gauge stress at work which require the respondents to write down their work stress factors and their personal methods for relieving stress.

Statistical analysis

Data were analyzed with SPSS version 11.5. The significant level was set at 0.05.

RESULTS

From 185 questionnaires distributed, 150 questionnaires were completed and returned, giving a response rate of 81%. In this study, 78 (52%) respondents were managers and 72 (48%) were executives. The age group of 31-40 years old consisted 44 (29%) of respondents while 16 respondents (10.7%) were in age group of 21-25 years. There were 99 (66%) male and 51 (34%) female respondents in the study. A total of 93 (62%) of the respondents were married and 55 (36.7%) were single, and 2(1.3%) were divorced or separated. The demographic data for the subjects in the survey are shown in Table 1.

The prevalence of stress among managers was 67.9% and executives were 68.1%. There was no significant difference in the level of stress between the executives and the managers in the company. There was a significant relationship between stress and salary, number of children (p< 0.05).

The stressors at workplace (working environment, work process, organizational structure, organizational policy, organiza-tional process and acknowledgement) have statistical significant relationship with stress. Table 3 lists the mean stress score for work stressors. A bivariate correlation was done to test the correlation between perceptions of stress at work with stress symptoms and felt like resign. The results showed that there was significant correlation (p<0.05).

Table 5 illustrates the work pressure factors for the respondents' major source of stress. The three highest work pressure factors are work overload (28.6%), lack of job recognition (10.4%) and long working hours (9.5%).

DISCUSSION

In the study, the prevalence of work stress among managers was 67.9% and executives were 68.1%. The prevalence of stress in this organization is higher compared to reported prevalence in other sectors. Fazil (2004) reported a prevalence of stress of 46.8% among factory workers in an electronic firm in Shah Alam, Selangor.  Harmy et al (2001) reported a prevalence of stress of 36.8% among nurses working in the Intensive Ward in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia.

The study also showed that significant sociodemographic factors which had significant relationship were salary, number of children, and personal factors. The reasons of significant stress in relation to salary could be link to work stressors. For example, staff need to stay back to complete their work because of uncompleted task. The workers may feel that the salary earned may not be proportionate to the workload and long working hours put in by them.

The significant relationship between stress and number of children in this study is most likely due to the fact that having to support the children financially and they have to organize the heavy working schedules to allocate time to attend the children's need.

There is a significant relationship between stress and work stressors in this study. The heavy work overload could probably due to the need to carry out their jobs for supporting duties in the organization, meetings and presentation. Sometimes the time pressures and many datelines to meet making work too rigid. In order to meet the expectations, staff would have work extended hours. This finding is supported by a research done by Hasan (2002).  The study evaluated job stress factors among heads of physical education organizations in Tehran University, Iran. The results indicate that a significant relationship between organizational job stress with pressure for work quality, job importance and time pressure.

This study is limited as it is a cross-sectional data, therefore time- causal relationship is less certain. The second limitation is the stress symptoms are self reported and thus information bias can occur.

CONCLUSION

In the study the prevalence of stress among the management staff in an international tobacco company has been determined. There was no significant difference in the level of stress between the executives and the managers in the company. The study highlights the need for intervention of stress.