Adapting the Job Demand/Control Model to a Team Level

A better understanding of sources of stress within a teamwork context might be gained by applying the Job Demands/Control Model of stress (Karasek and Theorell, 1990) to teams as the unit of analysis rather than only to individuals as it is conventionally done. Team performance is frequently treated as a shared team-level outcome; it seems reasonable to assume that shared team characteristics are likely to have effects on stress as well. In particular, teams are unique in their requirement for coordination between team members. Therefore, the present study proposes an adapted Team Job Demands/Control Model of team-level stress phenomena in which team coordination represents a team-level form of control. The current study provides empirical support for the above team-level JDC approach. 40 two-person teams were studied in a laboratory setting using a computer-based team dynamic decision making tasking, including delay in voice transmission between teammates. Team-level task characteristic scales were created using the mean of team members’ survey responses. Team demand, coordination and their interaction were hypothesized to predict stress (H1) and team performance (H2). Delay was predicted to influence demand and control (H3). Team performance was expected to influence stress (H4). Hypotheses were supported. The current study provides initial support for the extension of the JDC model from individual job characteristics to team characteristics. Furthermore, there was evidence that quality of team coordination can be considered a key design characteristic for teams. TEAM JOB DEMAND/CONTROL MODEL 4 Adapting the Job Demand/Control Model to a Team Level The Job Demand/Control Model as originally proposed by Karasek (1979) explains variation in job stress across individuals through differences in job characteristics. According to this model, jobs can be characterized on two dimensions: the psychological demands required and the control (or decision latitude) provided to the individual. Alone, high demand and low control are each associated with increased stress. Together, the interaction of the two is also predictive of stress. According to the Job Strain Hypothesis, a particular imbalance between the two, high demand and low control, is a condition of high job strain. High job demand does not always lead to high strain; the effects of high task demand can be buffered contingent upon the individual’s level of control. When high job demands are paired with high control, this combination allows for learning and challenge rather than leading to high strain. Workers in high strain jobs are a high risk population; they experience the highest levels of stress and are vulnerable to illnesses, including heart disease (Karasek et al, 1981; Karasek et al, 1982). The current version of the Job Demand/Control Model is expanded to also include a social component relevant to worker stress. The model has the addition of social support as a dimension relevant to job stress, resulting in the Job Demand/Control/Support Model (JDCS) (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Johnson and Hall, 1988). In this model social support is defined as beneficial social interaction available on the job; high social support is protective against stress. Coworkers and supervisors may serve as sources of social support, and this support can serve to mitigate the effects of job demands and any control deficit by providing socioemotional support to the worker. Apart from providing social support, coworkers and supervisors may also provide TEAM JOB DEMAND/CONTROL MODEL 5 other forms of support that are protective against stress, such as more tangible instrumental support in the form of resources or assistance. Prior research using the JDCS Model has not focused on the influence of work systems on stress (and stress-related disease). Outcomes have primarily been considered at the individual level or the occupational level. Workers are treated as isolated units, whose stress is determined primarily by the design of a single job. Alternatively, occupations are treated as a defining a homogenous set of job characteristics, regardless the unique characteristics of the work system in which they are embedded. Social interaction with coworkers is taken into consideration as another design characteristic of a given job or occupation. A shortcoming of the JDCS is that it treats workers as passive recipients of social support from coworkers, when workers are active agents in their interactions with coworkers, and these interactions can influence other job characteristics besides social support alone. In fact, coworkers have their own job tasks to carry out, their own demands to meet and their own level of control to exert to meet these demands; interaction with one another may be necessary to carry out these tasks, not simply as a means to solicit or provide social support. These individuals are embedded in a larger social system, for example as a member of a work group or a work team. Within such a system, social processes are constantly at play as individuals interact with one another as active agents, all trying to carry out their individual and shared job tasks. Through these social interactions, the characteristics of a given job and the actions individuals take to exert control may influence not just the stress of the individual worker, but the stress of their coworkers in their work group. TEAM JOB DEMAND/CONTROL MODEL 6 Aspects of work organization may shape these social interactions. The design aspects of work organization that are directly relevant to social interactions between workers (such as the formation of work teams) will henceforth be referred to here as the “social organization of work”. If individual-level job characteristics influence stress for the individual worker, then the social organization of work forming these social systems can be expected to influence stress for all workers belonging to these systems. Research has yet to determine whether such system-level phenomena are relevant to the experience of job stress and how these relate to the JDCS model. The social system into which workers are placed may uniquely contribute to stress, and if it does the JDCS model could be modified to account for this. Modeling these key system design characteristics may provide a more complete understanding of worker stress, and this could lead to better ways of managing stress in the workplace. In order to account for the impact of the social organization of work on individual worker stress, one approach would be to add more dimensions to the existing individual-level JDCS model in the same manner that Social Support was added to the earlier version of this model. However, it would make more sense to model the effects of social organizational constructs at a more appropriate level of analysis; individual level characteristics should be added at the individual level of analysis while systems level characteristics should be added at the systems level of analysis. Therefore, a systems level model of job stress is in need of development. This would not require that the JDCS Model be abandoned. Instead, the JDCS Model may be able to be adapted to include predictors at both the system and individual levels. This multilevel approach investigated in the present study has the potential to better explain variance in worker stress by appropriately accounting for shared systems-level influences. TEAM JOB DEMAND/CONTROL MODEL 7 The main goal of the present research is to provide empirical support for an adapted JDCS Model in which group-level phenomena may also be understood in relation to demand, control and stress. This adapted model, which can be referred to as the Team Job Demand/Control Model, may help contribute to an understanding of an additional source of stress among workers functioning as a group, and identify new ways to help reduce stress among group members through improved job design. It will focus on within-group coordination as an example of a group-level phenomenon that may influence job stress. In order to experimentally control for the potential for unanticipated differences across organizational structures, the only type of group analyzed in the present study consist of 2-person work teams. The following sections of the introduction first describe the importance of coordination to job stress; then, describe the current importance of the social organization of work to the JD/C model through examination of the construct of social support; next, research on work groups that supports the existence of shared group-level influences on stress is reviewed; finally, a case is made as to why the existing JDCS Model and existing research analyzing work groups does not adequately capture the unique characteristics of team work that can impact worker stress, the main motivation for the current study.