title: Stress Management at the Workplace: A Comparative Study between Chinese and German Companies
Creators: name: Li, Dong
Publisher: name: University of Bayreuth
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Sources of Stress
subject: Coping
subject: Job Satisfaction
subject: Health and Well-being
subject: Reliability
subject: Validity
subject: Cross-Cultural Equivalence
subject: 300
subject: 330
subject: 360
subject: 380

description: Although extensive scholarly and practical attention has been paid to workplace stress in cross-cultural settings over the past decades, the comparative studies on workplace stress management between Chinese and German companies remain elusive. To fill this research gap, a comparative study on stress management at the workplace between Chinese and German companies has been conducted in two culturally different countries: China and Germany. To obtain a relatively comprehensive and accurate comparison of stress management at the workplace between Chinese and German companies, four new scales, namely Sources of Work Stress Scale, Coping with Stress Scale, Health and Well-being Scale, and Job Satisfaction Scale, have been developed and validated by several empirical studies with German and Chinese samples. The softwares SPSS 22, Smart PLS 3 and Amos 22 were used to test the factor structure, reliability, validity and the cross-cultural equivalence for each scale. The aim of these important steps is to lay a solid foundation for the current comparative study and ensure the validity of the research results. After the reliability, validity and cross-cultural equivalence were all established by several pre-surveys with Chinese and German samples, the formal questionnaire surveys with four scales were conducted in Chinese and German companies. Participants could finish either the paper-and-pencil version or the online version of questionnaires. In China, participants were randomly chosen from a variety of industries in different cities. Correspondingly, German participants were randomly selected from various industries in different cities in Germany. The independent-samples t test and effect size statistics were conducted to identify whether there are some significant differences between Chinese and German employees’ sources of work stress, coping with stress at work, and the consequences of work stress, such as health and well-being, and job satisfaction. Results of hypotheses testing regarding Chinese and German employees’ sources of work stress indicate that all the hypotheses were supported except one hypothesis. Specifically speaking, compared with their German counterparts, Chinese employees reported significantly more stress caused by workload, competition and comparison, role uncertainty, lack of control, pay and career prospects, lack of competency, relationships at work, and boredom at work. However, Chinese employees did not report significantly more stress caused by work-life balance compared with German employees. Results of hypotheses testing regarding Chinese and German employees’ coping with stress indicate that Chinese employees use positive thinking and self-blame as ways to deal with stress more often compared with their German counterparts. German employees use physical exercises, leisure and relaxation, and problem-solving coping as ways to deal with stress more often than their Chinese counterparts. Results of hypotheses testing show that German employees use religious coping as a way to deal with stress not significantly more often than Chinese employees. However, German employees use acceptance as a way to deal with stress more often rather than less often compared with their Chinese counterparts. Results of hypotheses testing regarding Chinese and German employees’ job satisfaction indicate that German employees reported significantly higher level of job satisfaction than their Chinese counterparts. Results of hypotheses testing regarding Chinese and German employees’ physical health and psychological well-being find that there is no significant difference between Chinese employees and German employees in physical health and there is also no significant difference between Chinese employees and German employees in psychological well-being. The correlation analyses were also conducted in both samples to observe the relationship between health and well-being and job satisfaction as well as the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. Results of hypotheses testing find that the problems of physical health and the problems of psychological well-being are both negatively related to the level of job satisfaction in German samples. In Chinese samples, the problems of physical health are not significantly related to job satisfaction, only the problems of psychological well-being are negatively related to the level of job satisfaction. Results of hypotheses testing indicate that the job satisfaction is negatively related to turnover intention in both samples. Employees who report higher levels of job satisfaction will report lower intention to quit.