Abstract

Since being introduced in 2000, the Job Demands and Resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2000) has been studied extensively in various Western countries. Although the JD-R proposition is not proscriptive about specific demands and resource variables, scholars have used common variables as demands (e.g. workloads, deadlines), and as resources (e.g. support). The question is whether the common variables in the JD-R model that had their origins in Western formulations are applicable in developing countries. In this paper, based on grounded theory, we conducted focus group interviews to investigate specific variables that may apply in Malaysian workplaces. Two focus group interviews (N=13) were conducted with two groups of respondents (managers and non-managers) who worked for private and public sector organizations. Data were analysed using a thematic content analysis strategy. The study found that new variables (e.g. organizational politics, bureaucratic factors) emerged as new demands not generally explored in JD-R research, whereas similar demands were identified at a job-task level (e.g. deadlines). Regarding resources these were mainly identified as in other Western research (e.g. support). Job challenge and exploring new things were identified as pleasurable aspects of work. This finding suggests that using qualitative methods is crucial to exploring the psychosocial concept of stress at work to uncover cultural differences that are apparent between Malaysian and Western employees . Keywords: Job demands, job resources, qualitative studies, job stress, JD-R.

Highlights

  • Job characteristics are considered to be important antecedents related to employees’ well-being and health (Van den Broeck, Van Ruysseveldt, Smulders & De Witte, 2010)

  • Employees may describe their work experiences and nature of job stress from their own perspectives (Kinman & Jones, 2005), at the first level of analysis, our focus group participants revealed that job demands were conceived among Malaysian employees as the were in the West

  • Our study found that deadlines, organizational politics and bureaucratic issues are typical job demands of the Malaysian workplace

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Job characteristics are considered to be important antecedents related to employees’ well-being and health (Van den Broeck, Van Ruysseveldt, Smulders & De Witte, 2010). While job control is regarded as job resource in most JD-R studies it is apparently not important in some cultures such as in China (see Nauta, Liu & Li, 2010), and certain aspects of job demands could be perceived differently for employees outside the Western context (Burke & El-Kot, 2010). Due to such inconsistencies, Duraisingam and Dollard (2005) for example, urged for the need to find out specific job demand and job resource variables for developing countries

Design
Participants
Procedure
Results and Discussion
Conclusion
Limitations
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call