Spurring Tensions at Work and the Moderating Role of Psychological Resilience

Abstract

Paradoxes are integral parts of our work lives. In this paper, we tested workplace triggers of four different categories of tensions: belonging, learning, organizing, and performing paradoxes, and we offered a theoretical framework on how these types of paradoxes negatively affect employees’ well-being by examining job stress. Further, we presented psychological resilience as a contingency variable that reduces the experience of job stress. We also developed and validated the organizing tensions instrument. We tested the theoretical model with three samples: Sample 1 (125 MBA students), Sample 2 (Time 1 with 520 Qualtrics Panel respondents), and Sample 3 (Time 2 with 136 Qualtrics Panel respondents). We found support for two triggers of tensions: a) perceptions of organization change to learning tensions, and b) plurality of stakeholders to performing tensions. Further, we found support for learning tensions as a mediator of the relationship between perception of organizational change and job stress when psychological resilience as a moderator is accounted for. Theoretically, we initiated a discussion of workplace triggers of paradoxes at the individual level of analysis, and how these triggers ultimately relate to well-being at work. Several practical implications are discussed.