Effect of stress on sales person performance

By Khan, Noheed,Riaz, Muhammad Hanan,Khattak, Arif Published on AllBusiness.com inShare Share HEADNOTE Abstract We examined the relationships between sale employees' felt job stress, organization commitment, job experience, and performance. Our results are reliable with the consideration view of stress. Employees with higher levels of emotional commitment and higher levels of job experience channeled felt stress more effectively into sales performance. Felt stress had neutral to negative effects on performance for employees with lower levels of commitment and job experience. Commitment, like stress, was more strongly related to performance when employees had more job experience. The results suggest that consideration of moderators of the stress-performance relationships important both theoretically and practically. Keywords: Stress, Commitment, Job experience, Performance Introduction Stress at work place is a critical problem for employer employee and society. Problem at work are more strongly inter link with health complaints than are any other life stressor more so than even financial problems. Stress on individual generate strain on organization as whole and organization experiences stress as funding change s loss of programming, down sizing ,mergers, and mostly strain individual coping skill. The national institute for health occupational safety and health (NIOSH) define job stress as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when requirement of job do not mach the capabilities, resources or need of worker. Katz and Kahn, 1966 and House and Litzman, 1970, represent stress theory when employees experience role of ambiguity and role of conflict are also refer to stressor. Ads by Google

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Changes place worker unfamiliar job cause previously loyal worker to question their commitment to their employer and challenges worker to perform under stress. (Hunter,Bernhardt,Hughes,& Skurtowicz,2001 :Korczynski & Ott,2005Most research suggest that role ambiguity is needed negatively correlated with job satisfaction, job involvement performance tension propensity to leave the job and job performance variables.

The multidimensional approaches to the study of role ambiguity began with Bedeian and Armenakis (1981) and have continued with Sawyer (1992) and Singh, Verbeke, and Rhoads (1996). Based on their findings and the foundation provided by these works there are four (4) widely accepted dimensions to role ambiguity, which may be experienced by the role incumbents, and are based on the role incumbent's perspective. Literature review Today's Pakistani economy is facing a new challenges in marketing due to this global changes in big world managerial level employees is taking a competitive disadvantage but sales person employees is facing a stress. A theory of organizational role stress recommended that role stress may be dependent upon organizational structure and culture,(Schuler 1977). Organization culture is collected of values ,as well as sample of behavior, attitudes, supposition and artifact (Jackson, Schlacter, and Wolf, 1995) Shared ethic between the sales force and organization give a out line or view of system for decision making and present a central theme to direct sales person ,behavior (Jackson,schlacter,and wolf 1995) A study shown that sales people with low level shared ethic with their group may experience high level of tension and job nervousness (Posner, Kouzes, and Schmidt 1985). Main causes of organization stress are role of ambiguity, and role of conflict, between the most common researched construct in organizational behavior (Boles and Bab in 1994: Sullivan and Bhagat 1992) and managing of sales force (Leigh, Pullin, and Comer 2001) Role of ambiguity show when emploees are ambiguous about their duties and proceeding required their jobs (Wallker, Chrchill, and Foed 1975) most important to feeling of attention (Onyemah 2008). Role of conflict show when emploees distinguish that group opportunities and demands are mismatched and can not be all together satisfied (Walker, Churchill and Ford 1975). It is occurs, for example when sales people suppose that their managers s hope and demand are not well- matched with their custumer hope and demands (Onyemah 2008) One of study shown the stress negative influence an employee job satisfaction (e.g, Jaramillo and Solomn 2006).Extending of past research found the relationship between role conflict, ambiguity, and work family conflict with fact of job satisfaction related to gender .They establish that gender of the sales persons does effect the relationship of role conflict, role of ambiguity, and work family conflict on few of facets of job satisfaction. (Boles, Wood, and Johnson, 2003) For example, as role ambiguity and role conflict harmfully affect satisfaction with recompense for male sales persons, female sales person's satisfaction with pay not unfair by the role of ambiguity and role conflict. They also established work family conflict does not affect the male sales peoples satisfaction with coworkers, even it has negative relationship for female sales persons also while work family conflict is negative relationship with satisfaction with promotion and organization policy for male and female sales persons, no important relationship and was established for their female counterpart (Boles, Wood, and Johnson, 2003).

Main Effect of stress Commonly, stress refers to an emotional experience related with anxiety, tension, and strain (cf. Cooke & Rousseau, 1984). A Study on stress features a mixture of approaches to its conceptualization, its background, and its belongings. Stressors can be understood as "stimuli that evoke the stress process" (LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005: 764). Workers subject to alike stressors may vary in the coverage to which they feel nervousness or tension as a result of personal experiences or accomplishments in their work setting (Parker & De-Cotiis, 1983). ). These types of feelings can be described as "strain" (Van Dyne, Jehn, & Cummings2002) or as "felt job stress" (Motowidlo, Packard, &Manning, 1986; Parker & DeCotiis, 1983). FeIt job stress refers to logic of time pressure, anxiety, and concern that is related with job tasks. The mere occurrence of stressors does not automatically lead to such felt stress. Individuals may suffer stressors or scatter their effects either cognitively or behaviorally, and thus felt job stress can be familiar both from stressors and from physiological symptoms. The attention theory of stress suggests that there should be a positive association between felt job stress and job performance. Extensive experimental research supports Easterbrook's (1959) argument that although stress depletes an individual's resources, it paradoxically has the effect of concentrating remaining resources on the task at hand (Huguet, Galvaing, Monteil, & Dumas, 1999). Yet workplace-based evidence for a relationship between felt job stress and job performance is weak and conflicting (Beehr, 1995; Jex, 1998).In this section result of insufficient notice to the Sources of stress. LePine and his colleagues (2005) showed during meta-analysis that stressors that are hindrance-oriented (e.g., organizational politics, red tape, role ambiguity) are negatively related to job performance, but challenge-oriented stressors (e.g., high workload, time pressure, job scope). Encourage workers and can be positively associated to job performance even as they suggest other strains such as exhaustion and tiredness. There are likely to be restrictions to the range, even in reaction to challenges, within which improved stress results in the fruitful redirection of attention. Researchers have long recommended such limits: Yerkes and Dodson (1908) hypothesized an inverted U-shaped association between stresses and performance. Lepine et al. (2005) argued that countervailing negative sound effects of strains can accompany positive effects of felt stress consequential from challenges to achieve, even when hindrance stressors are not present. As persons devote growing awareness to symptoms of stress such as exhaustion, they may become less able to give the focused awareness to the task at hand that, attention theory suggests, will drive performance. The reason of the consideration approach implies not presently limits to the stress-performance association, but possible moderators of that association. Attention theory distinguishes between jobs or task attributes that are to be responded to and attributes that are to be unnoticed. Individuals who feel stress organize their attention differentially, so that performance on attributes of the extent requiring an answer may increase even as responses to ignorable scope diminish sharply (Matthews & Margetts, 1991). The attention approach is complete significant when an assigned task has a high priority for an individual and when the task is familiar to the individual (Easterbrook, 1959; Matthews & Margetts, 199 ^Organizational settening commitments and job experience are possible to moderate the stress performance relationship. Commitments (which leads individuals to struggle toward organizational goals) and

experiences (which breeds task knowledge) each should guide individuals to focus more significantly on job performance under stress. We therefore turn next to discussions of these possible moderators and associated hypotheses concerning their effects on performance. Commitment as a Moderator of the Stress-Performance Relationship Commitment has been studied broadly and has been theoretically linked to work outcomes such as job performance and absenteeism. At least six meta-analyses address the relationship between Commitment and performance (Cohen, 1991; Jaramillo, Mulki, & Marshall, 2005; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Randall, 1990; Riketta, 2002; Wright & Bonett, 2002). Regardless of extensive research and strong theoretical reasons to expect that individuals with higher levels of organizational commitment will achieve better, verification of this relationship is, surprisingly, mixed (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982; Wright & Bonett, 2002). Refinement the commitments build helps to determine some of the incompatible results. For example, many studies of the commitmentperformance association have used a commitment construct that encompasses both affective and calculative magnitude (Siders, George, & Dharwadkar, 2001). Studies straightening out these two magnitude specify that job performance should be unfair more heavily by affective commitment, "the relation strength of an individual's recognition with and involvement in a particular organization" (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982: 27) than by calculative commitment, which encompasses investments in continued employment and tends to control turnover (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). Subsequent this logic, we focus on affective commitment, which has been shown to be absolutely related to organizationally satisfied job performance (Siders et al., 2001). Jex (1998), in work for more research on element that affect the stress-performance association, stable specifically to organizational commitment as a possible moderator of this relationship. The attention approach necessities the rationale for such an effect: according to attention theory, performance will be unfair by the extent to which workers under stress recognize key work tasks as attributes of a job that merit the expenditure of limited resources, relatively than as distractions to be ignored. Commitment influences job performance during recognition and internalization. Affectively devoted individuals classify with an organization and so adopt attitudes and behaviors allowed by the organization in order to demonstrate a satisfying, selfdefining association with it (Becker, Billings, Eveleth, & Gilbert, 1996). Further, they feebly accept the values and goals of the organization and exert effort toward these goals (Mayer & Schoorman, 1992; Porter et al., 1974). Workers who are highly dedicated to their organization are consequently more likely, when under stress, to direct their difficult task toward important work tasks and to reduce resources devoted to other activities. Employees with low commitment, in contrast, may respond to felt stress by ignoring work tasks and with holding effort (Jamal, 1984, 1985). Several studies have provided indirect support for the idea that commitment influences the direction of attention under stress. Begley and Czajka (1993) showed that stress had negative effects on job

satisfaction and a merged measure of job "displeasure" only when employees also had low organizational commitment. Similarly, Siu and Cooper (1998) establish that commitment moderated the effect of felt job stress on job satisfaction as well as on self-reported psychological suffering, such asstrain. And Jamal (1985).Previous reseches show the negative relationship between felt stress and supervisor assed job performance for individual with low commitments: Did not test with high commitment but he did not formerly test between two groups. No past researches have specially tested the effect of the stress-commitment interaction on job performance.

Job Experience as a Moderator of the Stress-Performance Relationship

Human capital theory (Becker, 1962) suggests that more experienced employees recognize better than employees new to a job, because they accrue skills in the job. Tenure in a job is positively connected with performance because "experience provides the medium for learning" (Schmidt, Hunter, & Outerbridge, 1986: 167). Schmidt and Hunter (2004) reviewed the general facts in support of the link connecting experience and performance. Experience has a bigger contact on performance when workers have relatively low tenure and still understand their jobs; the positive relationship between experience and performance typically declines as workers gain experience (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004) The observe view suggests that experience and stress are likely to influence job performance jointly. Experience facilitate the cognitive simplification of job related routines and behaviors (Earley, Lee, & Hanson, 1990),Baron (1986) established that felt stress is more likely to facilitate aspects of performance that have been well learned, because individuals under stress are more likely to direct their notice to tasks that they understand. Usually, because job experience is linked with learning and increased capability, experienced employees under stress are more likely than inexperienced Employees to direct their attention to tasks that are middle to their job. Van Dyne and her colleagues (2002), for example, establish that hair stylists performed better under high job stress, theorize that the stylists focused on habitual actions. Van Dyne et al. did not, however, analyze the extent to which job experience moderated the stress-performance association, and the mean tenure of the workers they studied was quite high (six years). The attention view recognizes that less experienced employees could be less successful under stress. As Jex (1998) noted, less experienced employees are less able to direct their limited resources toward job tasks. Until employees have accumulated enough experience to understand how to do their jobs, stress may be negatively associated with performance. As competence grows with experience, the negative effects of felt stress on performance should diminish. Most of research examining the effects of experience has used job and organizational experience interchangeably, these two types s of experience have differing theoretical implications with respect to our variables of interest and are thus not simple proxies for one another.

In difference to the limited empirical research into moderators of the effects of stress on workplace performance, the theoretical and empirical literature on the commitment-performance relationship and its moderators, including experience (Wright & Bonett, 2002), is general here we quit briefly from our focus on attention theory and felt stress to think the contact between job experience and commitment, for two reasons. First, even after many studies and several metaanalyses, evidence on the interactive effects of job experience and commitment on performance remains mixed Our study sheds additional light on the argument. Second, we will return to attention theory in considering a three-way interaction between stress, commitment, and experience, and it is essential to include all lower terms (two-way interactions as well as main effects) in modeling such interactions (Aiken & West, 1991). Cohen (1991) theorized that the buildup of skills through experience positively moderates the effects of commitment on performance, screening that the commitment-performance relationship was stronger in late career than in mid career. Cohen's meta-analysis did not differentiate affective commitment from other forms of commitment, but that of Riketta (2002) specifically studied moderators of the relationship between affective commitment and job performance and, in contrast to Cohen's, recognized no moderating effects of tenure. Wright and Bonnet's (2002) meta-analysis, in contrast to both Ricotta' s and Cohen's results, uncovered important, negative moderating effects of experience on the commitment-performance relationship. Per the logic of attention theory, higher job performance under stress results when individuals direct limited resources to tasks that are essential to job performance and ignore tasks that are not central to performing well on the job. After the assessment of literature review present study has some questions for solve of those question we developed four hypotheses. Hypothesis Hypothesis 1. High organizational commitment moderates the relationship between felt stress and job performance. Stress is positively associated with performance when commitment is relatively high and negatively associated with performance when commitment isrelatively low. Hypothesis 2. Job experience moderates the relationship between felt stress and job performance. Stress is positively associated with performance when job experience is relatively high and negatively associated with performance when job experience is relatively low. Hypothesis 3. Job experience moderates the relationship between affective organizational commitment and job performance. The positive relationship between commitment and performance is of the greatest magnitude when job experience is high Hypothesis 4.

Job experience moderates the relationship between felt job stresses, high commitment, and job performance. The (expected) positive interaction between stress and commitment is of the greatest magnitude when job experience is high. Research Methodology We used qualitative technique for analysis of hypothesis. Quantitative and qualitative research methods can be distinguished. According to Merriam (1998) Quality or quantity methods researchers can control. Yin. (2003) both quantitative methods or statistics and numerical data based on where most results are truly felt as hard scientific data, distinguishes deal with research. quality social sciences where Jesus idea, and human behavior as in research with soft data is about. The goal was not discover the relationship between stress and performances also check the commitment of sales person employees.. For this purpose consequently individual semi structured interviews was chosen. The interview was conducted of all through face to face in the three manufacturing industries in Faisalabad. Interviews were conducted with in detail and outline the issues on the basis of fifteen questions were put through a comprehensive review of the literature, the interview questions that focus on three main areas: 1) Stress, (2) Performance (3) Commitment, job exper Discussion and Practical Application Hypothesis 1. The sale employee's behaviors show that 80% of sale employees feel organizational commitment create stress. This stress effect the sales person performance. Other 20% sales person's sales employees do not agree those employees' s behavior. Sale person employees show behavior when employees have high loyalty within organization then they feel high stress.When employees have low loyalty within organization then they feel low stress. This stress always affect the performance. When employees show high loyalty within organization then they do hard work for organization. Basically they feel we are more loyal then other. When sales employees feel stress because they frustrated. When sales employees feel low loyalty within organization then balance their work. When they do not feel stress. Hypothesis 2. The result indicate the sale employees behavior 70% are behave job experience create a stress .This stress effect the sale person employees. Other 30% employees do not agree those employees behavior. Sale person employees show that high job experience employees feel high stress and low job experience employees have high performance with low stress. The reason shows employees that high experience sale employees having high salary. He can not get this salary to other organization easily due to this he feels stress. When employees have low job experience then they feel stress because they can not get same job to other employer due to low experience. Due to this fear they feel stress. Hypothesis 3.

Sale employees show their behaviors: job experience effect the employee's commitment within organization and due to commitment effect the employee performance. Other they do not agree this behavior. When employees have more experience then show high commitment within organization. This high commitment improves the employee's performance. Commitment and job experience have positive relationship. Hypothesis 4. The result indicates, job experience effects the high commitment and stress, and 70% employees act their behavior. When employee feel high job experience then he shows high commitment within the organization.Due to high commitment he can not balance at work then he feels stress. When employees have low job experience then they show low commitment within organization because they can do balace at work due to this they can perform better as compared to other. Conclusion This study examines the relationship between the stress and performance and also checks the moderating effect on both. Organizational commitment creates stress due to stress effect the sales person performance. When sales employees show high commitment then they feel more stress. Result also indicate high job create high stress. Job experience effect the employee's commitment. High job experience employees have high commitment within the organization and low job experience employees have low commitments. Job experience effect the organizational commitment and job performance.