International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences
© 2015 Available online at www.irjabs.com
ISSN 2251-838X / Vol, 9 (4): 529-532
Science Explorer Publications
On the bond between the degree of job stress of
staff and increasing efficiency in organization (case
study: Tax Administration of West Azarbaijan)
Kobra Eisaloo, Masoud Ghahremani
Department of Public Administration, Mahabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahabad, Iran
Corresponding Author email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT: The concept of stress and its impacts on organizations has been a controversial issue
of managing organizational behavior where the mental pressure declines the amount of activities in
organization. Considering occupational contexts and staff working conditions are the terms that give
rise the quality of job and maintain healthy status of staff and are regarded because of more duration
of occupational history. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between the
degree of job stress of staff and increasing efficiency in organization (case study: Tax Administration
of West Azarbaijan). The results f the study indicated that there was a relationship between job
stress of staff and increasing efficiency in organization.
Keywords: job stress, psychological stress, increasing efficiency
INTRODUCTION
The rise and fall of nations can be determined through highlighting their efficiency throughout the
history. Capabilities, economical power and welfare of any country are defined by optimum use of facilities,
resources and human resources. In so doing, the increase of qualified and more proficient work force leads to
progression and success of that domain in different economic and social fields. It is worth noting that the
efficiency of work force does not necessarily imply intensified working or lowered job opportunities for others.
Experience has shown that when staff is well aware of the aim of accomplishing specific task in organization,
they will be facing more of efficiency. Also, the countries with higher rates of efficiency enjoy higher levels of life
(Morhed, Grifin, 2003).
One of the concerns of the few past decades is pertinent to stress, the industrialization of the globe has
led to giving rise to importance of this phenomena which affects the staff extensively (Keldin, 2008).
Review of literature
Stress. Stress is defined as a condition in which the individual is forced to accomplish a task. This is
the case when the individual fails to tolerate the psychological pressures and gets stressed. In more scientific
terms, stress means re-adoption of individual to new conditions and circumstances. Whenever there is a
change in life, stress manifests itself. Fear of fail to overcome the existing situation gives rise to the degree of
anxiousness and concern within the spirit of humankind. It in general, anxiousness and concern are said to be
unsatisfactory status of concerns and doubtfulness which destabilize the psychological balance of individual.
Stress can be formed based on the capacity and tolerance of people throughout the life (Chu, 2006).
Job stress. It is suggested for people to have exposure to tension and psychological pressures in an
attempt to make optimum tasks. Adrenaline is inevitable in this regard; however, the excess of tension is taken
into account as another issue. Utmost pressure signs of job include tiredness, insomnia, blood pressure,
headache, wound, frowning, fail to focus and anorexia (Nejad, 2007).
Involving the individual in a task which is not compatible with his capabilities and information can cause
stress. Generally speaking, job stress is a type of stress which has to do with job context or the factors related
to the work place. Change in tasks such as new technology or change in goals can be regarded as the stress
inducing factors. Organizational stress is liable to be determined by aversion to work and job quality scales
(Estora, 1998).
The impacts of stress on job context. Stress has a number of impacts on organizations and people.
The organizational stress effects have to do with the increase of aversion to work, early displacement of staff,
Intl. Res. J. Appl. Basic. Sci. Vol., 9 (4), 529-532, 2015
inappropriate negotiation with clients, decline in job security, lack of healthy conditions in work context, weak
controlling and monitoring of qualities and etc.
The skills of managing stress in organizations (staff stress and training health)
This section covers several overlapped issues when it comes to determining management plans which
emphasizes the individual skills leading to the decline of negative impact of stress. The main concern of this
plan is to assist people to identify their share and role in managing stress, taking the responsibility of emotions
as well as health and learning management techniques of stress.
Staff stress and training health involve the following sections:
The main response of stress and its performance role
Physical, behavioral and psychological effects of stress
Individual differences in experiencing stress
Physical health and managing stress
Techniques of managing stress to improvement
Staff stress and training health
Training health to staff in all levels is appropriate when It comes to getting more knowledge in the field
and learning new techniques to overcome the stress and its repercussions (Najafi, 2007).
Organizational cultures and staff stress
Everybody experiences a huge number of stresses throughout the life. Severe stresses of the ones to
be control in negative manner can make people anxious, endanger the health and lessen the efficiency. In case
one is capable of controlling the stress in an optimum fashion, motivation is the result. Well controlled
pressures can strengthen people and improve the performance since a little degree of stress is required
nowadays. In addition, the term does not have to do with impeding the stress and its management in line with
individuals or staff; rather it is concerned with the role of organization, leadership and management in
controlling and monitoring the staff stress although they can be taken into account in relation to organization
staff (Keshavarz, 2001).
Factors of job stress
The factors that induce job stress in job context fall into three main categories:
Individual factors: such as opposition in role, ambiguity in role, opposition in individual goals, unexpected
individual and economic events
Organizational factors: Organizational structure, Organizational processes, Organizational policies,
communicative factors, occupational necessities, physical condition of organization and organization lasting
levels
Environmental factors: economic, political and technology –based factors
Based on one school of thought, difference in individual characteristics such as personality and the style of
individual adaptability are regarded as important factors affecting the stress. In other words, it is feasible for an
element to be stressful for one and is stress free for another person. Such a view has involved impeding
strategies which his defined as the focus on staff and solution to assist them in adapting themselves with
different job contexts (Fontaine & Chong, 2003).
Efficiency. Efficiency is defined as the optimum usage of any producing factors. It is regarded as a thoughtbased attitude aiming to improve whatever exists. It is based on the belief that people are able to make better
of their tasks and it means the extent to which people can produce optimum values of their capital. In case one
produces more goods with constant or less resources, it is possible to say that the efficiency is increased. What
is meant by resource is the physical and human resources such as goods producers or service providers as
well as the capitals they can produce or the services they can provide in this regard. The employed resources
are land, building, equipment, fixed and mobile machinery, raw materials and other existing capitals (Elvani,
2006).
Keys to improve efficiency
Compare your knowledge of keys to improve efficiency with what already exists
Consider the group processes in improving the efficiency
Consider the possibility of employing new methods of efficiency
Develop plans of improving efficiency
Improving efficiency is accomplished where the task is performed.
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Intl. Res. J. Appl. Basic. Sci. Vol., 9 (4), 529-532, 2015
Related studies
Norzad investigated the relationship between spiritual intelligence and religious impeding methods of
university students in the year 2013. The results of the study indicated that there was a positive relationship
between spiritual intelligence and religious impeding and one of its methods to be said trust. This means that
students with higher levels of spiritual intelligence make use of trust to God when experiencing unsatisfactory
events. In other words, these people trust the God when confronting uneven events and employ I to reduce and
remove the stress and anxiety.
Parsa (2011) carried out a study to explore the possible correlation between responding with job
satisfaction and job stress of senior high school teachers. It was found in this study that there was a
relationship between responding with job satisfaction and job stress. It was reported through correlation
analysis that there was a strong correlation between job satisfaction and responding.
The investigation of relationship between leadership style and organizational commitment with stress
impact was done by Katlin Dl (2008). It was concluded that there was no relationship between stress and
commitment and stress was considered as the intermediate factor.
Ekper and Vin (2008) drew their attention to make analysis on the job context stress effect on job
satisfaction and organizational efficiency in Nigeria and concluded that there was a significant relationship
between organizational ethics, organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
Chang (2006) conducted a study to investigate the relationship between job stress of nurses and their
level of commitment in Taiwan hospitals. They highlighted that stress had an impact on organizational
commitment affecting the quality of individual behavior in organization.
Design Of The Study
The statistical population comprises of all staff working at Tax Administration of West Azarbaijan who
follow their goals in two different sections categorized by tax-based staff and official-staff. The study made use
of stratified random sampling method. The sample size was 173 and questionnaires were distributed among
the same number of participants, the study is applied and descriptive. Also, the study follows a correlation
design in relation to two variables since the aim is to investigate the relationship between the level of staff job
stress and their efficiency.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
There is a relationship between staff job stress and their efficiency increase in Tax Administration of
West Azarbaijan
In order to determine the type of test, the normal status of variables is evaluated using Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test
Table 1. The results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for variable
Description of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
Level
of
number
significance
0.551
173
statistic
0.796
Efficiency increase
As the above table shows, the level of significance of K-S test is 0.551, so one can conclude that the
results of this method confirm the normal status of data relevant to the variable. According to the results of K-S
test, Pearson correlation coefficient is employed.
Table 2. The relationship between the degree of staff job stress and efficiency increase
degree of staff job stress
Person correlation coefficient
Level of significance
frequency
Efficiency increase
0.451
0.000
173
According to table 1 and the obtained analysis, the level of significance is less than 0.05, so null
hypothesis is rejected. That is to say that there is a relationship between staff job stress and their efficiency
increase in Tax Administration of West Azarbaijan. Since the Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.451, one can
assert that there is a positive and strong correlation between the two variables. This indicates that some levels
of stress can improve the performance. In case there context is stress free, the staff feel exhausted. In contrast,
when the stress increases, the performance improves and staff admits higher levels of mental preparedness
when confronting with challenges.
There is a relationship between staff personality and their efficiency increase in Tax Administration of
West Azarbaijan
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Intl. Res. J. Appl. Basic. Sci. Vol., 9 (4), 529-532, 2015
In order to determine the type of test, the normal status of variables is evaluated using Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test
Table 2. The results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for staff personality variable
Description of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
Level of
number
significance
0.129
173
statistic
staff personality
1.171
As the above table shows, the level of significance of K-S test is 0.129, so one can conclude that the results of
this method confirm the normal status of data relevant to the variable. According to the results of K-S test,
Pearson correlation coefficient is employed.
Table 4. The relationship between staff personality and efficiency increase
degree of staff job stress
Person correlation coefficient
Level of significance
frequency
Efficiency increase
-0.113
0.139
173
According to table 4 and the obtained analysis, the level of significance is greater than 0.05, so null
hypothesis is accepted. That is to say that there is no relationship between staff personality and their efficiency
increase in Tax Administration of West Azarbaijan. This result is confirmative in that people are different in
terms of personality and bring them to the assumed organization. The personality of staff can be taken into
account as a source to develop, growth. Creativity and progression or vice versa i.e. the source of
contradiction, failure and other inevitable problems in organization. Hence, it is not feasible to conclude that
staff personality increases the efficiency in organization.
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