International Journal of Human Resource

Management and Research (IJHRMR)

ISSN(P): 2249-6874; ISSN(E): 2249-7986
Vol. 4, Issue 3, Jun 2014, 69-76
© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

A STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL ROLE STRESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL

COMMITMENT AMONG THE FACULTY MEMBERS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
UNIVERSITIES

AFROZE NAZNEEN1 & PRETTY BHALLA2

1
Dar Al Uloom University, Al Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2
Innocent Hearts Group of Institutions, Jalandhar, Punjab, India

ABSTRACT

‘Strain’ is a dynamic condition in which an person is confronted with an opportunity, constraint, demand related
to what he or she needs and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important. (Pestonjee, 1992).
With the changing technologies and requirements level of stress have increased tremendously in public and private
universities, result of which is reducing commitment level. The present research was conducted on a sample of 220 faculty
members drawn randomly from different public and private universities with more than one year of experience in the same
department of university. The result shows that the faculty members of Private and Public universities are suffering with
organizational role stress and low level of organizational commitments, the dominant stressors are role erosion, inter role
distance, role isolation, self role distance, personal inadequacy and personal inadequacy

KEYWORDS: Tremendously in Public and Private Universities, Dominant Stressors, Erosion

INTRODUCTION
Organizational Role Stress

The 17th century has been called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, the 18th century the’ Age of Reason’ and the
19th Century ‘the Age of Progress’. The today world which is said to be a world of achievements is also the world of
pressure and anxiety. One finds pressure everywhere, whether it be family, a business organization/enterprise or any other
social or economic organization. The extent of strain, however, is a matter of degree. In India most of the public enterprises
are very pleasant whereas private enterprises have greater rasping and tension.

As a comprehensive definition, ‘strain’ is define as a dynamic condition in which an person is confronted with an
opportunity, constraint, demand related to what he or she needs and for which the outcome is perceived to be both
uncertain and important (Pestonjee, 1992).

The nature and consequences of the stress fact have been described by Pestonjee (1992) and he stated that there
are three important segments of life, in which stress originates:

Job and Organization Sector: This includes work surroundings and policies, task, responsibilities, control and
accountability, working hours and atmosphere, compensation and rewards, subordinates, colleagues and superiors, etc.

Social Sector: This includes Political and educational factors, religion, caste, language, civic amenities,
recreational avenues, health services and educational facilities, etc. and

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70 Afroze Nazneen & Pretty Bhalla

Intra-Psychic Sector: The main constituents are person-specific aspects like temperament, attitude, values,
believes, aspiration, desires health, and abilities.

Pareek (1983) pioneered research work on role pressure by identifying as many as 10 different types of
organizational role stresses. These are described here briefly:

Inter-Role Distance (IRD): When there is conflict between the organizational role and other roles, e.g., an
executive not being able to divide his time between work demands and family demands.

Role Stagnation (RS): When there are few opportunities for learning and growth in organization.

Role Expectations Conflict (REC): When there are contradictory demands made on the role by different citizens
in the organization.

Role Erosion (RE): When a human being feels that some important functions which are related to his work are
given to someone else to carryout he/she feels that the job which he is doing is not challenging. The pressure indicators
found to be related to role erosion are a feeling of worthlessness, low self-esteem, mood swing, low enthusiasm to work,
etc.

Role Overload (RO): When there is a feeling that too a great deal is expected from the job than what the
occupant can cope with.

Role Isolation (RI): When there is a need of suitable linkage of one’s role with the others’ role in the
organization .

Personal Inadequacy (PI): When there is a be short of information, skills or adequate preparation to be effective
in a particular role.

Self-Role Distance (SRD): When there is argument between one’s values and self-concepts with the supplies of
the organizational role.

Role Ambiguity (RA): When an person does not have a clear picture of work objectives, co-workers’
expectations and the scope and everyday jobs of his/her job. The pressure indicators found to relate to role ambiguity and
low mood, lowered self-esteem, low motivation to work and intention to leave the job.

Resource Inadequacy (RI): When there is non-availability of capital needed for effective role performance.

Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment has been clear more pragmatically by Porter (1968), who holds that it consists of (a) a
willingness of workers to exert high levels of attempt on behalf of the organization, (b) a strong need to remain in the
organization and (c) an getting of the organization’s major goals and values. Boles, et al. (2007), defined
“the organizational promise as the feeling towards organization and its values”. Similarly in same context between Porter
(1968) on classifying the organizational commitment with the Mayer and Allen (1991) organizational commitment replica
as it classify in terms of continuance, affective and normative commitment. There are two dominant conceptualizations of
organizational commitment in sociological literature. These are an employee’s loyalty towards the organization and an
employee’s intention to stay with the organization. Faithfulness is an affective reply to, and identification with, an
organization based on a sense of job and blame.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9135 Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

A Study of Organizational Role Stress and Organizational Commitment among the 71
Faculty Members of Public and Private Universities

Meyer and Allen (1987 & 1991) planned a three-dimensional attitudinal construct of organizational promise
namely, affective, normative, and continuance commitment. According to Allen and Meyer affective promise is an
individual’s emotional attachment to the organization. Normative commitment reflects individual’s sense of moral
obligation to remain with the organization. On the other hand, continuance commitment is based on the individual’s
recognition of costs associated with leaving the organization. Affective commitment is considered more effective measure
of managerial commitment since it indirectly influences the other two dimensions of organizational commitment
(Boles et al., 2007) and is more dependable with the conceptual and operational definition of attitudes
(Iverson and Buttigieg, 1999). It has been recognized from the researches that there is high correlation between affective
and normative commitment (Cohen, 1996; Meyer et al., 2002). Therefore, for this study we have listening carefully on this
aspect of commitment in Allen and Meyer’s three-dimensional commitment model.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Akbar & Akhter (2011) found high level of pressure among Management Faculty members of Pakistan
University. They also found that women faculty members had shown high level of pressure than their male counterparts.
Ahmady et al (2007) found high level of stress among medical school faculty members of Iran. Pestonjee & Mishra (1999)
examined role pressure and work satisfaction among low-ranking and senior doctors and found that job satisfaction
variables correlated negatively with all the dimensions of role stress. Singh (2007) studied the effect of stress on job
satisfaction and work values among female teachers of secondary education and found that stressed and displeased teachers
had less attachment and less dedication to their profession. Longford (1987) examined the relationship between stress and
job satisfaction among boarding academy teachers and found that stress was a significant determinant of teacher’s job
satisfaction.

Natrajan (2011) conducted a study on managers of Public sector organization and found positive correlation with
normative and affective commitment and extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction and negative correlation were found
between continuance promise and job satisfaction. Malik et al (2010) found high level of managerial commitment and job
satisfaction among faculty members of university of Pakistan. They also found a positive relationship between
organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Sharma & Bajpai (2010) conducted a study among the managers and
officials of Public and Private sectors and found that public sector managers and officials had shown high level of
organizational promise than private sector managers and officials.

METHODOLOGY
Sample
The present research was conducted on a sample consisted of 220 faculty members drawn randomly from
different public and private universities with more than one year of experience in the same department of university.
Faculty from Engineering and Management only were taken in to consideration.

Measures

Organizational Role Stress Scale (Pareek, 1981) consists of 50 items and measure 10 type of role stressors.
Each dimension of ORS is measured by five questions. The ORS scale has high reliability and validity, and detailed norms
have been worked out for different types of organizations.

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72 Afroze Nazneen & Pretty Bhalla

Organizational Commitment Scale: Meyer and Allen (1997) scale was used to measure organizational
commitment There are 18 items in the scale, 6 each for affective, continuance and normative commitment.
Reliability coefficient for them .79, .83 and .83 respectively.

Procedure

Both the measures were simultaneously administered on the selected respondents and they were asked to read the
instructions given in the questionnaires. No time limit was given to fill the questionnaires but it was expected that
respondents would fill the same within15-20 minutes.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Table 1: Showing Mean and SD on Various Dimensions of Organizational Role Stress and
Organizational Commitment
Mean Value
Mean Value
Private
S. No Parameters Public Universities S.D Value S.D. Value
Universities
(N-108)
(N-112)
1. Inter-Role Distance (IRD) 7.16 4.13 8.76 4.94
2. Role Stagnation (RS) 5.58 4.08 6.78 4.27
3. Role Expectation Conflict (REC) 6.93 3.00 8.32 3.12
4. Role Erosion (RE) 9.70 4.04 10.20 4.14
5. Role Overload (RO) 5.12 3.33 7.19 2.97
6. Role Isolation (RI) 6.90 4.10 7.10 4.12
7 Personal Inadequacy (PI) 6.36 3.99 7.92 3.68
8. Self Role Distance (SRD) 6.80 2.85 6.98 2.89
9 Role Ambiguity (RA) 4.51 3.04 7.37 3.13
10. Resource Inadequacy (RIN) 7.29 3.88 5.86 3.76
11. ORS Total 66.35 14.27 76.48 17.16
12. Normative 4.17 0.69 3.83 0.61
13 Affirmative 3.85 0.48 3.69 0.47
14. Continuance 3.57 0.63 3.16 0.51
15. Organizational Commitment 11.59 1.44 10.68 1.19

It is clear from Table 1 that faculty members of Public and Private Universities are showing moderately high level
of Organizational role stress. The faculty members of Private universities are showing comparatively high level of ORS
and the dominant stressors are role erosion,, role expectation conflict, inter role distance, personal inadequacy and role
isolation. While in the case of public universities faculty members the dominant stressors are role erosion, inter role
distance, role expectation conflict, role isolation and self role distance. The common stressors among both the faculty
members of Public and Private Universities are role erosion, role expectation conflict, role erosion and inter role distance.
It means both the faculty feels that some important task which they are suppose to perform is being carried out by some
one else means their duties and responsibilities are being eroded by some one else and the job they are doing are not
worthy which induces the feeling of worthlessness, low self esteem, mood swing and low motivation. Lets understand this
dominant stressor (role erosion) like generally it is happening in all the institutions that faculty members are not allowed to
finalize their internal marks, it is either being done by HODs are even the Head of the departments and faculty members
some time feel cheated because the internal marks given to the students are not matched with the expectation of the faculty
or are fabricated. The second common stressor is role expectation conflict means there are different demands made by
different people in the organization from the faculty members. It is seen in almost all the universities that faculty members

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9135 Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

A Study of Organizational Role Stress and Organizational Commitment among the 73
Faculty Members of Public and Private Universities

are asked to do lot many things other than academics which faculty members felt they are not suppose to do but were
forced by the top management to perform which led to stress among them. The third common stressor is inter role distance
means there is conflict between organizational role and other roles eg may be family role. Because of time constraint or
over demand by the organization faculty members are not able to give time to themselves and the family members which in
turn led to stress. The last common stressor is role isolation which means there is lack of appropriate linkage of one’s role
with other roles in the organization. Faculty members of Private universities are also showing high level of stress because
of personal inadequacy this may be because of lack of knowledge, skills or adequate preparation to be effective in the
organization.

Organizational commitment refers to a force that binds an individual to a course of action that is of relevance to a
particular target. Commitment could manifest in terms of three ways i.e. affective, normative and continuance and each
type of commitment ties the individual to the organization in the different ways and will affect the manner in which the
employee conduct himself in the workplace. (Meyer et al, 2002). It is clear from the above Table 1 that that the faculty
members of both public and private are showing low level of organizational commitment and all the three dimension of
organizational commitment are contributing. The dominant organizational commitment factor is normative.
Normative commitment refers to an employee’s feeling of obligation to remain with the organization based on the
employee having internalized the values and goals of the organization. The potential antecedents for normative
commitment include coworker commitment, organizational dependability and participatory management.
Co-workers’ commitment is expected to Provide normative signals that influence the development of normative
commitment. Organizational dependability and perceived participatory management are expected to instill a sense of moral
obligation to reciprocate to the organization but all these factors are missing in both kinds of universities. The second
dominant factor of organizational commitment in this study is affective commitment means the roots of affective
commitment can be traced to exchange principle. An organization provides rewards or punishment at its disposal in return
for the contribution employees makes or fails to make and employees shows commitment or lack of commitment in return
of these rewards and punishments( Meyer and Allen, 1991). If we look in the functioning of these universities there is
hardly any linkage between rewards and performance, the incentive programme is not based on the overall performance of
the universities and there are hardly very few universities which are recognizing the individuals for their performance.
The third dominant factor in continuance commitment. It is widely believed that anything that increase the cost associated
with leaving the organization can lead to the development of continuance commitment. Researches suggest there are eight
variables as determents of continuance commitment – self investment, general training, social support
(supervisory, co-workers, spouse, parents and friends) and opportunity (Meyer and Allen (1991). Here in universities the
faculty members hardly feels any of the above and hence least committed with their universities. It is the duty of the
universities to develop culture and climate keeping in mind the faculty growth and over all satisfaction by doing so they
can increase the commitment level which is very much required for the effective performance of the universities in this
very competitive environment.

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74 Afroze Nazneen & Pretty Bhalla

Table 2: Showing Critical Ration between Public and Private University Faculty
Mean Value Mean Value
S.D S.D. CR
S. No Parameters Public Univ. Private Univ.
Value Value Value
(N-108) (N-112)
1. Inter-Role Distance (IRD) 7.16 4.13 8.76 4.94 1.26
2. Role Stagnation (RS) 5.58 4.08 6.78 4.27 .94
3. Role Expectation Conflict (REC) 6.93 3.00 8.32 3.12 2.62*
4. Role Erosion (RE) 9.70 4.04 10.20 4.14 .69
5. Role Overload (RO) 5.12 3.33 7.19 2.97 1.89
6. Role Isolation (RI) 6.90 4.10 7.10 4.12 .27
7. Personal Inadequacy (PI) 6.36 3.99 7.92 3.68 1.13
8. Self Role Distance (SRD) 6.80 2.85 6.98 2.89 .36
9. Role Ambiguity (RA) 4.51 3.04 7.37 3.13 1.59
10. Resource Inadequacy (RIN) 7.29 3.88 5.86 3.76 .51
11. ORS Total 66.35 14.27 76.48 17.16 .83
12. Normative 4.17 0.69 3.83 0.61 3.09*
13. Affirmative 3.85 0.48 3.69 0.47 3.37*
14. Continuance 3.57 0.63 3.16 0.51 4.80*
15. Organizational Commitment 11.59 1.44 10.68 1.19 4.90*
*: . 01 level of significance

It is clear from Table 2 that significant difference was observed on Role Expectation Conflict of ORS and Faculty
members of Private universities are showing higher stress on REC parameter than their Public universities counterpart.
Significant differences were also observed on all the three dimension of organizational commitment and over all
organizational commitment. Faculty members of Public universities are showing high level of organizational commitment
than their Private university counterparts and we can attribute this to one of many factors i.e. comparatively high level of
organizational role stress than Public universities counterparts.

Table 3: Showing Correlation between Various Dimensions of ORS and OC

S.No ORS Affirmative Normative Continuance OC Total
1 Inter-Role Distance (IRD) 0.0198 0.28 0.14 -0.08
2 Role Stagnation (RS) -0.67* -0.39 -0.14 -0.59*
3 Role Expectation Conflict (REC) -0.36 -0.53* 0.035 -0.37
4 Role Erosion (RE) 0.15 -0.89* 0.023 0.47*
5 Role Overload (RO) -0.63* -0.05 -0.13 -0.55*
6 Role Isolation (RI) -0.014 -0.22 0.020 -0.083
7 Personal Inadequacy (PI) -0.48* -0.24 -0.079 -0.36
8 Self Role Distance (SRD) -0.36 0.02 -0.17 -0.24
9 Role Ambiguity (RA) -0.56* -0.35 -0.18 -0.49*
10 Resource Inadequacy (RIN) -0.30 -0.36 0.092 -0.25
11 ORS Total -0.43 -0.47* -0.06 -0.48*
* Significant at .01 level of significance.

It is clear from Table 2 that role stagnation, role overload, personal inadequacy, role ambiguity and total ors are
significantly negatively correlated with affirmative commitment, means if the above said dimensions of ORS will go up the
affirmative commitment level will go down and vice-versa. Role expectation conflict, role erosion and total ORS were
found to be negatively and significantly correlated with normative commitment. Surprisingly none of the ORS factors were
found to be correlated with continuance factor of commitment. If we look in to the table role stagnation, role erosion, role
overload, role ambiguity and total ORS were found to be significantly negatively correlated with organizational
commitment. Means if among the faculty members role stagnation, role erosion, role overload, role ambiguity will go up

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9135 Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

A Study of Organizational Role Stress and Organizational Commitment among the 75
Faculty Members of Public and Private Universities

the organizational commitment will go down. Hence the universities can think to increase the organizational commitment
beside other factors must also looks in to their stressors and remove them strategically.

CONCLUSIONS

It is observed from this study that the faculty members of Private and Public universities are suffering with
organizational role stress and low level of organizational commitments, the dominant stressors are role erosion, inter role
distance, role isolation, self role distance, personal inadequacy and personal inadequacy and if we look in to the
organizational commitment the dominant OC factor are normative and affective.

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Impact Factor (JCC): 4.9135 Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0