How Managerial Job Demands Influence Employee Stress: An Interpersonal Perspective

Research has shown that compared to average workers, managers are more likely to experience stressful job demands. This phenomenon has become more prominent throughout the course of the COVID-19 crisis. I see this as an opportunity to examine a cross-level interplay between managers’ job demands and employee stress. Evidence suggests that at least half of the workplace stress can be attributed to interpersonal interactions. The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of how managers’ work stressors impact their tendency to expand or contract their relational network through relational job crafting (or modification in the frequency and quality of relationships for work-related purposes). Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach (i.e., quantitative and qualitative), the current study investigates how managerial job demands impact their interpersonal exchanges with others, which then inform employee stress. The multi-level quantitative inquiry (254 employees nested in 64 managers) found significant relationships between managers’ job demands and relational job crafting, which then leads to managers’ ability to be interpersonally fair. There was a significant relationship between managers’ implementation of interpersonal justice and employee stress. Further, both expansion and contraction-oriented relational job crafting significantly mediate the relationship between job demands and interpersonal justice. Managers’ relational job crafting was found to be a significant moderator to the relationship between employee perceptions of leader-member exchange and stress. Contrary to the theorized expectation, managers’ relational job crafting activities do not transform into employee stress through interpersonal justice. Nonetheless, the relationship between managers’ relational job crafting and employee stress was found to be significant. In the qualitative phase of the study, I conducted over thirty hours of interviews with 14 managers and 19 employees. The interview transcripts were analyzed thematically on (i) managerial, (ii) employee, and (iii) nested datasets, to account for within and between-level phenomena. The findings from the two studies converged to elucidate stress as a trickle-down phenomenon from managers to employees through interpersonal exchanges. The study contributes to our understanding of job design, justice, and stress scholarship, to understand the impact of managerial job demands on employee wellbeing. Theoretical, managerial, and policy implications are discussed in the final chapter of this dissertation.