Exploring Stress and Coping at Work : Critical Incidents among Women and Men in Equivalent Positions

The purpose of the study was to explore stress and coping among women and men working in similar positions and with equivalent jobs. Interviews, based on the Critical Incident Technique, were conducted with 40 employees in a Swedish telecom company. The following seven dimensions of stress were found: organizational change and downsizing, leadership, obstacles at work, achieving goals, workload, organizational structure, and work-family/leisure conflict. Organizational change and downsizing were the major sources of stress for both women and men irrespective of the organizational level. Some gender differences were found concerning the other stressors, e.g. female managers more frequently reported heavy workload and work-family/leisure conflict. The participants, both women and men, used a wide range of strategies, e.g. active strategies, seeking instrumental and emotional social support, acceptance, and resignation to cope with the demands at work. Managers mentioned active strategies more often than non-managers, while acceptance and resignation were more prevalent strategies among the non-managers. Men, unlike women, did not report using denial or seeking emotional support as coping strategies. The implications of the findings and their consequences for future studies in organizational contexts are discussed