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Organizationally intended and unintended coping: The case of an incentive compensation plan
Author(s) -
George Jennifer M.,
Brief Arthur P.,
Webster Jane
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of occupational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0305-8107
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8325.1991.tb00554.x
Subject(s) - coping (psychology) , stressor , incentive , unintended consequences , psychology , contingency , social psychology , compensation (psychology) , business , applied psychology , public relations , political science , clinical psychology , economics , linguistics , philosophy , law , microeconomics
Coping typically is viewed in terms of its functionality for the individual engaging in it. We suggest that it also may be fruitful to consider coping from the perspective of the individual's employing organization. That is, from a managerial perspective, workers may cope with job stressors in intended or unintended ways. Among a sample of professional and managerial personnel of an insurance company, it was found that global evaluations of the job and evaluations of the specific stressor were associated with organizationally intended and unintended ways of coping with the stressor. More specifically, it was found that workers' overall job satisfaction and their evaluations of the controllability of the amount of incentive compensation received and the contingency between performance and incentive compensation were positively related to organizationally intended ways of coping with an incentive compensation plan and negatively related to organizationally unintended ways of coping. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.