In a study of the likely causes of retirement decisions, 197 older employees of a state government and their spouses were surveyed as they were getting ready to retire. Data also were collected from the employees' personnel records. Holding finances, gender, and health constant, a set of work characteristics (especially being tired of working) and a set of nonwork characteristics (personal characteristics and expected retirement activities) that were conceptualized as potentially inducing employees to retire each provided a unique contribution of about 10% of the variance to expected retirement age.

SummaryRelationships between role stressors (ambiguity, overload, and conflict), anxiety, commitment (affective and continuance), and turnover intention were examined. These variables were measured via a survey of 1396 nurses in a total of 15 hospitals in Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Three role stressors were expected to predict anxiety and indirectly predict intention to leave. Anxiety was expected to predict affective and continuance commitment, and anxiety, affective commitment, and continuance commitment were expected to predict intention to leave the hospital. Although mean score differences were expected across countries, direction of the relationships between variables were expected to be the same, which would indicate consistency regarding the implications of three role stressors across countries. AMOS's structural equations modeling program was used to test a multi-group manifest variable path analysis. Results yielded support for the proposed relationships (NFI ¼ 0.93; TLI ¼ 0.89). It was tentatively concluded that stress is a culture-general process.

Research on the potential ameliorating effects of social support on occupational stress produces weak, inconsistent, and even contradictory results. This study of 117 employees, mostly from a southern U.S. hospital supply company, examined potential moderators that were theorized might reduce the confusion: source congruence (congruence between sources of the stressor and of social support) and gender role. Congruence between the sources of stressors and of social support appeared to make little difference in determining the moderating or buffering effect of social support on the relationship between stressors and strain. Gender role, however, may moderate the relationship between social support and individual stains such that more feminine people react more strongly and positively to social support than more masculine people do.

No abstract

No abstract