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Job stress in a computer-integrated manufacturing environment: An empirical investigation
Abstract
Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is one of today's focal points of interest in the production literature. Despite CIM's promises of greater efficiency, its implementation has failed in many an organization. According to an industry survey, reasons for these failures can often be traced to human resource issues. Perhaps the stress imposed by a CIM environment is one such reason. Because CIM offers promising rewards in terms of productivity, it is important to study its effects on workers so that action can be taken to minimize resistance to its implementation. This empirical study examines the sources of stress created by a CIM environment and its effects on various segments of the workforce. Moreover, the study investigates the possible importance of the employees' control over their jobs as a potential moderator of stress reactions in a CIM environment. Three methods of data collection were used: self-report instruments, observations at the job level, and physiological traces. Test results did not indicate a difference in overall stress levels experienced by CIM and non-CIM employees. However, it appears that CIM results in a displacement of stress in that it reduces the magnitude of some sources of stress but it also creates or exacerbates others. Moreover, although CIM and non-CIM employees seem to have the same overall degree of control over their jobs, the work domains (e.g. policies and procedures, evaluation and compensation of work) over which control is exercised differ. Similar conclusions were reached for various groups within the CIM subsample. Finally, control was not found to act as a moderator in this study; lack of it merely constituted another source of stress. The findings of this study are important to both the practitioner and the researcher. For the practitioner, they suggest areas where efforts should be exerted to overcome the deleterious effects of stress. For the researcher, this empirical study represents a step forward in examining the global impact of CIM.
Subject Area
Management|Industrial engineering
Recommended Citation
Karuppan, Corinne Masson, "Job stress in a computer-integrated manufacturing environment: An empirical investigation" (1991). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9118459.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9118459