STRESS MEDICINE, VOL.

14: 5566 (1998)

A STUDY OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS, JOB

SATISFACTION AND QUITTING INTENTION IN
HONG KONG FIRMS: THE ROLE OF LOCUS
OF CONTROL AND ORGANIZATIONAL
COMMITMENT
OI-LING SIU1* , BEd, AdvDipEd, MPhil AND CARY L. COOPER2, BS MBA, PhD, FBPsS, FRSA
1

Department of Politics & Sociology, Lingnan College, Hong Kong,

2
Manchester School of Management, UMIST, Manchester, UK

SUMMARY
The authors investigated the direct and moderating eects of locus of control and organizational commitment on the
relationship of sources of stress with psychological distress, job satisfaction and quitting intention of 122 employees
(66 males, 54 females, two unclassied) working in Hong Kong rms. The instruments included parts of Occupational
Stress Indicator-2 measuring sources of stress and job satisfaction, Work Locus of Control and the nine-item
Organizational Commitment Questionnaire. In addition, 10 items measuring psychological distress and two items
measuring quitting intention were constructed by the rst author. A series of validation procedures were conducted,
and the authors concluded that the instruments used were valid to be used on Chinese employees in Hong Kong. The
results of the study suggested that locus of control and organizational commitment had strong direct eects (externals
were dissatised with the job itself and thought of quitting the job quite often; employees who had a high
commitment had higher job satisfaction) and moderating eects (the stressorstrain relationships were signicant in
externals, and commitment buered most of the stressorstrain relationships). # 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stress Med., 14: 5566, 1998.
KEY WORDS occupational stress; job satisfaction; psychological distress; quitting intention; locus of control;
organizational commitment

Job stress is dened as the mindbody arousal

resulting from physical and/or psychological
demands associated with a job. It may lead to
enhanced performance up to an optimum level of
stress (called eustress); conversely, it may place an
employee at risk of distress if the job is too intense,
frequent or chronic.1 In the 1990s, the health
of workers has become a source of concern to
employers and government agencies in the US and
the UK, since there has been an increase in
spending on health care. It has been estimated that
12 per cent of the US's GNP and 10 per cent of the
UK's GNP is lost due to stress-related absenteeism
and turnover.2,3 We admit that developing
such estimates is very problematic. Yet, there is
* Correspondence to: Oi-ling Siu, Department of Politics &
Sociology, Lingnan College, Fu Tei, Tuen Mun, N.T., Hong
Kong. Tel: 852-26167170. Fax: 852-28917940.

CCC 07488386/98/01005512$17.50
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

convincing evidence demonstrating that job strain,

an adverse consequence of job stress, may be
costly to organizations and may take one of three
individual forms: psychological, medical or
behavioural.2 Common forms of psychological
distress are depression, job burnout, anger and
sleep disturbances. Common forms of medical
distress are backaches and headaches, ulcer disease
and cardiovascular problems. Common forms of
behavioural distress are substance abuse, violence
and accident proneness.2
Organizational costs may accrue from employees'
psychological, medical and behavioural distress.
The direct organizational costs of job strain take
the form of turnover, absenteeism and performance problems on the job. The indirect organizational costs of job strain may be reected in low
morale, low job satisfaction and distrust in working
relationships. In addition, `presenteeism' is another
Received 15 May 1997
Accepted 7 July 1997

56

O. L. SIU AND C. L. COOPER

stress-related cost for organizations. `Presenteeism'

means people who suer stress from their jobs so
that they can contribute little to their work. In such
cases, additional labour or materials are required
to compensate for their poor performance. Cooper4
suggested this phenomenon is the great hidden
cost of stress at work. It is therefore necessary to
identify potential job stressors that lead to psychological distress, job dissatisfaction, absenteeism or
turnover, so that adequate intervention eort may
be provided in the workplace.
During the 1980s, personality was found to be
related to job stressors (eg workload, role conict,
lack of autonomy) and job strains (eg job dissatisfaction, anxiety, health complaints). One of
the personality variables that was found empirically
to play an important role in job stress process was
locus of control.5,6 This personality variable originally referred to the extent to which individuals
believed that they could control events aecting
them.7 Spector and O'Connell8 conceptualized that
people who hold expectancies that they can control
reinforcements are considered to be internals,
whereas people who hold expectancies that outside
forces or luck controls reinforcements are considered to be externals. Edwards9 found the
generalized expectation of control to be the most
powerful of the personality variables. In a metaanalysis, Spector5 reports that there are correlations
between locus of control and both job stressors and
job strains. Payne10 concluded that externals tend
to nd their work environments more threatening
and stressful. In a recent study,11 external locus of
control was found to be negatively correlated with
job satisfaction and positively correlated with
mental and physical ill-health. The role of locus
of control as moderator of the stressstrain
relationship has been demonstrated.1214 By and
large, the correlation between stress and strain is
signicantly higher for externals than for internals.
The importance of organizational commitment
has been widely discussed in recent years.1517
Organizational commitment may be dened as `the
relative strength of an individual's identication
with and involvement in an organization'.17 Meyer
and Allen18 extended Mowday's et al.17 work and
concluded that there are three components of
organizational commitment aective, continuance and normative. Somers19 also demonstrated
these three facets of commitment. Organiza-tional
commitment has a direct eect on job stress and
strain. It was found to be correlated with job stress
in a negative fashion:2022 the more stress an
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

employee experienced in an organization, the less

committed he/she would be to it, and vice versa.
Concerning strain eects, organizational commitment was found to be negatively related to absenteeism23 and turnover.2326 Recently, Somers19 has
found that only aective commitment was related
to turnover and absenteeism. Leong et al.11 have
reported that organizational commitment was
positively correlated to job satisfaction, and
negatively correlated with mental and physical illhealth as well as intent to quit.
It has been suggested that organizational
commitment has a moderating eect. Kobasa27
argued that commitment protects individuals from
the negative eects of stress because it enables them
to attach direction and meaning to their work.
Mowday et al.17 also claimed that organizational
commitment can provide people with stability and
a feeling of belonging. In an empirical test, Begley
and Czajka28 found that organizational commitment buered the relationship between stress and
job dissatisfaction (eg stress increased job dissatisfaction only when organizational commitment was
low). Leong et al.11 conducted their study in a
similar way to the work of Begley and Czajka,28 but
they found little evidence for the moderating eect
of commitment in any of the outcome variables.
As noted by Sommer et al.,29 the analysis of
organizational commitment has been largely
restricted to US samples. Similar arguments were
oered by Bond,30 who pointed out that almost all
contemporary psychology is based on data
obtained from North America and other western
countries. Yet the population of China is more
than 1.2 billion, which is about 20 per cent of the
total world population. It would be valuable to
obtain data from Chinese in order to contribute to
the generalizability of theories in psychology. It has
been argued that organizational commitment is
specic to the Chinese workforce. In Confucianism,
there is a saying, `Be patriotic and loyal to the
throne'. This means that government ocials
should be absolutely loyal to the kingdom they
serve. This traditional value has implications for
the workforce. Once the worker is employed by a
company, he should be devoted to the job, work
very hard and take full responsibility for the job.
Empirically, it was found that the level of organizational commitment in Hong Kong workers was
much higher than those reported in the US,
Canada, Korea and Japan.31,32 Although work
attitudes in Hong Kong are, to a certain extent,
inuenced by Confucianism, due to the fact that
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OCCUPATIONAL STRESS IN HONG KONG FIRMS

Hong Kong has long been exposed to western

values, it is expected that the inuence of Confucianism on workers' behaviour, especially among
the young workers, will be diminishing.
In the present study, the authors attempt to
conduct a study similar to Leong et al.11 in order to
investigate the direct and moderating eects of
locus of control and organizational commitment
on the stressorstrain relationships in Chinese
employees in Hong Kong rms. It is hypothesized
that the relationship between stress and strain is
stronger in externals and among those who have
low organizational commitment. The theoretical
framework of the study is modelled from the
Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) structure
devised by Cooper et al.33 (see Fig. 1). The instrument mainly adopts the shortened version of the
Occupational Stress Indicator-2 (OSI-2) measuring
sources of stress and job satisfaction, the nine-item
Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)
constructed by Mowday et al.23 and the Work
Locus of Control Scale (WLOC) constructed by
Spector.6 They were translated into Chinese by the
rst author and translated back into English by a
lecturer specializing in translation in Hong Kong.
The OSI and shortened version of the OSI-2 have
been used on Chinese subjects in previous studies
and have demonstrated high reliability and predictive validity,34,35 yet the OCQ and WLOC were
constructed in western societies and have seldom
been used in Hong Kong. Therefore, the authors

wanted not just to replicate the instrument, but also

to validate these scales in Hong Kong as well.
METHOD
Sample
The target population for the study was a broad
cross-section of employees in Hong Kong industrial rms owned by dierent nationals. One
hundred and seventy self-administered questionnaires were distributed to employees of several
trading rms in one industrial area in Hong Kong
in November 1996. One of the managers of each of
the selected rms was asked to distribute the
questionnaires through the internal mail. Followup telephone calls were conducted to ensure a
higher return rate. One hundred and twenty-four
completed questionnaires were collected in the
following 23 weeks. Out of these, two incomplete
ones were discarded. Thus, the response rate was
72.5 percent.
Measures
Dependent variables
Psychological distress. Ten items were constructed to measure the psychological consequences
of distress including measures of somatic anxiety
(seven items: eg sleep disturbances, nervous strain,

Fig. 1 Theoretical framework for the study. Source: Occupational Stress Indicator structure (Cooper, Sloan and Williams33)

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

STRESS MEDICINE, VOL. 14:

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O. L. SIU AND C. L. COOPER

dizziness) and depression (three items: eg work

retardation, failure). Each item is rated on a sixpoint scale ranging from very often (6) to never (1)
(high score high distress).
Job satisfaction. This was measured using the Job
Satisfaction Scale of the OSI-2. This is a 12-item
scale consisting of two subscales: job itself (JI) and
the organization (JO). Only the rst 11 items were
used because item 12 was very similar to item 9 after
translation into Chinese, so item 12 was deleted.
Each item is rated on a six-point scale ranging from
very satised (6) to very dissatised (1) (high
score high satisfaction).
To validate the JI and JO subscales, two items
were constructed: `All in all, how satised are you
with your job?' (JI0 ), and `All in all, how satised
are you with the organization?' (JO0 ).
Quitting intention. Two items were used. One was
a true/false question asking the respondents if they
planned to quit the job in the immediate future.
The other one asked the respondents to indicate
how often they really thought of quitting the job
on a six-point scale ranging from very often (6) to
never (1).
Independent variables
Sources of stress. There are 40 items in the
Sources of Stress Scale of the OSI-2. To avoid too
lengthy a questionnaire, the number of items of this
scale were reduced. Twenty items were extracted,
which measured six subscales: (1) factor intrinsic to
job, (2) managerial role, (3) relationship with
others, (4) career and development, (5) organizational structure and climate, (6) home/work interface. Respondents were asked to indicate whether
an item was a source of pressure on a six-point
scale ranging from very denitely a source (6) to
very denitely is not a source (1) (high score more
source of stress).
Locus of control. The 16-item Work Locus of
Control (WLOC) devised by Spector6 was used to
measure locus of control personality. Each item is
rated on a six-point scale ranging from strongly
agree (6) to strongly disagree (1) (high score
external locus of control).
To validate the WLOC, six items were constructed in Chinese by the rst author (named
as Chinese locus of control) measuring the
internalistic/externalistic view on the mastery of
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

life. These items are in fact common Chinese

idioms reecting one's perception of fate or human
eort (see Appendix). Each item is rated the same
way as the WLOC (high score external locus of
control).
Organizational commitment. The nine-item
Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)
(excluding the negative items) developed by
Mowday et al.22 was used. This consists of a sevenpoint scale ranging from strongly agree (7) to
strongly disagree (1) (high score high commitment). The rationale of using the nine-item OCQ is
based on two reasons: (a) to reduce the length of
the questionnaire, (b) the negatively worded items
lack stability.36
In addition, ve items were constructed to
measure perceived work pressure indicating the
level of pressure and tenseness at work, and
pressure from overload and responsibility. Each
item is rated on a seven-point scale ranging from
strongly agree (7) to strongly disagree (1) (high
score high pressure). Demographic details
including gender, age, educational level, marital
status, working experience and tenure were also
obtained.
RESULTS
The sample comprised 66 males (54.1 percent) and
54 females (44.3 percent) (two were unclassied).
The majority of the respondents were aged from
21 to 25 (34.4 percent) and from 26 to 30 (36.1
percent). Concerning educational level, 44.3 percent
achieved O-levels, and 39.3 percent had received
tertiary education. The mean of total working
experience was 7.41 years, and the mean of current
job experience was 2.81 years. Since it was quite a
young sample, 69.7 percent of them were single.
Out of these 122 employees, 84.4 per cent were
tenured, and most of them worked in rms which
were mainly Hong Kong (59.8 percent), Chinese
(10.7 per cent), American (8.2 per cent) or Japanese
owned (9.8 percent).
Concerning work pressure, 7.4 per cent chose
`strongly agree' and 15.6 percent chose `much
agree' to the statement `I usually feel that I am
under a lot of pressure when I am at work';
7.4 percent chose `strongly agree' and 14.8 percent
chose `much agree' to the statement `The level of
stress at work is very high'. In response to the true/
false question of planning to quit the job, 32 percent
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OCCUPATIONAL STRESS IN HONG KONG FIRMS

Table 1 Means, standard deviation and reliability

(alpha) for all variables (N 122)
Variables

Mean Standard Alpha

deviation

Sources of stress (20 items)

74.40
Factor intrinsic to job (2 items) 7.33
Managerial role (2 items)
7.51
Relationship with others
11.20
(3 items)
Career and development
11.37
(3 items)
Organizational structure &
22.92
climate (6 items)
Home/work interface (3 items) 10.35
Locus of control (16 items)
51.87
Chinese locus of control
19.97
(6 items)
Organizational commitment
36.75
(9 items)
Perceived work pressure
22.19
(5 items)
Psychological distress
32.10
(10 items)
Job satisfaction (11 items)
59.66
Job itself (JI) (5 items)
18.79
The organization
27.17
(JO) (6 items)

16.26
1.25
2.03
3.06

0.937
0.552
0.724
0.812

2.24

0.690

5.27

0.845

3.67
7.75
4.69

0.873
0.730
0.698

9.71

0.911

6.13

0.906

7.09

0.849

10.56
3.79
5.20

0.871
0.865
0.781

chose `Yes' and 60.7 percent chose `No' (7.4 per

cent chose `undecided').
The means, standard deviations and reliability
(a) of all the variables are depicted in Table 1. All
of the variables demonstrated acceptably high
reliability.
Concerning the validation data, the correlation
coecients between JI and JI0 and that between JO
and JO0 were 0.775 and 0.584 respectively; both
were signicant at p 5 0.001 level. The correlation
coecient between locus of control and Chinese
locus of control was 0.545, p 5 0.001 level. In
analysing the two items measuring quitting intention, a t-test demonstrated that those who planned
to quit their jobs in the immediate future really
thought of quitting the job more often (t-value
5.62, p 5 0.001). These provide some validation
evidence of the subscales measuring job satisfaction, locus of control and quitting intention.
In studying the relationship among the strain
variables, psychological distress was positively
correlated with sources of stress (r 0.278,
p 5 0.001) and with perceived work pressure
(r 0.368, p 5 0.001). In addition, those who had
more sources of stress perceived higher work
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

59

pressure (r 0.277, p 5 0.01). Job satisfaction

was negatively correlated with quitting intention
(r 0.403, p 5 0.001). A series of t-tests also
demonstrated that those who said `Yes' to the
question of planning to quit their jobs had lower
job satisfaction (t 4.52, p 5 0.001) and more
psychological distress (t 2.31, p 5 0.05). These
results further provide evidence that the respondents were logical and consistent in completing the
questionnaires.
Concerning demographic variables, sources of
stress was positively correlated with total working
experience (r 0.37, p 5 0.05) and age (r 0.29,
p 5 0.05); rank was positively correlated with
satisfaction with the job itself (JI) (r 0.30,
p 5 0.05) and organizational
commitment
(r 0.31, p 5 0.05). There was no dierence in
stress or strain between sex, marital status or
educational level. In relating to company size, it
was found to be related to the respondents' job
satisfaction (r 0.40, p 5 0.05), and in particular
to the job itself (JI) (r 0.43, p 5 0.05).
It can be seen from Table 2 that locus of control
was not correlated with job satisfaction, but by
further analysis, locus of control was found to be
negatively correlated with the job itself (JI)
(r 0.29, p 5 0.05) (ie the more internal the
locus of control, the higher the satisfaction with the
job itself). Locus of control was positively correlated with quitting intention (r 0.34, p 5 0.001)
(ie the more external the locus of control, the more
frequently the worker thought of quitting the job).
This result was further veried by a t-test which
showed that those who said `Yes' to the question of
planning to quit the job were more likely externals
(t 2.85, p 5 0.01).
The other moderator variable, organizational
commitment, was positively correlated with perceived work pressure (r 0.25, p 5 0.05) and with
job satisfaction (r 0.56, p 5 0.001). The latter
result was further veried by a t-test which showed
that those who said `Yes' to the question of
planning to quit the job were of a lower commitment (t 3.59, p 5 0.001).
To test the moderating eects of locus of control
and organizational commitment in the stressor
strain relationships, the procedure suggested by
Cohen and Cohen37 was used to demonstrate the
statistical signicance and form of the main and
interaction terms. Concerning locus of control, the
following were entered in a hierarchical regression:
(1) sources of stress (S), (2) locus of control (L), (3)
stress  locus of control (S  L) (see Table 3).
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O. L. SIU AND C. L. COOPER

1.00
1.00
0.04

12
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DISCUSSION
Validation evidence
The reliabilities of all the scales used in the study
were reasonably high. The construct validity of
some scales was demonstrated (satisfaction with
job itself, satisfaction with the organization, Work
Locus of Control and the nine-item Organizational
Commitment Questionnaire). In the sample, there
was a statistically signicant correlation among
psychological distress, sources of stress and perceived work pressure. Further, job satisfaction was
statistically signicantly correlated with quitting
intention in a negative direction. Therefore, the
results obtained from this study show that the
subjects were completing the questionnaires in
a logical and consistent manner. Therefore
the instrument for the study is a valid one for
Chinese subjects in Hong Kong. The results of this
study also provide cross-cultural evidence of
certain constructs developed in western countries.
Stressstrain relationship

* p 5 0.05; ** p 5 0.001.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Sources of stress
Factor intrinsic to job
Managerial role
Relationship with others
Career & development
Organizational structure & climate
Home/work interface
Locus of control
Organizational commitment
Job satisfaction
Psychological distress
Quitting intention

1.00
0.74** 1.00
0.81** 0.67** 1.00
0.81** 0.46** 0.66** 1.00
0.82** 0.50** 0.60** 0.59** 1.00
0.91** 0.62** 0.71** 0.71** 0.75** 1.00
0.67** 0.53** 0.38** 0.43** 0.44** 0.44** 1.00
0.25** 0.14
0.19
0.25*
0.22
0.22
0.14
0.02
0.16
0.05 0.02 0.02 0.08
0.10
0.19
0.02 0.10 0.22 0.17 7 0.30** 0.04
0.28*
0.36** 0.31** 0.13
0.16
0.25** 0.22
0.05 0.05
0.04
0.11
0.03
0.04 0.01

1.00
0.17
1.00
0.18
0.58** 1.00
0.16 0.02 0.06
0.34** 0.17 7 0.43**

11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Variables

Table 2 Intercorrelations of dependent, moderator and independent variables (N 122)

These procedures were repeated with organizational commitment (OC) as the moderator (see
Table 4). The results obtained in Tables 3 and 4
show that sources of stress was a signicant
predictor of psychological distress and job satisfaction, and locus of control and organizational
commitment contributed signicantly to all
regressions; also locus of control and commitment
signicantly interacted to determine the strain
outcomes (except the eect of commitment on
stress and quitting intention; also, the eect of
locus of control on stress and job satisfaction was
only marginal). The authors then proceeded to
investigate the buering eects of each moderator
on each specic stressorstrain relationship.
Tables 5 and 6 depict the results of the hierarchical
regressional analyses.

Stress (in specic, factor intrinsic to job,

managerial role and organizational structure and
climate) was statistically signicantly correlated
with psychological distress. These results corroborated previous studies.2,38,39 However, sources of
stress were not related to job satisfaction or
quitting intention. Only `organizational structure
and climate' was negatively correlated with job
satisfaction (r 0.30, p 5 0.001). Even though
these results are dierent from some of the
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OCCUPATIONAL STRESS IN HONG KONG FIRMS

Table 3 Hierarchical regression analysis with locus of control (L) as moderator

Step

Entered variable

R2

df

Psychological distress

1
2
3

S
L
SL

0.094
0.107
0.123

115
108
107

11.95
6.46
5.02

0.0008
0.0022
0.0027

Job satisfaction

1
2
3

S
L
SL

0.036
0.068
0.069

111
105
104

4.10
3.83
2.56

0.0450
0.0250
0.0591

Quitting intention

1
2
3

S
L
SL

0.010
0.109
0.121

115
108
107

1.18
6.63
4.92

NS
0.0020
0.0031

Strain variable

S, sources of stress; L, locus of control.

Table 4 Hierarchical regression analysis with organizational commitment (OC) as moderator

Step

Entered variable

R2

df

Psychological distress

1
2
3

S
OC
S  OC

0.094
0.098
0.116

115
113
112

11.95
6.16
4.88

0.0008
0.0030
0.0031

Job satisfaction

1
2
3

S
OC
S  OC

0.036
0.341
0.350

111
109
108

4.10
28.16
19.39

0.0450
0.0000
0.0000

Quitting intention

1
2
3

S
OC
S  OC

0.010
0.054
0.055

115
113
112

1.18
3.24
2.15

NS
0.0430
NS

Strain variable

S, sources of stress; OC, organizational commitment.

literature on job stress, they are very similar to

those obtained by Leong et al.,11 who also found
that stress was unrelated to job satisfaction or the
intent to quit, but job satisfaction was signicantly
and negatively related to organization climate.
Perhaps as the samples used in this and their study
are Asian, there may be similar self-reporting
patterns of stressors and strains.
Role of locus of control
The external locus of control was signicantly
and positively related to stress, in particular to the
stressor of `relationship with others'. In other
words, it is likely that externals perceived `relationship with others' as denitely a source of stress.
Locus of control was also signicantly and
positively related to quitting intention, but was
not related to other strain variables (psychological
distress and job satisfaction). It seems that externals think of quitting the job quite frequently.
These results are similar to those obtained by
Spector6 and Rahim.14
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The present study also provided support for the

moderating eect of locus of control. It signicantly
aects the stressorstrain relationships. The results
obtained in Table 5 show that, in demonstrating
locus of control as the moderator, signicant
interactions were found in all stressor  locus of
control for psychological distress (except `relationship with others') and those of all stressor  locus
of control for quitting intention. For job satisfaction, only `relationship with others' and `organizational structure and climate' were signicant
(F 4.22, p at 0.0074 and F 4.65, p at 0.0043,
respectively). As hypothesized earlier, therefore,
the correlations between stress and strain were
signicantly higher for externals than for internals
(the more external the locus of control, the more
psychological distress, job dissatisfaction and
intention to quit). In other words, externals are
more likely to be aected by stressors, and this
leads to strain outcomes. This implies that an
internal locus of control personality can help
employees to cope with stress and strain in the
workplace. On the other hand, externals may not
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O. L. SIU AND C. L. COOPER

Table 5 Hierarchical regression analysis with locus of control as moderator (with six stressors entered into regression)
Strain variable
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Step

Entered variable

R2

df

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

FI
L
FI  L
FI
L
FI  L
FI
L
FI  L

0.145
0.162
0.163
0.001
0.048
0.048
0.001
0.110
0.114

120
111
110
115
107
106
120
111
110

20.39
10.72
7.14
0.01
2.69
1.78
0.07
6.89
4.72

0.0000
0.0001
0.0002
NS
0.0730
NS
NS
0.0015
0.0040

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

MR
L
MR  L
MR
L
MR  L
MR
L
MR  L

0.124
0.135
0.173
0.010
0.051
0.059
0.008
0.109
0.130

119
111
110
114
107
106
119
111
110

16.79
8.64
7.69
1.17
2.89
2.24
0.977
6.77
5.47

0.0001
0.0003
0.0001
NS
0.059
NS
NS
0.0017
0.0015

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

RO
L
RO  L
RO
L
RO  L
RO
L
RO  L

0.031
0.043
0.043
0.040
0.081
0.108
0.013
0.111
0.137

118
110
109
113
106
105
118
110
109

3.79
2.48
1.65
4.69
4.63
4.22
1.56
6.85
5.79

0.540
NS
NS
0.0330
0.0118
0.0074
NS
0.0016
0.0010

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

CD
L
CD  L
CD
L
CD  L
CD
L
CD  L

0.043
0.063
0.092
0.033
0.065
0.065
0.008
0.110
0.115

118
110
109
113
106
105
118
110
109

5.34
3.68
3.67
3.86
3.69
2.44
0.96
6.80
4.71

0.0226
0.0284
0.0146
0.0530
0.0280
0.0690
NS
0.0016
0.0040

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

OS
L
OS  L
OS
L
OS  L
OS
L
OS  L

0.082
0.100
0.124
0.088
0.115
0.116
0.007
0.107
0.114

119
111
110
114
107
106
119
111
110

10.68
6.14
5.20
10.93
6.93
4.65
0.76
6.66
4.70

0.0014
0.0030
0.0021
0.0013
0.0015
0.0043
NS
0.0019
0.0040

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

HW
L
HW  L
HW
L
HW  L
HW
L
HW  L

0.071
0.085
0.101
NS
0.050
0.057
NS
0.107
0.109

118
111
110
113
107
106
118
111
110

8.94
5.16
4.14
NS
2.82
2.14
0.26
6.46
4.47

0.0034
0.0072
0.0080
NS
0.0640
NS
NS
0.0019
0.0053

FI, factor intrinsic to job; RO, relationship with others; OS, organizational structure and climate; L, locus of control; MR,
managerial role; CD, career and development; HW, home/work interface.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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OCCUPATIONAL STRESS IN HONG KONG FIRMS

Table 6 Hierarchical regression analysis with organizational commitment as moderator (with six stressors entered
into regression)
Strain variable
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention
Psychological distress
Job satisfaction
Quitting intention

Step

Entered variable

R2

df

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

FI
OC
FI  OC
FI
OC
FI  OC
FI
OC
FI  OC

0.145
0.154
0.161
NS
0.297
0.305
NS
0.039
0.044

120
116
115
115
112
111
120
116
115

20.39
10.57
7.37
NS
23.62
6.26
NS
2.35
1.75

0.0000
0.0001
0.0001
NS
0.0000
0.0000
NS
NS
NS

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

MR
OC
MR  OC
MR
OC
MR  OC
MR
OC
MR  OC

0.124
0.118
0.125
0.101
0.304
0.321
0.008
0.047
0.047

119
116
115
114
112
111
119
116
115

16.79
7.74
5.49
1.17
24.51
17.48
0.98
2.85
1.92

0.0001
0.0007
0.0015
NS
0.0000
0.0000
NS
0.0620
NS

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

RO
OC
RO  OC
RO
OC
RO  OC
RO
OC
RO  OC

0.031
0.033
0.054
0.040
0.335
0.342
0.013
0.055
0.055

118
115
114
113
111
110
118
115
114

3.79
1.97
2.18
4.67
27.99
19.07
1.55
3.36
2.23

0.0540
NS
NS
0.0328
0.0000
0.0000
NS
0.0381
NS

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

CD
OC
CD  OC
CD
OC
CD  OC
CD
OC
CD  OC

0.043
0.040
0.059
0.033
0.302
0.329
0.008
0.046
0.047

118
115
114
113
111
110
118
115
114

5.34
2.42
2.39
3.82
24.01
17.94
9.58
2.80
1.85

0.0226
NS
NS
0.0530
0.0000
0.0000
NS
0.0650
NS

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

OS
OC
OS  OC
OS
OC
OS  OC
OS
OC
OS  OC

0.082
0.079
0.081
0.088
0.361
0.377
NS
NS
NS

119
116
115
114
112
111
119
116
115

10.68
5.00
3.36
10.93
31.67
22.40
0.76
2.56
1.82

0.0014
0.0083
0.0213
0.0013
0.0000
0.0000
NS
NS
NS

1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3

HW
OC
HW  OC
HW
OC
HW  OC
HW
OC
HW  OC

0.071
0.069
0.071
NS
0.287
0.296
NS
NS
NS

118
115
114
113
111
110
118
115
114

8.94
4.28
2.91
NS
22.39
15.39
NS
2.53
1.73

0.0034
0.0160
0.0377
NS
0.0000
0.0000
NS
NS
NS

FI, factor intrinsic to job; RO, relationship with others; OS, organizational structure and climate; OC, organizational commitment;
MR, managerial role; CD, career and development; HW, home/work interface.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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O. L. SIU AND C. L. COOPER

be able to cope with stress and strain properly. And

this may hinder their job performance. This has
implications for people in human resource management.
Another interesting pattern extracted from the
study was that locus of control was only
negatively correlated with the job itself (JI) and
not with the organization (JO). It appears that
externals were not satised with the job itself but
not dissatised with the organization. This again
has implications for management practice. In
order to enhance employees' job satisfaction,
people in top management can relocate the
dissatised ones to other units or departments in
the same organization.
Role of organizational commitment
The only demographic variable relating to
organizational commitment was rank (the higher
the position in the organization, the higher
the commitment). These results corroborated
previous studies in the US40 and in two Asian
countries.11,29 However, the non-signicant
relationship between commitment and age or
educational level was dierent from that found
in the existing literature.11,29,41 This may be due to
the fact that the age range in the sample is limited,
as about 70 percent of the sample are in the age
range of 2130.
The present study showed that organizational
commitment was a powerful predictor of psychological distress, job satisfaction and quitting intention (Table 4). In relating to the role of
organizational commitment as a moderator, when
six stressors were entered into the regression
separately, commitment interacted with most
stressors to determine psychological distress and
job satisfaction (Table 6). Organizational commitment buered all stressors for psychological
distress (except `relationship with others' and
`career and development'). Signicant interactions
were found in all stressor  commitment for job
satisfaction. For quitting intention, commitment
did not buer any of the stressors. We can conclude
that organizational commitment had strong direct
and indirect eects on stressstrain relationships.
Obviously our ndings are dierent from Leong's
et al.11 results, for they found commitment had
little moderating eect. Therefore, the moderating
eect of organizational commitment deserves more
attention as a buer in future research, especially
in Asian cultures.
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Limitations
The limitations of the present study are twofold.
Firstly, the data are cross-sectional in nature, therefore we cannot conclude the direction of causality.
For example, the debate on the direction of the
relationship between commitment and job satisfaction cannot be resolved.42,43 Second is the
method variance in the self-report measures in
work stress research.44,45 Even though Spector46,47
demonstrated that method variance was not an
artefact in self-reported aect and perceptions at
work, the current study still has the limitation of
relying on a single source of data. Accepting this
caveat, the high reliability of the measures and the
signicant interaction eects obtained suggest that
locus of control and organizational commitment
are potential independent variables and moderator
variables in job stress research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We gratefully thank Ms Eva Li for her assistance in
data collection.
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APPENDIX
Items for measuring Chinese locus of control
Item
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Resign oneself to one's fate

Life and death are decreed by fate
Man's will, not heaven, decides
Human eort is the decisive factor
Wealth and rank are matters of destiny
Whatever human minds intend, it's heaven that decides the end

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Locus of control
External
External
Internal
Internal
External
External

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