1. Methodological considerations on cause-effect diagrams depicting knowledge worker stress
Ole Henning Sørensen
National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark
BACKGROUND
Knowledge work is typically considered being good and stimulating work. However, resent research shows that stress is as common a phenomenon among highly educated knowledge workers as among other occupational groups. It has been discussed whether the job-related factors leading to work stress for knowledge workers are the same as in more traditionally organized industrial work. Recent research has questioned the asserted power of job control to transform the nature of job demands. It calls for an extension of the control dimension to include workers control ‘over’ and not just ‘within’ work´. Motivation factors may also be causes of stress. The research project has studied knowledge workers’ and managers’ reasoning about strain and enthusiasm through the mapping of causal attribution in order to learn more about stress dynamics for knowledge workers. The paper discusses methodological issues concerning the use of cause-effect diagrams in focus groups with the purpose to identify causes of stress in knowledge work.
SOME RESULTS
The cause-effect diagrams showed considerable variation between companies and some variation between managers’ and workers’ view of cause-effect mechanisms. The causal attributions of strain were not only negations of causal attribution of enthusiasm, although such examples could be found. Most identified ‘causes’ corresponded to factors already described in the stress and organizational behavior literature. However, some area stand out. Professional pride and participation in complex and developing tasks seemed to be extraordinarily important both in relation to enthusiasm and strain. Furthermore, the employees found it difficult to say “no”. This might explain why the strain-diagrams in all of the companies showed high levels of work load. Insecurity was also common in all strain-diagrams despite historically good conditions on the labor market.
DISCUSSION
The use of cause-effect mapping provides insight into how company actors reason about stress in terms of strain and enthusiasm. An important question is whether the diagrams reveal something about causal mechanisms leading to stress in knowledge work as such? It is hardly scientifically sound to interpret the cause-effect diagrams as a representation of underlying stress-producing mechanisms at the workplace. The diagrams represent the causal attributions of the company actors. However, it can be expected that the actors to a large extend act based on their causal attributions. The workshop setup with focus groups and the subsequent discussions by central organizational actors ensure empirical resonance. We propose to treat the cause-effect diagrams as quasi-objects suspended between the experience of company actors and public and scientific discourses on stress and motivation. As such, the cause-effect diagrams can both be used to develop stress and motivation theories and to inform the practitioners in their attempts to prevent stress.
DESIGN
The study is based on research in three knowledge intensive companies. Focus groups with employees and middle managers have used ‘fishbone diagrams’ for cause-effect mapping. Each focus group produced two diagrams – one focusing on causes of strain and the other focusing on causes of enthusiasm. Subsequently, all the diagrams have been discussed with actors from cooperative committees. The analysis has compared the diagrams on enthusiasm and strain from workers and managers in search of similarities and differences.