The two research studies are described in more detail after the theoretical part of
this chapter, which describes coping with demanding situations in management and the
gender specifics in the strategies of coping.
Coping. Although the definition of stress is a question of many debates (Ganster
& Schaubroeck 1991), a number of authors agree that stress is an unpleasant emotional
experience related to elements of fear, horror, anxiety, irritability, annoyance, anger,
sadness, misery and depression (Folkman & Lazarus 1991; Motowidlo, Packard &
Manning 1986).
In general, coping, i.e. stress management, is defined as a constantly changing
cognitive and behavioral effort to cope with a certain internal and/or external
requirement that is assessed as a tax or overrun of the individual's resources (Lazarus
& Folkman 1984). Coping, especially emotional coping, is sometimes confused with
the defense mechanisms, although it has three different basic cognitive characteristics
of defensive mechanisms (i.e. conscious, deliberate, and revisionist; Miceli &
Castelfranchi 2000). There are different approaches to coping with stress which are in
literature generally known as coping strategies.
It is assumed that the individual differences in the strategies influence the process
of coping and are represented by two concepts. First, it is the research on the continuum
of dispositional and situational approaches. In this concept there are, on the one hand,
stable coping strategies (dispositional) that can be used without the need to refer to the
requirements of particular stressful events (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub 1989). On the
other hand, people use different situational behavioral responses based on the nature of
the situation (e.g. manageability, predictability), assessment of the situation (primary
or secondary estimation), or their own resources (Lazarus & Folkman 1984). The
second concept focuses on certain personality traits (such as optimism, neuroticism)
that can predict or correlate with certain coping behaviors.
Coping with stress as well as the burnout syndrome are the subject of many studies
(e.g. Yip, Rowlinson & Ling Siu 2008; Lewin & Sager 2008). In the field of leadership
research, coping strategies are often studied in connection with organizational changes,
different expectations from the role, or loss of employment. Armstrong-Stassen (2006)
explored how mid-level management copes with organizational changes and revealed
several coping strategies studied before and after the organizational change.
Mendenhall, Kaliel, Spindel and Hart (2008) describe how managers cope with the loss
of employment. They found out that job loss was attributed to the framework
conditions, such as globalization or the coping strategies used. Marginson and Bui
(2009) conducted a conflict research in middle management and found that the high-
performing managers use more complex coping strategies than the lower-performing
managers.
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