THE PERCEPTION OF JOB STRESS

BY EMPLOYEES AND ITS EFFECT ON

EMPLOYEES PRODUCTIVITY

A Comparative qualitative study of Ecobank in Cameroon and Nigeria

LENA CHUFOR GRACE OBIAGAZIE

Department of Business Administration

Master’s Program in Management & in Finance

Master's Thesis in Business Administration I, 15 Credits, Spring 2021

Supervisor: JAN BODIN

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ABSTRACT

Stress is considered as one of those factors that has an influence on the performance of

employees negatively or positively which also affects the organization as a whole. Many

employees have started to consider stress as an important issue to look at. This study

investigated the employees' perceptions of stress and its effect on their productivity. We

mainly compared branches in different countries (Cameroon and Nigeria) using employees

from a mutual bank “Ecobank” to find out their different perceptions in relation to stress.

The study was conducted with six (6) interviewees, three (3) from Nigeria and three (3)

from Cameroon. From other similar studies, we have not been able to see a comparison of

employees' perception between two countries and this helped us to be able to recognize a

research gap. The study was done using a qualitative method which helps us to know the

perceptions of employees regarding stress and its effect on productivity from both

Cameroon and Nigeria. The interview was conducted with employees from different

departments and different roles. The interview was a big help for us getting a broader

understanding of how employees perceive stress. A thematic network and discussion was

developed in order for us to interpret the results of our findings. We were able to develop 5

themes which are performance, role conflict, role ambiguity, work demand and resource

constraints and with this we were able to do a comparison to find out what the employees

from different countries perceive in regards to stress. We were also able to give some

suggestions for further studies which one of them is based on gender differences.

The results from our findings showed that workload, pressure to meet deadlines, lack of

knowledge, multiple tasks, unclear responsibilities, lack of resources were the perceptions

contributing to stress.

Key words: Stress, Job stress on employees, Productivity, Financial institution,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to begin by thanking our supervisor Jan Bodin, for providing us with help

and constructive criticism needed during the writing process. We would also like to

appreciate our interviewee for accepting to conduct an interviewee with us within short

notice, their help was really valuable for this research and it would not have been possible

without them. Thank you very much! Lastly, we would like to thank our family and friends

for their immense support during our academic studies and also towards this degree project.

UMEÅ 25-05-2021

……………………… ………………………

LENA CHUFOR GRACE CHIBUZOR

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 ...................................................................................................................................... 1

1. INTRODUCTION. ................................................................................................................ 1

1.1 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 SUBJECT CHOICE .............................................................................................................. 2

1.3 THE PROBLEMATIZATION. ............................................................................................. 3

1.4 RESEARCH GAP ................................................................................................................. 4

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................................................................................................. 5

1.6 RESEARCH PURPOSE ...................................................................................................... 5

1.7 STRUCTURE........................................................................................................................ 5

CHAPTER 2 ...................................................................................................................................... 7

2. SCIENTIFIC METHOD: ....................................................................................................... 7

2.1 ONTOLOGY .......................................................................................................................... 7

2.2 EPISTEMOLOGY ................................................................................................................. 7

2.3 RESEARCH DESIGN ........................................................................................................... 8

2.4 RESEARCH APPROACH ..................................................................................................... 9

Chapter 3 ......................................................................................................................................... 10

3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................ 10

3.1 STRESS ............................................................................................................................... 10

3.2 JOB STRESS ON EMPLOYEES ....................................................................................... 11

3.3 PRODUCTIVITY ............................................................................................................... 13

3.4 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB STRESS AND EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY ....... 14

3.5 RESEARCH CONNECTING JOB STRESS AND ITS EFFECT ON EMPLOYEES

PRODUCTIVITY ....................................................................................................................... 15

Chapter 4 ......................................................................................................................................... 17

4. PRACTICAL METHOD ..................................................................................................... 17

4.1 PRECONCEPTION ............................................................................................................ 17

4.2 DATA COLLECTION ........................................................................................................ 17

4.3 QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTION AND INTERVIEW GUIDE .............................. 18

4.4 QUALITATIVE SAMPLING AND TECHNIQUE AND ACCESS ................................. 19

4.5 CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW ................................................................................... 19

4.6 TRANSCRIBING ............................................................................................................... 20

4.7 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS ............................................................................................. 21

4.8 QUALITY CRITERIA ......................................................................................................... 21

4.9 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ........................................................................................... 23

Chapter 5 ......................................................................................................................................... 24

5. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS ........................................................................ 24

5.1 ECOBANK......................................................................................................................... 24

5.2 BIO-INFORMATION AND THE EMPIRICAL FINDINGS OF INTERVIEWEES ........ 24

5.2.1 Interviewee 1 ................................................................................................................. 24

5.2.1.1 Empirical findings from Interviewee 1 ...................................................................... 25

5.2.2 Interviewee 2: ................................................................................................................ 26

5.2.2.1 Empirical findings from Interviewee 2 ...................................................................... 26

5.2.3 Interviewee 3: ................................................................................................................ 27

5.2.3.1 Empirical findings from Interviewee 3 ...................................................................... 27

5.2.4 Interviewee 4 ................................................................................................................. 28

5.2.4.1 Empirical findings from interviewee 4. ...................................................................... 29

5.2.5 Interviewee 5: ................................................................................................................ 30

5.2.5.1 Empirical findings from interviewee 5 ....................................................................... 30

5.2.6 Interviewee 6: ................................................................................................................ 31

5.2.6.1 Empirical findings from interviewee 6 ....................................................................... 31

Chapter 6 ......................................................................................................................................... 34

6. THEMATIC NETWORK AND DISCUSSION ................................................................... 34

6.1 THEME: PERFORMANCE ................................................................................................. 34

6.2 THEME: ROLE CONFLICT ............................................................................................... 35

6.3 THEME: WORK DEMAND ............................................................................................... 35

6.4 THEME: ROLE AMBIGUITY ............................................................................................ 36

6.5 THEME: RESOURCE CONSTRAINT ............................................................................... 36

6.6 SUMMARY OF QUALITATIVE FINDINGS .................................................................... 39

Chapter 7 ......................................................................................................................................... 40

7. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 40

7.1 GENERAL CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 40

7.2 CONTRIBUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY ......................................... 41

7.2.1 Theoretical Contribution ................................................................................................... 41

7.2.2 Practical Implications and Suggestion ............................................................................. 41

7.2.3 Societal Implications and Suggestion ................................................................................ 42

7.3 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ............................ 43

LIST OF REFERENCES. ............................................................................................................... 44

APPENDIX I. EMAIL SENT TO OUR PROPOSED INTERVIEWEE ........................................ 49

APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW GUIDE ............................................................................................ 50

APPENDIX III: THEMATIC NETWORK ANALYSIS ................................................................ 52

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CHAPTER 1

1. INTRODUCTION.

The purpose of this chapter is that we are going to introduce to the reader our research topic,

giving a clear view of our subject choice, and identifying the research gaps in our study, and

generating research questions. Finally, we’ll talk about the purpose of our research project.

1.1 BACKGROUND

Stress can be considered as something ordinary, unavoidable in anyone’s life, which can be

caused by many factors, be it at work, with the family, or the external environment, (AL-

khasawneh & Futa 2013, p 268). Stress can be defined as pressure work, stress can be

elaborated as resistance to come to work and a feeling of continuous pressure, hence work

stress is physical and emotional activities that take place when there is a gap between job

requirements, capabilities, and resources (Muhammad & Kishwar, 2019, p.32). Stress can

also be seen as the interaction between the individual and the environment, which may affect

an employee’s mental and physical condition (AL-khasawneh & Futa 2013, p 268).

According to Rue and Byars (2007), who goes ahead to support the idea that stress can be

defined as the physical and mental danger deficit which was caused by perceived danger.

Brown and Harvey (2006) added that stress is the interaction between the individual and the

environment, which may affect his mental and physical condition.

According to Shahsavarani et al (2015, p. 232) stress is an ambiguous and wide concept that

is attributed to varied phenomena and definitions, in the research, he came up with a list of

11 dominant authors and their definitions of stress and concluded with a simple but

comprehensive definition of stress saying “stress is any influence of internal and/or

surrounding environment on living being which disrupt its homeostasis”. Any effect of

change in the surrounding environment on living beings that results in disruption of

homeostasis that is the internal balance of that living being is called stress. There have been

a lot of research studies of job stress on employees’ productivity in the previous years but

our interest is the job stress on employees’ productivity in the financial institution. Ehsan et

al (2019, p. 33) conducted a study where they talked about stress resulting from a mismatch

between the demands and pressures on the person, on the one hand, and their knowledge

and abilities, on the other, which challenges their ability to cope and perform smoothly with

work.

In this study, the interest is on the effect of job stress on the employee’s productivity. Stress

can directly have an impact or an effect on the person suffering from it. Jamal (1984) studied

an association between job stress and job performance between managers and blue-collar

employees where he argued that stress on a job can be stated as the outcome of an individual

due to the working environment from which he feels insecure and different relationships are

projected between job stress and performance which are the U-shaped and curvilinear, the

positive linear, the negative linear and the no relationship between the stress and

performance. Also, (Lavuri 2019, p. 45) conducted research and said there are two types of

stress that could affect an employee's job performance either positively or negatively

depending on the employee's perception. This is just a basic knowledge of stress for over

two decades and more are still to be made in the nearest future because this stress we are

talking about, be it in our daily lives, and works, we will always have a tendency of

encountering them which might have an impact on us thereby affecting us either in a

positive manner or negatively.

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1.2 SUBJECT CHOICE

We are two Umeå University students studying business administration (management and

finance, respectively), as well as Africans from Cameroon and Nigeria. A lot of research

has been done either on this topic “The Perception of job stress by employees and its effect

on employees productivity in financial Institutions” or something almost similar to it. In the

previous years, most of these studies have been conducted in countries seeking to develop

and become advanced both economically, politically, and socially (Sharmilee et al. 2017,

p.14). According to Dar et al (2011, p.1), Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of

stress research. Selye, 1936 first introduced the idea of stress in to the life science, he defined

stress as the force, pressure, or tension subjected upon an individual who resists these forces

and attempt to uphold its true state (Dar et al 2011, p.1). We each came up with a topic that

best encapsulates our understanding of our individual courses. During the course of this

project, we had an interest in a financial institution and the stress that comes with the job,

how it affects their employee’s productivity in these two different countries (Cameroon and

Nigeria). Since the study on job stress has had previous research done on it and it seems

there is no new knowledge of stress nowadays due to its constant appearance in our day

today, we now took an interest in knowing, (or rather should we say) to compare the stress

of both countries (Nigeria and Cameroon) to understand and know the common stress

experienced by the employees. To know whether this stress is culturally related, or is the

stress based on gender, or is the stress more intensified based on the geographic location.

This study is more of a comparison between these two developing countries, studying the

stress, particularly among their employees using one context that is a financial institution

located in both countries. More of a comparison of exactly what stress is faced by employees

in the financial institution, to get first-hand knowledge from these employees. The last

comprehensive summary of this literature was conducted by Jex (1998) over a decade ago,

since that time, over 100 papers have been published on this topic (Christopher et al, 2010,

p. 2).

Over the past years, close to 3 billion employees are undergoing massive job stress at their

workplace and it is affecting their overall job performances on a daily basis (Sharmilee et

al. 2017, p.14). There are studies that have shown that, if there is a reasonable amount of

stress that the employees can handle at work, it can help indicate a beneficial influences on

their performance as well as increase the negative side of the rising stress. This is therefore

a positive side of the stress. As a result, they must play a critical role in ensuring that they

build a healthy working environment, practice a constructive, friendly, and conducive

working environment in the organization, and increase productivity, which will eventually

respond to increased economic growth and improved overall employee performance.

Presently in this study, we tried to provide an updated review of research examining the job

stress and productivity relationship but not just that alone, also adding to it is the comparison

of employees’ perception from a financial institution in two developing countries. It

occurred to us that we are from a developing country and it would be nice to go back and

study the problem affecting our banks back home. We are interested in a financial institution

situated in Cameroon which is also located in Nigeria, and one of us has an account with

them and is currently operating with them. We also both have done internships in the same

bank in our respective countries and know for sure there is actually job stress affecting

employees’ productivity. That’s why we think it’s a suitable choice for us because we have

some background knowledge as to how things are done. To think of it, what other bank with

a lot of job stress would have been better, if not this bank that is in both countries. Much

empirical research has found mixed outcomes when it comes to how job stress affects

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employee performance, workload, time pressure, role conflict, lack of motivation, role

ambiguity, resource constraints, harassment, and a variety of other factors all have an impact

on employee performance, according to recent research. Our argument will be built like a

case of comparison of the financial institutions in both countries.

1.3 THE PROBLEMATIZATION.

Life in modern societies is generally stressful. It is an unavoidable aspect of the challenges

that lead to the acquisition of new abilities and patterns of behavior. However, when stress

levels get too high, problems arise. Nowadays, people spend almost half of their life

working because they want to provide for themselves goods structures, goods, and services.

They also obtain satisfaction from doing this job but these jobs add up worries and stress in

their lives. The experience of stress is different for everybody, in the sense that some are

affected more than others based on the nature of their jobs. Working in a financial institution

can be very stressful based on the quest for beating the market competition, difficult

customers, poor deplorable working conditions, work overload, lack of compensation and

benefits, lack of managerial support, job insecurity, etc. All this can lead to job stress and

affect the performance of employees in different financial institutions. Due to the different

types of stress which can affect performance or productivity, it can also lead to an

employee’s turnover, absenteeism, and even poor customer service in the different financial

institutions (Zeb et al 2015, p.120). This gives the need for us researchers to find out the

causes of this job stress in different financial institutions and to find solutions for the

problem.

Individual and organizational challenges, such as behavioral, mental, and physical results,

performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, are frequently influenced by

work-related stress. Job stress has harmful physiological and psychological impacts on

employees (Zeb et al, 2015, p.120). Job stress and employee performance should be

regarded as a collective issue with far-reaching consequences for an employee's general

well-being, the organization's society, and the country's economy. There are considerable

links between workplace characteristics, stress, and productivity, according to some

empirical research. Low productivity is linked to high levels of work stress, this can be seen

in one of the relationships proposed by Dar et al (2011, p.1). Relationship between the

measures of job stress and job performance, one is a negative linear relationship, where

productivity decreases with stress (distress) (Dar et al 2011, p.1). There are a number of

consequences individuals and organizations face due to job stress and these consequences

affect individuals by reducing job satisfaction, decrease motivation, boost absenteeism,

there is an increased job turnover, poor quality of work, and most especially, their

productivity (Zeb et al, 2015, p.120). This is one of the problems faced when working in a

financial institution: low staff morale, bad connections, productivity and quality of work,

high turnover, early retirements, conflicts, and high organizational costs, such as turnover

replacement costs, health care costs, etc., all reduce organizational outcomes. Stress is

becoming a major issue not only for employees but also for businesses and the general

public. The stress caused by employees' jobs at work has been a major source of

organizational stress and most of these firms have discovered that the effects of this stress

are costly. Job stress is a psychological construct that people may encounter on a daily basis.

It's a difficult concept to avoid. The term stress has evolved over time and is now widely

accepted as an unavoidable part of life.

There is also the problem of cultural differences. Shahsavarani et al (2015) in their study,

said “The most important elements of any culture are its norms and values”, they also went

ahead to list the concepts of culture, which are language, religion, business practices,

4

values, codes of conduct, normative rules of action, and morals (Shahsavarani et al 2015, p.

237). With all these elements of culture, they can indirectly have an influence on individual

and social stress. In different countries, they have branches located in different areas and

parts of their cities which have different sets of customers with different cultures, mindsets,

and attitudes. There might be cultural differences, clashes of policies put in place, for

example, the standards and policies operating in a bank branch in an urban area might be

sometimes difficult to incorporate and be functional in a rural area because of the

environment, the people, and perhaps the culture involved. This could be some of the

problems faced by bank employees when dealing with the customers and also could end up

being a stress factor for some of them.

1.4 RESEARCH GAP

Although the modern world has provided benefits such as sophisticated technologies, a

modern lifestyle, and numerous amenities, it has also raised competitiveness, and there is

growing anxiety among subordinates about gaining a competitive advantage in their

organizations. This has increased employee pressure to work harder and produce more

outputs in order to gain a competitive advantage, this has resulted in improvements in

infrastructure and modern development. On the other hand, it has resulted in an environment

of job stress (Zeb et al, 2015). As a result of the bank policies which are common to every

other branch, we were able to see this as a source of stress to both employees and customers.

“The bank operates as one with common branding, standards, policies and processes”

(Ecobank group annual report 2019).

After reviewing the theories on job stress especially in financial institutions, like the case

of Ali et al (2019) which they conducted research on the impact of work stress on

employee’s productivity based in the banking sector Faisalabad, Pakistan was able to

conclude that job-related stress has an effect on employee’s performance in the banking

sector. Also in the case of Lavuri (2019, pp 44) who investigated job stress as its impact on

employees’ performance in the banking sector in the area Hyderabad city was able to

conclude that there is a significant impact of job stress on banking employees performance.

Many types of research on job stress in association with job performance and satisfaction

(though it is not our major concern in this study) were carried out in the past, for example,

Sharmilee B. M., Abdul B., and Zubair H. (2017) conducted a study on the impact of job

stress on employee performance, there is also Ashfaq A. and Muhammad R. (2013) who

also conducted a study on the effects of job stress on employees' job performance, a study

on the banking sector of Pakistan. We also have a study in Nigeria, a study was done on job

stress by Ekienabor (2016) about employee productivity and commitment. In India, there is

also a study conducted by Rani (2014) that explored the effects of job stress on employee

retention in India. In the same year, Ratnawat and Jha (2014) performed research on job

stress and its effects on employee performance in India and so much other research that has

been conducted based on this topic. But what has not been done within this area of research

is what we are about to find out.

There is also a study that talks about the possibility of cultural stress by Shahsavarani et al

(2015) where they said: “most of the researches of the social domain believe that culture is

a fundamental context to form individual and environment, and thus, influential on stress

increasing/decreasing interaction” (Shahsavarani et al, 2015, p. 237). They also said,

“Moreover, it appears that culture as a broad infrastructure of any given society, shall be

considered in stress analyses and religious/spiritual issues and practices form many aspects

of it, especially in social activities such as codes of conduct, morals, commercial practices,

5

and cuisines, therefore, the future studies seem to have the aim of incorporation of various

aspects of culture into their stress analyses.” (Shahsavarani, 2015, p. 238). The reason why

we decided to use two different countries considering the cultural differences is because

most researchers of the social domain (business world especially) believe that culture may

be a fundamental context both in our individual lives and environment, and thus, this has an

influential on stress increasing/decreasing interactions (Shahsavarani, 2015, p. 237). This

topic, Job stress and its effects on employees productivity in financial institutions have been

researched before by other authors but we have not come across any article in comparison

with two countries, to find out if employees of a particular country have the same

perceptions as to the employees of another country taking into consideration their cultural

differences.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What are the employees' perceptions of job stress and how does it affect their productivity

in the financial institution?

2. In comparison, do the employees of Cameroon and Nigeria have common perceptions or

different perceptions?

1.6 RESEARCH PURPOSE

The goal of this study is to examine, analyze, and know the perceptions of employees in

regard to job stress and how it affects their productivity in the banking sector. Secondly, our

thesis aims at comparing the job stress in the banking sector in Nigeria and Cameroon for

some possible traces of cultural differences. Another purpose for this research would be, at

the end of the research, after the empirical findings have been made and analyzed, will be

able to come up with some practical recommendations, in relation to the findings.

1.7 STRUCTURE

The aim of this structure is to give a simple explanation of what we are going to be doing

in this study. This thesis will be structured in the following orderly ways. The first chapter

of the thesis is the introduction which consists of the background, problem statements, the

research question, research purpose, and motivation. The second chapter is a scientific

method consisting of ontology, epistemology, research design, research approach, and

preconception. The third chapter is the theoretical framework of the major themes in the

study, this chapter also contains a previously conducted literature review on the topic that

is important in answering the research questions. We will end the chapter with a brief

conceptual model showing how all the themes in the study connect to each other. The fourth

one is a practical method which consists of data collection, interview guide, transcribing,

data analysis, quality criteria, and ethical considerations. Included in this chapter is a table

of our employees and from the different countries, they come from. The fifth is empirical

findings. In this part, we will briefly talk about Ecobank, how it came to be and exactly what

you need to know about the financial institution we will be using in the study. We will also

briefly talk about each interviewee, their background and family relations, and everything

you need to know about them. The qualitative analysis and discussion, with thematic

analysis along with a comparison table with a detailed comment about the findings and

finally the summary of the thematic analysis. Finally, the last part of the study is the

conclusion. This is done according to the school’s ELO’s to the best of our knowledge,

6

consisting of the general conclusion, theoretical contribution, and implications of the study,

limitations of the study, and suggestions for future study.

7

CHAPTER 2

2. SCIENTIFIC METHOD:

In this chapter we will be discussing our philosophical point of view, we will present our

ontological and epistemological views. Then, we will talk about our research approach and

our research design in order to see how the research was conducted from a philosophical

point of view. Finally, we will talk about why we chose our theories and how we found the

information about our theories in the literature search.

2.1 ONTOLOGY

Ontology could be referred to as the nature of reality. There are two approaches to ontology,

and they are objectivism and subjectivism. The objective view suggests that the social

phenomenon's existence and influence are beyond the influence of the social actors,

therefore saying that the social entities are independent of the social actors (Saunders et al.

2009, p. 110). Whereas the subjective view suggests that the ontological position implies

that social phenomena not only occur as a result of social interaction but are constantly

being revised (Bryman et al, 2011, p. 37). Every researcher must follow a particular

philosophical assumption that will determine their study approach. In this thesis, we decided

to adopt subjectivism as our philosophical standpoint. This simply means Subjectivism

philosophical standpoint views that reality is influenced by social actors. Our subjectivism

standpoints see researchers and the research participants as social actors in our philosophical

viewpoint, as they perceive ideas differently and also, they have different experiences and

background information, beliefs, and social values. Since the aim of this study is to

understand the perception of employees on job stress from the same financial institution in

two different developing countries and how it affects their productivity, in order to achieve

this purpose in a satisfying manner, we need to understand what employees in the two

different countries perceive as job stress and how it affects their productivity.

From our ontological perspective, we view stress in general as a continuous change where

employees' productivity can be created, lost, re-created, or even changed completely by

different social actors. Observing the topic and the research question of this thesis, the

authors deem it necessary to adopt subjectivism. All contributors of this research have

knowledge and experience of varying degrees, therefore, they all have their different views

and perceptions of social issues. Whereas, if the authors adopt an objective view, this might

compromise the findings of the research and the primary data collection is through

conducting an interview, answers to interview questions are subject to the understanding of

the interviewees and the interpretation of the response by the researchers as they set out to

explore what are the employees’ perception of job stress, maintaining an open mind that

allows the processing of different viewpoints from the respondents of the interview process.

2.2 EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the creation of knowledge. It

discusses what constitutes acceptable knowledge, how such knowledge can be augmented,

and how such knowledge can be transferred (Saunders et al., 2017, p. 102-107).

Epistemology refers to what knowledge is considered acceptable knowledge and how new

knowledge is created. Two main approaches are positivism and interpretivism. Positivism

views that only knowledge built by real facts or resources is to be considered real

8

knowledge. This thereby makes knowledge harder and unbiased that is why this type of

facts are referred to as objective knowledge. Whereas interpretivism views that knowledge

is built on feelings and attitudes that could not be seen.

This approach suggests that it is necessary for the researcher to understand social actors and

how reality depends on the people that interpret it (Saunders et al, 2007, p. 102-107). The

positivist view is mainly used when facts used in the research are observable in reality, that

is, it can be used for research purposes when the data collected are of a large amount. In

contrast to positivism, interpretivism considers social actors as a key player in the creation

of knowledge, and to understand social reality an approach different from the natural science

approach is required (Saunders et al., 2007, p. 102-107; Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 17). But

the researchers choose an interpretivist approach to epistemology because the authors are

not independent of the study and secondly the participants are not the same and have

different views on the topic. And social realities are influenced by the emotion and attitudes

of researchers and other social actors and also it can be argued that it is more suitable in

management and business science (Saunders et al. 2007, p. 102-107).

2.3 RESEARCH DESIGN

Research design is defined as plans and procedures for research that span the decisions from

broad assumptions to detailed planning regarding methods of data collection and analysis

(Creswell, 2009 p, 3). There are two main types of research design commonly used in

business administration, quantitative and qualitative research design. A qualitative case

study can be defined as a detailed examination of an aspect of a historical episode to develop

or test historical explanations that may be generalizable to other events (Runfola et al 2017,

p.116). Quantitative research on the other hand is for testing theories by examining the

relationship between variables and these variables are measured in numbers and also

analyzed with statistical measures, (Creswell, 2009, p. 4). In this study, we are working with

qualitative data and qualitative analysis. Qualitative analysis is commonly associated with

interpretivism and subjectivism (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 17). Before one gathers

qualitative data, it is important to collect background information to fully understand the

context. This is important to sensibly and thoroughly be able to interpret the qualitative data

in a correct way (Collis and Hussey, 2014, p. 130).

The aim of this study is to be able to gain a deeper understanding of how employees perceive

job stress in their organizations and how it affects their productivity. By doing a comparison

of two countries, we are able to get a greater knowledge of how employees perceive job

stress. Since our ontological stance is constructionism, we think subjectively of the social

actors, especially the employees, and our epistemological assumptions from interpretivism

and an inductive research approach. We find it more appropriate to use a qualitative design

for this study. Two commonly used methods used to gather data within qualitative research

are interviews and qualitative analysis of text and documents (Bryman & Bell, 2011) and

as we already stated, we will be using both methods in this research. Furthermore, even as

the inductive approach is generally used within qualitative research (Bryman & Bell, 2011)

the approach in this study is mainly explained as an inductive approach as we will discuss

them in the research approach.

9

2.4 RESEARCH APPROACH

There are basically two research approaches commonly referred to as fundamental

approaches, inductive and deductive approaches (Fejes & Thornberg, 2009 p.24; Bryman

& Bell, 2005 p.297). Depending on the research question and what is to study, one or the

other might be best suitable for the study. In the inductive approach, the author draws

conclusions from empirical evidence and the researcher moves from observation to building

theories. While the deductive approach is contrary and the author draws conclusions from

findings and tries to confirm whether it can be applied in reality or disproved (Ghauri &

Grönhaug, 2002 p.13-15). The Deductive tactic consists of setting a research design that

generates a theory as well as developing a hypothesis to test the theory to either accept or

reject the theory (Bryman & Bell, 2005, p.297). According to Bryman & Bell, (2005, p.297),

the deductive approach is widely used in the natural science field, i.e more ontological

objectivist and epistemological positivist. Alternatively, the Inductive approach is the direct

opposite of the deductive approach. The process of a deductive approach involves using this

alternative, to start, we do qualitative data collection such as conducting an interview with

research respondents, the collected data is then analyzed to identify patterns and themes,

this can be seen in the case of Bryman & Bell (2011, pp. 13- 14).

This study is primarily based on the deductive approach where we used theories as a starting

point and then built the theoretical framework. However, there is also an inductive

perspective, considering there are no specific theories we could apply due to the fact that it

is a new area of research, the comparison of two different countries with one specific

financial institution existing in the two countries. Since we have to present a theoretical

chapter and an interview guide for the study, also the fact that existing practices guided us

to some theories applicable too for the study, this has influenced the study towards a

deductive approach. Fejes and Thornberg (2009, p.24) argued that there is a risk in a

deductive approach if focused more on proving the theory than being less sensitive toward

empirical findings. In our study, we have an inductive influence because it is a qualitative

research. We think this will not be a problem. Nevertheless, we feel that the deductive

approach is the main approach because the theories have helped explain some of the

findings.

10

Chapter 3

3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In this chapter, we review previous literature on the topics of stress, job stress on employees,

productivity, and the effect of job stress on employees’ productivity. As we talk about each

selection, we get more in-depth about each theory or concept and get more particulars about

how each theory and concept relates to our project.

3.1 STRESS

When we talk of stress, it is basically the uncontrollable adverse work experience when

there is no conformance in the state desired and the state actually perceived, employees

realize the work pressure to be beyond their capabilities, it affects the emotional and

physiological state of individuals aversively due to undesirable circumstances in their

instant workplace ambiance (Shaikh et al. 2013, p. 297). We can't talk about stress without

talking about Hans Selye, the founder of the topic stress, Hans Selye was the first to conduct

a study on stress, and in business management, stress is defined as the physical and mental

reaction to a stressful situation that occurs as a result of a misalignment of an individual's

talents with the needs of the company (Ali et al, 2014, p.14). Stress is one of the most serious

workplace elements experienced by employees around the world which has become a major

danger for employers especially in developing nations where employers take very little

notice of the impact of stress on employee performance resulting in critical managerial

dilemmas (Yeboah-Kordee et al, 2018). According to Shahsavarani et al (2015), today,

“most researchers of the social domain believe that culture is a fundamental context to form

an individual and environment, and thus, influential on stress increasing/decreasing

interactions”. It has been found that one of the newly emerging domains of stress studies

is to investigate inter-cultural differences, Shahsavarani et al (2015).

With all of the talk about stress, it's important to remember that some stress isn't entirely

destructive or harmful and can be beneficial in a variety of ways. Even in terms of

productivity, some stress helps people stay focused and get the most out of situations. This

is referred to as good stress and it is called ‘Eustress’, a term coined by Hans Selye, the

father of stress theory (Frontline employee, 2019). This could simply develop when the

level of stress is moderate to low. But as there is good stress, there is also bad stress and it

is referred to as ‘Distress’. Distress arises when the intensity of stress arises and provokes

an individual's self-regulatory body, physically and physiologically, in fact, distress occurs

when the employees do not possess the required attitude, knowledge skills, and abilities to

cope up with the overwhelming work pressures and demands which result in negative

outcomes like absenteeism, low organizational commitment, turnover, emotional

frustration, deteriorating health and the career change eventually (Shaikh et al. 2013, p.

297). We would talk more about the effects of both the eustress and distress as we go along

the study.

According to Aduaka (2016, p. 147), citing Hans Selye (1975), stress is the rate of all wear

and tear caused by life. There are stress agents whom he referred to as stressors and could

be physical, physiological, psychological, or social-cultural. Muhammad and Kishwar

(2019) stated in an article that, Robbins (2001) defines stress as a dynamic condition in

which the individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraint, or demand related to

what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and

11

essential (Muhammad & Kishwar, 2019, p.32). Muhammad and Kishwar (2019) also added

that stress is one of the burning issues that the banking sector must deal with so that

employees can comfortably produce quality work (Muhammad & Kishwar, 2019, p.33).

American Psychiatric Association (2014), defined Stress as “a sense of being overwhelmed,

worry, destruction, press, exhaustion, and lethargy. Therefore, stress can influence people

in every age, sex, race, and situation and can result in both physical and psychological

health.” We find this definition useful and we have adopted it to be our definition for our

study. This is because it fits perfectly with our study since we are looking at stress based on

cultural differences of employees of the same bank in different countries.

Stress is a reaction to an imbalance between a person's capabilities and the demands of the

environment, and it occurs when an individual perceives requirements that threaten to

exceed his or her capabilities and resources. Low productivity, discontent at work, lack of

workplace involvement, and poor job performance are all outcomes of stress. Stress can be

positive (Eustress) or negative (Distress), eustress results can be stimulating, thus enhancing

work performance and positively encouraging workers to make efforts while distressing

results in negative effects on workers’ health and performance (Okeke et al, 2016, p. 39).

Thoughts could be a source of stress because the brain interprets and perceives situations as

stressful, difficult, painful, or pleasant, some situations in life are stress-provoking, but it is

our thought that determines whether they are a problem (Muhammad & Kishwar, 2019,

p.35). Employee performance is adversely affected by workplace stress. This in turn

reduces the effectiveness of the employees and organization (Okeke et al, 2016,p. 39). Stress

exists in every organization either big or small workplaces and organizations have become

so complex due to the stress which exists in them and in addition, job stress has significant

effects on the employee’s job performance, (Ashfaq et al, 2013, p.62).

Stress can be considered as an unpleasant emotional situation that we experience when

requirements (work-related or not) cannot be counterbalanced with our ability to resolve

them, (Okeke et al, 2016, p. 39). This results in emotional changes as a reaction to this

danger. It stems from the relationship between a person and his environment, and it appears

as pressure that is subjective because the same stress can affect one person but not another.

When an employee can manage the pressures of the job and the possibility to complete a

task is substantial, then stress can work as a motivating factor (Okeke et al, 2016, p. 39).

According to Ali et al (2019), stress influences people both in a positive and negative way,

at the initial stage, it influences positively by motivating employees but when stress

becomes consistent for a long time, it influences the people in a negative way through

increasing frustration, anxiety and tardiness.

3.2 JOB STRESS ON EMPLOYEES

Job stress is not a new concept and employees are an integral part of an organization. The

issue of job stress has been a frequent problem across numerous occupations and its impacts

on the employees. Generally, life in modern societies is not without stress, it is an inevitable

part of challenges that prompt mastery of new skills and behavior patterns, however,

difficulties occur when stress becomes excessive (Chukwuemeka S. O et al, 2019). Ajayi

(2018) stated that job stress is considered rising and has become a challenge for the

employer because high-level stress results in low productivity, increased absenteeism, and

collection to other employee problems like alcoholism, drug abuse, hypertension, and a host

of cardiovascular problems (Uchechukwu 2020, p.27). Some potential causes of work-

related or job stress are; overwork, lack of clear instructions, unrealistic deadlines, lack of

decision-making, job insecurity, isolated working conditions, surveillance, and inadequate

12

child-care arrangements (Chukwuemeka S. O et al, 2019, P. 147). The majority of studies

agree that work-related stress can be caused by a variety of reasons. According to Ashfaq,

eleven forces are used as an antecedent of work-related stress by some researchers, namely;

Overload, Role vagueness, Role conflict, Responsibility for people, Participation, Lack of

feedback, Keeping up with quick technological change, Being in an innovative role, Career

growth, Organizational structure and environment, and Recent episodic events (Ashfaq et

al, 2013, p.62).

Prior research has shown that job stress may be caused by several factors which are called

stressors, (Thonga, & Yap, 2000, p. 683). Some of these stressors can be seen below in the

conceptual model diagram 1. Five categories of occupational stressors; physical

environment, individual level (a mixture of role and career development variables), group

level (primarily relationship-based), organizational level (a mixture of climate, structure,

job design, and task characteristics), and extra-organizational factors, are described by

(Thonga, & Yap, 2000, p. 683). Based on a mixture of role and career development

variables, according to Ali et al (2019) role conflict refers to incompatible requirements and

expectations that the employees receive from their supervisor or coworker. Role conflict

stress could be described as the incompatibility between two or more job roles or

responsibilities (Jackson & Schuler, 2017). They went further to say that stress occurs when

employees receive two or more job roles or responsibilities at the same time from different

or the same supervisors that are incongruent in nature, (Jackson & Schuler, 2017). Research

has found that occupational or job stress outcomes can be divided into two categories:

individual outcomes and organizational outcomes, (Thonga, & Yap, 2000, p. 683). Looking

at stress from the organizational perspective, there is always a fixed work time put in place

by the employer at the organization, but sometimes the employee spends extra time in the

organization to accomplish the tasks, (Bharathi & Gupta, 2017). Stress is much more

common in employees at lower levels of workplace hierarchies, where they have less control

over their work situation (Beheshtifar & Nazarian, 2013). Jex (2017) went ahead to say that

job stress comes as a result of work demand which threatens the well-being of employees.

Some of the factors responsible for creating stress among employees in the organization are;

workload, and is workload, workload refers to the concentration of assignments at work,

which is one of the main causes of stress in employees and the attitude of various employees

towards workload is usually different, some comfortably manage it at the workplace while

for some it becomes difficult to manage (Ali et al, 2014, p.15). According to Lavuri (2019,

p 45), an individual faces stress due to the workplace of the bank. Those facing role

ambiguity, undergo challenges in meeting their performance targets. Previous works done

by (Fried, Ben-David, Tiegs, Avital, & Yeverechyahu, 1998) discovered that those

employees with a high level of role ambiguity were linked with poor performance

effectiveness, role ambiguity is damaging to employee performance and has been strongly

indicated by Bauer and Green, 1994; Szilagyi, 1977 Williams, Podsakoff & Huber, 1992

Sluss, van Dick, and Thompson, 2011 (Sharmilee et al. 2017, p.15).

According to Mimura, stress is something or a condition where the person is faced with

constant pressure that normally arises in the workplace known as work pressures like short

notices and deadlines, undesirable health conditions, family pressures, and others. When

people at their job sites are faced with situations where requirements are so huge, they have

difficulty managing, this, in turn, affects their mental being and will also contribute to

physical and behavioral problems (Mimura et al., 2003). When requirements for employees

to perform become huge they become demanding. Work demand can be seen as the situation

in which the organizational aspects of a job require a sustained effort on the part of

employees for it to be achieved (Bakker, 2016). When employers expect too much from

employees, employees would definitely be faced with job stress especially in situations

13

where they are unable to manage the demands of the job. Shahsavarani et al. (2015, p. 233)

went ahead to say stress can be seen as an individual's response whenever he or she is

confronted with job demands that are not fit with their knowledge and capability and

therefore challenges their ability to changes in knowledge which and can result in alterations

of company's goal.

Bharathi & Gupta, (2017), were also to see resource constraints as one of the factors that

can contribute to stress by saying resource constraints occur when the role occupant

encounters inadequacy of the available resources, equipment, and tools for performing

his/her role. Stress is also linked with demands and resources, where demands are the

expectations, situations, and circumstances in the organization whereas resources refer to

the stuff used in meeting demands, the level of stress minimizes when resources are

adequate to meet demand (Ali et al, 2014, p. 14-15).

According to Ali et al (2019) in their article stated that an individual in his or her job in a

bank faces stress, “The workplace is potentially an important source of stress for bankers

because of the amount of time they spent in their respective banks”, moreover, stress often

decreases their performance, therefore, occupation of individuals could be a major source

of stress in the given circumstances and when an individual faces stress due to various

conditions of their occupation and fail to cope with stress, it results in burnout (Ali et al,

2019, p.33). Employers of labor in Nigeria do not protect their workers from stress arising

outside and within the workplace (Adetayo et al, 2014). Many organizations, as well as their

workers, have been facing hardship considering that employers of labor are not adhering to

the international labor organizations protocol which posits that employers of labor should

initiate a stress management policy that will not only enhance the effectiveness and

productivity of their organizations but will boost their morale at work and make them

healthier (Bewell et al, 2014).

3.3 PRODUCTIVITY

Mathis and Jackson (2000) defined productivity as a measure of the quantity and quality of

work done considering the cost of the resource it took to do the work. Job performance or

productivity can be viewed as an activity in which an individual can accomplish the task

assigned to them successfully, subject to the normal constraints of reasonable utilization of

the available resources (Laiba D. et al, 2011). According to Singh (2001), when there is no

job stress, job challenges are absent and the productivity tends to be low but as stress

increases, the productivity tends to increase, because stress helps an employee call up

resources to meet the job requirements.

According to Hanaysha (2016), employee productivity is the assessment of the efficiency

of a worker or group of workers. It is also that component that affects the company’s profit,

so it might be evaluated in terms of the outcome of an employee in a specific period.

Basically, in the banking sector lack of administrative support from a manager, work

overload & time pressure, riskiness of a job, poor relationship with customers and

coworkers, and work-family balance causes stress which in turn decreases employee

performance (Ali et al 2019, p.33)

Employee productivity refers to an assessment of the efficiency of a worker or group of

workers (Rouse, 2014), who then adds that productivity may be evaluated in terms of the

output of an employee in a specific period. According to Jalagat (2017, p. 3), one of the

14

negative linear relationships is that productivity decreases with stress. Productivity may also

increase due to stress, thereby implying a positive linear relationship between the two. It is

a fundamental corollary of theories of stress that there should be a relationship between

stress and productivity (Donald et al. 2005, p.410). Data from blue-collar, managerial, and

nursing employees overwhelmingly showed a direct, linear, negative relationship; the

greater the stress was, the less productive the workforce (Donald et al. 2005, p.411).

Employee job performance refers to the output that a person has contributed to the

organization concerning his behavior to engage in, and which the organization may perceive

as productive or counterproductive (Meyer & Peng 2006).

Performance can be seen as the employee's ability to produce work or goods and services

according to the expected standards set by the employers, or beyond the expected standards

(Ali et al 2019). There is also a case of role ambiguity which is defined by French and

Caplan (1972) as insufficient information concerning powers, authority, and duties to

perform one's role. (Ashfaq et al, 2013, p.62) Role Ambiguity operates when the employee

is in the stage of confusion on how he will perform the tasks or when an employee is asked

to do the task without clear instructions and no clear responsibilities assigned to him

resulting in role confusion. (Jalagat, 2017, p.3) This also has an effect on the productivity

of the employee but in a negative linear relationship, productivity decreases with the stress

of role ambiguity. A similar study was conducted and it was found that factors such as

workload, role conflict, and inadequate monetary rewards are the prime reasons for job

stress that causes a decrease in productivity of employees (Ali et al, 2014, p.14).

3.4 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB STRESS AND EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY

Job stress is a healthy stimulus that encourages employees to respond to challenges,

eventually, the job stress reaches a plateau that corresponds approximately with an

employee's top day-to-day performance capability, and then at that point, any additional

stress tends to produce no more improvement (Chathuni J. et al. 2017). Most studies have

been able to confirm that job stress significantly decreases the performance of employees

especially in the banking sector (Ahmed & Ramzan, 2013). They added that there is a

negative correlation between job stress and employee performance. Donald et al (2005)

found that the impact of underutilization of skills, low wages, and dissatisfied aspiration on

an employee's profession sequences the entire sources of stress. Meneze (2005), added that

work stress can have a higher impact on an individual's health that also directly affects his

performance, and also the incidence of job stress is on an upward trend that has become a

major problem of the employers as it reduces performance level in the job, increasing cases

of employee absences. Mead (2000) concluded in his study the impact of stress on job

performance, he pointed out that there is a negative impact of job stress on employee

performance if the stress is not managed efficiently. Too much stress negatively impacts

the work performance of both the employees and the organization. Imtiaz & Ahmad, (2009)

described “Higher level of stress existed with no managerial concern for solution

consequently lowering the employee performance, staking organizational reputation and

loss of skilled employees”.

It has long been acknowledged that job stress plays a role in employee productivity, this

notion is on what is called attention theory, simply, attention theory explains that the

experience of stress has the effect of reducing an individual’s ability to concentrate on

multiple tasks, Attention is thus focused on a few critical tasks and all of an individual’s

energies into the completion of those tasks (Hunter & Thatcher, 2007). Babak et al (2010)

studied “With excessive pressures, the job demands cannot be met, relaxation turns to

exhaustion and a sense of satisfaction replaces with the feelings of stress, motivation sheds

15

away and the workers start losing interest in the work and hence the performance chart

shows a negative trend.” Many people believe that stress leads to negative performance and

as shown by Ali et al (2019) they stated that “most of the employees in organizations feel

that their job is stressful and that in return decreases their performance”. They went ahead

to say that stress increases the turnover of employees and which can as well influence

organizational performance (Ali et al, 2019). Individuals get to experience stress differently

due to the different conditions of their occupation and when faced with this stress and fail

to handle it, it has an effect on their performance (Lavuri 2019, p 45). General in the banking

sector, lack of administrative support from the manager, over workload, the riskiness of a

job, poor relationship with customers and colleagues and unbalance between work and

family results in stress which decreases the employee's performance (Lavuri, 2019, p 45).

Jalagat (2017, pp 4) “proved in his study that there is a link between job stress and employee

performance between managers and staff”, the variables job stress, performance, and

organizational commitment are used and he found out that there is the negative impact

between job stress and job performance.

3.5 RESEARCH CONNECTING JOB STRESS AND ITS EFFECT ON EMPLOYEES

PRODUCTIVITY

We have been able to come across articles that have looked into the link between job stress

and job performance. Employee stressors include workload or work demand, job security,

role conflicts, role ambiguity, resource constraint, poor income, and technology advances,

among others. There is a pressing need to investigate the key and most common aspects

associated with job stress, such as workload stress, role conflict and role ambiguity stress,

and other kinds of job stress, and how these affect employee productivity. As a result of the

delayed control of these stressors, organizations have turned to experience staff turnover,

which has had a significant impact on organizational productivity. Research by Dini (2014,

p. 596) states that stress should not be very high or too low, it must be within the range and

limits of an employee's capacity to tolerate and his performance level and controlled stress

which is within limits is always beneficial and productive than an uncontrolled one. Every

organization's management must always view its employees as assets, and not as slaves to

the company. Monitoring and studying the stress level of the employees should be done on

a regular basis. To control stress and its causes, certain modifications and arrangements

must be implemented.

Job stress is a significant contributor to employee productivity. Job stress, when used as a

motivator, that is, the positive aspect of stress leads to increased creativity, contentment,

and productivity, as well as the removal of boredom and repetition. A recent study by Rani

A. et al (2021, p. 21) states that a business that understands the importance of productivity

in the workplace is very successful, productive workers are the assets of order, where they

increase the use of human resources. We could apply this concept to the financial

institutions too since the financial institution is faced with the challenge of monitoring the

stress levels of its employees which could also affect their productivity. The positive and

negative effects of stress are apparent in the relationship between stress and performance

(Jehangir 2011, p. 457). Employees may not be adequately awake, challenged, or involved

to work at their best when stress levels are low. An increase in a low level of stress can lead

to better productivity, but only up to a point where there is an optimal level of stress, which

is unlikely for most tasks. However, after that, productivity starts to decrease. It could also

cause employees to be too upset, stimulated, or threatened to function well while they are

under a lot of stress. We can connect this together with the help of the other literature

reviews we had.

16

Diagram I. Conceptual model.

Overload.

Lack of clear

instructions.

Unrealistic

deadline.

Work overtime.

Work pressure.

Resource

constraint.

Poor relation

with customers.

Inadequate

monetary

rewards.

Job stress Productivity

17

Chapter 4

4. PRACTICAL METHOD

In this chapter, we will describe how we collected data for our qualitative studies. Next, we

give an explanation of how data for the qualitative studies are analyzed. The chapter ends

with a detailed description of our ethical considerations

4.1 PRECONCEPTION

It is very important to be aware of your preconceptions or pre-understandings whenever you

conduct research because preunderstanding is a prerequisite in the process of embarking on

research activity (Saunders et al., 2009, p 151). We chose this topic because we have both

done internships in this bank (Ecobank) from different countries and we also experienced

stress just as being an intern, meaning we both have a lot of preconceptions about the bank.

This made us understand the amount of job stress involved, and know for sure that it can

affect one's productivity sometimes and also gave us access to the bank in a way. And as an

employee, one is bound to experience job stress. We have been able to research more on

this topic to be able to have a deeper knowledge of what we want to contribute and we were

able to find that many authors have been able to point out the different types of job stress

that employees face in their different jobs today. But our main focus is trying to compare

the employees of the same bank from different countries to find out the similarities and

differences in the level of job stress experienced.

We also have pre- pre-understanding of some of the theories and concepts we are going to

use based on our studies from the undergraduate studies till the master’s level. This means

we have good knowledge and information which can help us accomplish this project. To

conduct good research, a researcher should approach the project with good preconception

and an open mind, qualitative research is geared toward gaining more insights into a

particular subject (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 410). As a researcher, we should be aware of

prejudices that are associated with pre-understanding when conducting a study. As much as

pre-understanding is essential in accomplishing the research, its negative impact could

jeopardize the research results and conclusions (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 30). So, as a

researcher, one should approach research work by combining pre-understanding with an

open mind and objectivity, especially in the data collection, interpretation, and analysis.

According to Gilje and Grimen (2007, p. 182), personal experiences are included in

preconception which can affect the actions of the researchers and also the outcome of the

research. This makes it important to be aware of our preconceptions as they will have an

effect on our study.

4.2 DATA COLLECTION

Bickman and Rog (1998, p. 23) make a distinction between two types of data which they

call primary data and secondary data. The term “primary data” refers to the data that is new

and collected for a specific purpose, such as a specific study, on the contrary, one could use

and reanalyze data that already has been gathered for another purpose, and that could be

referred to as secondary data (Blaikie, 2009, p. 161).

When we started this study, we evaluated the options regarding our data collection. In the

process, we considered the advantages and disadvantages of the methods of data collection.

However, the decision was based on our problem background, our research question. Our

18

reasoning is based on the nature of our study, where we want to present the results of our

data collection and draw a comparison between employees of the same bank but from two

different countries. There is, to the best of our knowledge, no previous study that collected

this type of data with a focus on the employees’ perspective. Thereby, our study will be

conducted by gathering primary data.

We then decided to use interviews for the qualitative data collection where we investigate

the employees’ perspectives on job stress and how it affects their productivity in the bank.

To be able to get an insight into how employees perceive job stress, we would conduct an

interview with the employees from different Ecobank branches both in Cameroon and

Nigeria. The employees are to be considered most stressed because they are the ones who

do the most work and have direct contact with clients. For our qualitative study, we used a

semi-structured interview form which can be found in Appendix I of the study. This form

of the interview starts from great themes, but the interviewee may be free to structure their

answers in their own way (Bryman, 2008, p. 415). The choice of this interview form is based

on what we think is important, that the interviewee may explain perception and then

interpret certain events within the greater themes that we bring up during the interview.

4.3 QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTION AND INTERVIEW GUIDE

As we mentioned before, we have chosen to use a qualitative research approach by

interviewing the employees of Ecobank both in Nigeria and Cameroon branches. Interviews

aid in data collection (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 372) which in our case can be relevant to our

research questions and purpose. We used the general interview guide approach as we plan

to bring up general themes and specific questions but still allow our interviewees to feel free

to bring up and discuss what they want to talk about that is within our themes. Saunders et

al. (2012, p. 347), referred to the different types of interviews, that is, structured interviews,

semi-structured interviews, and unstructured interviews. But in our study, a semi-structured

interview was most beneficial for us, as it helped us get the perspective of the different

employees we interviewed.

We thought it was important to capture the context of the interview without limiting the

interviewees to a set of questions since our first research question is about the perceptions

of the employees on job stress. Instead, we argue that it is preferable in our case to rather

bring up themes and questions in order to make sure that the interviews capture the

perceptions of the Ecobank employees. That is why we choose to use a semi-structured

interview.

Furthermore, we came up with an interview guide that we followed during the interview

process which was helpful when used in conducting the semi-structured interview. An

interview guide provides the interviewer with a list of predetermined questions to ask during

the interview (Patton, 1980, p. 200). Our questions were based on the different concepts we

came up with and those are stress, job stress on employees, productivity, and lastly, the

relationship between job stress and employee productivity. We started by asking general

questions about the employees who are our interviewees, and then we went into asking

questions about our different theories and concepts, respectively, and finished by asking

questions in which we combined the concepts into one question. We chose to use certain

questions for everyone and then depending on how the interviewees answered our questions,

we asked follow-up questions to get further in-depth information about the subject. We

came up with a list of around twenty questions, this can be found in Appendix I of our study.

For our interview process, we contacted some of our friends that work in the bank. This was

easy access for us because they were willing to help provide us with the interviewees and

19

they gave us contacts of their colleagues that work in Ecobanks. They were willing and

honest and we conducted six telephone interviews with the interviewees who are

respectively in Nigeria and Cameroon.

4.4 QUALITATIVE SAMPLING AND TECHNIQUE AND ACCESS

From our first research question; “what are the employees’ perceptions of job stress and the

way it affects their productivity?” We were ready to choose what sample would be most

appropriate for our study. According to Patton Michael Q., a researcher's research question

should determine what kind of sample is most appropriate for their study (Patton, 1980, p.

100). When choosing a sample to interview, it is not always appropriate to use a random

sample, thus a non-random sampling technique can be used, sometimes, it is necessary to

interview specific people who can help answer a research question (Saunders et al., 2012,

p. 281-283). A friend of ours who works in the bank helped us to mobilize his other

colleagues working in Ecobank who we could interview. A critical sampling design is used

when a sample is essential for the assessment of our research question (Bickman & Rog,

1998, p. 105). Let’s explain why we chose to use critical sampling, the reason is that we

have to interview employees from Ecobank in order to answer our research question. And

by interviewing the employees in Ecobank we could gain first-class insights into how they

perceive the effect of job stress on employees and how it affects their productivity.

According to Bryman and Bell, one needs an appropriate strategy in order to gain access to

the information needed in order to collect data (Bryman & Bell, 2001, p. 277). We were

able to gain access to both Ecobank in Nigeria and Cameroon because we both had previous

work experience at the bank as an internship program during our stay in the country at a

particular time respectively. So we could say we were familiar with the bank and with this

familiarity with the bank with the help of a friend who still works there, helped us gain entry

into the organization. In Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill’s book, they talked about

familiarity as a way one can gain access to an organization (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 219).

4.5 CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW

The interviewees were informed about the study details and given assurances about ethical

principles such as anonymity and confidentiality before the interview took place. This gave

respondents a sense of what to expect from the interview. The authors interviewed six (6)

interviewees in total and we both conducted three interviews from each country. One person

was responsible for conducting the interview in Nigeria and the other person was

responsible for that of Cameroon, (see table 1, Interviewees). Due to the distance and time

consideration, the interviews were conducted online via telephones, the schedule for the

interviews was decided by the interviewees. The interviewees were given the opportunity

to schedule the interview time best convenient for them. Due to the schedule of interviewees

and time differences, some interviews were conducted during working hours, after working

hours, and on weekends. Table 1 below is made up of our different interviews, including

how long the interview was, and where the interview took place. Each author had three

interviewees from our respective countries. We were careful when choosing our

interviewees and we made sure that all of our interviewees were staff and employees,

especially of the Ecobank, which made them suitable to answer our research question. So,

all interviewees fulfilled our criteria of being employees. The second way in which we chose

who to interview was to ensure that we interviewed a variety of different employees within

the Ecobank. Our interviewees were from the operating department, customer care unit, IT

unit. We got a variety of different employees to interview in order to understand more about

how the bank as a whole work. At the beginning of the interview process, we gave them a

20

little background information about the purpose of our study and let them know that we

would not seek any confidential information and that they would remain anonymous if they

would like which most of them preferred to be anonymous which we granted and they

became more relaxed when answering our questions.

The authors came across some challenges while conducting the interviewees. There were

some interruptions during the interviews, some of them were easy to talk to and expressed

themselves as much as they could, some hesitations in answering particular questions, some

of the interviewees found the interview questions funny and inexplicable, some of them

found the interview questions disturbing, but because of the terms and conditions given

before the interview was conducted, the authors respected the choice of the interviewees

and still carry on with the interview successfully.

TABLE 1. INTERVIEWEES

Number of

interviewees

Length of

interview

Place of

interview

Employees’

position

Country of

workplace

Interviewee 1 35 minutes telephone

interview

Service teller Nigeria

Interviewee 2 30 minutes telephone

interview

Customer

service

Nigeria

Interviewee 3

40 minutes telephone

interview

Personal

assistant

Nigeria

Interviewee 4 40 minutes telephone

interview

Accountant Cameroon

Interviewee 5 38 minutes telephone

interview

Investment

Analysts

Cameroon

Interviewee 6 30 minutes telephone

interview

Customer

service.

Cameroon

Data saturation is something that occurs when one gets to a point where no new information

is being obtained (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 283). The authors came up with six interviews,

three from both countries respectively. After four interviews, data saturation occurred, then

we were not getting any new information from the two interviews left. But we still compiled

them.

4.6 TRANSCRIBING

In this section, we are going to talk about transcribing our information. Collection of data

is a very important activity when doing any research project (Blaikie, 2009, p. 24), therefore

the data we receive from conducting our interviews is useful and is important information.

So it is very useful that we transcribe the interviews. And what is transcribing, transcribing

is another way of saying that one writes down everything that was said in the interviews

(Saunders et al., 2012, p. 550). The transcriptions are the written words from the interviews

21

which we recorded from the telephone interview. We only asked them questions and

listened for the answers during the interview, so we transcribed everything after the

interview so that we could pay more attention to what the interviewees were saying during

the interview.

4.7 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

As we discussed in the scientific methodology chapter of this study, we used a deductive

research approach in this degree project where we had a clear theoretical position developed

prior to the collection of data. But before we started our qualitative analysis we studied

findings from prior research which can be found in chapter 3. The first thing one should do

when analyzing information is to put the information into different categories (Blaikie,

2009, p. 211) and by putting these pieces of information into different categories, we

conduct a thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is the process of identifying classifying and

reporting patterns to contain within qualitative data (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 78). This

process involves the researcher coding the data set to identify patterns or themes for further

examination and explanation (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 579).

There is a consensus that conducting a thematic analysis should be done in phases, Braun

& Clarke (2006) and Saunders, et al. (2012) identify six steps in a thematic analysis

approach that systematically follow each other (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86). In the order

of; familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, reviewing themes, defining and

naming themes, and lastly, producing the report, these are the phases of the Thematic

Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 87). It is important to note that these steps are followed

chronologically, but research will be moving back and forth during the process (Braun &

Clarke, 2006, p. 86).

The first phase is that a thematic analysis involves familiarizing oneself with the data, while

the second phase involves coding the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86). We tried doing

this by reading through the interview transcripts and grouping the responses into fewer

words which tried to describe what each statement represented. Next, we coded the

transcripts and derived some themes we had in mind doing chapter 3. Then the next phase

involves organizing the themes created earlier; this involves refining the themes and

discarding some themes which prove to be irrelevant (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 91). We

move on to the next step where we would see what themes we were going to use, which

best represents our data. The next phase requires the researcher to define and name the

different themes, while the last phase involves the researcher comparing the results to what

previous literature has said about the topic (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 92-93). In appendix 2

we have provided a summary of our themes. In the qualitative analysis and discussion

section, we will go into more depth with the breakdown and explanation of the themes.

4.8 QUALITY CRITERIA There are two concepts in research projects to be considered when evaluating research

studies: we take note of the validity and reliability be it in qualitative or quantitative research

(Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 394). Let's try to define them according to some authors.

Reliability is defined by Saunders et al. (2009, p. 156) as the extent to which data collection

techniques or analysis procedures will yield consistent findings while Validity refers to the

accuracy of the research, that is, the study measures what it is supposed to measure. So we

can say that research seems to be reliable if the researcher can repeat some former research

patterns and get the same results, but there are two types of reliability, and they are; internal

and external reliability (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 395). Guba and Lincoln (1994 cited in

22

Bryman & Bell, 2005, p.306) suggested that a whole new set of criteria are needed when

evaluating qualitative research. These new criteria should be based on factors such as

authenticity, credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. But still,

LeCompte and Goetz (1982 cited in Bryman & Bell, 2005) argue that the old concepts of

validity and reliability could be used within qualitative research as well, but they need to be

modified from how they have been used in quantitative research in order to fit the qualitative

research, which is what we will be following in this research.

Internal reliability is the degree to which other researchers, given a set of previously

generated constructs, would match them with data in the same way as did the original

researcher (LeCompte & Goetz, 1982, p. 32), while external reliability is how easily a study

can be replicated within quality research (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 395). Validity and

reliability are related to each other for instance, the measure of concept should be stable,

which means reliable in order to be a valid measure, also there are two types of validity

which are; internal and external validity (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 395). Internal validity is

concerned with whether or not the results match theory while external validity is concerned

with the degree to which results can be generalized (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 395).

Internal Reliability and Internal Validity. These two factors will be discussed here and they

are defined by LeCompte and Goetz (1982). To fulfill these criteria there must be an

agreement between the research team on how the research data should be analyzed and

interpreted as well as confirmability of the observations made and the theories that are being

developed. We worked with these criteria by transcribing all our interviews carefully not to

omit or misinterpret the result. The research question and other important concepts and

aspects of the qualitative research were properly explained to the interviewees in advance

before the interview was conducted. To fulfill these criteria, we discussed and had an open

communication between us via telephone interview, which we found important in order not

to follow the same approach and can draw the same conclusions as previous researchers.

The first issue concerns the ability to replicate within quality research which LeCompte and

Goetz (1982) refer to as external reliability. As society is constantly changing it is hard to

create a similar or rather identical situation in the future, LeCompte and Goetz (1982)

suggest that if a researcher wants to replicate a qualitative study, they have to enter the same

social role as the previous researchers. The procedure on how we have conducted the study

has been carefully described and stated, from how we constructed the interview guide to

how we followed a semi-structured approach and later transcribed and analyzed the

interviews, this will make it easier for the other researchers while processing a replicate of

this study.

The next issue concerns the transferability of a qualitative study (LeCompte and Goetz,

1982). A more common term is generalizability (Saunders et al., 2007 p.149). This problem

is important within qualitative research due to the uniqueness of the targets (Bryman & Bell,

2005 p.307). The problem of transferability is also discussed by Guba and Lincoln (1994)

who stress the importance of explaining every step in the research process in a detailed

manner to enhance transferability. It should be noted that the study concerns job stress on

employees and its effect on productivity which is constantly changing. This study focuses

on employees in financial institutions which has a possibility for a larger sampling size. The

finding in this research is based on one bank from two different developing countries.

23

4.9 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

Ethical consideration is simply the ethics considered while writing this degree project.

Another unethical activity that sometimes is conducted by researchers is data falsification,

for example by asking friends or relatives to fill in as their interviewee or manipulating the

interviewees, falsifying data, duplicating response data, or even manipulating the data

structures inappropriately (Saunders et al., 2009, p. 29). But in our case, that is, in our study,

we tried to avoid such unethical practices, we only asked people who truly are bank

employees to help us with our interview questions. Moreover, we consider that the data that

we presented has not been in any way manipulated or falsified in any inappropriate manner.

We would say that we tried to be as honest as possible, as transparent, and as objective as

possible in the manner in which we conducted our study. According to the AoM code of

ethical conduct, researchers have a duty to protect and maintain the dignity, freedom, well-

being, and privacy of participants, and also the participants also have a right to refuse or

terminate their participation at any time (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 133).

Furthermore, the information contained in this thesis does not have any personal data that

can be linked to the participants or about the financial institution involved. As for honesty

and transparency, the researcher gave out the complete empirical results to the respondents

making sure that the information is appropriately utilized in this research. Feedback

received from respondents was carefully adjusted in the final report of the thesis. So it is

safe to say this research was ethically conducted in accordance with the USBE thesis manual

requirement.

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Chapter 5

5. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

We shall discuss the empirical findings from the interview we conducted, starting with a

short introduction of the bank we chose for the study, and also that of each of the

interviewees we interviewed. We shall state what different interviewees said within the

different themes, starting with the stress, then job stress on employees, and lastly the

productivity.

5.1 ECOBANK

Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) is a public limited company that was first

established as a bank holding company in I985 under a private sector initiative spearheaded

by the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry with the support

of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), (Ecobank group annual

report 2019). Today, Ecobank is the leading Pan-African bank with Operations in 35

African countries across the continent, it has a larger African footprint than any other bank

in the world (Ecobank group annual report 2019). It operates in countries in West, Central,

East, and Southern Africa and the 14,878 employees make the group the largest employer

of labor in the financial sector in Middle Africa. The bank operates as one with common

branding, standards, policies, and processes, this makes for consistent and reliable service

to over 23 million customers across the network of 847 branches (Ecobank group annual

report 2019). Sustainability lies at the core of the bank’s mission to build a world-class pan

African bank that contributes to the integration and sociology-economic development of the

continent. The long-term success of Ecobank is intertwined with the sustainable

development of the economies, societies, and environment in which it operates.

5.2 BIO-INFORMATION AND THE EMPIRICAL FINDINGS OF INTERVIEWEES

5.2.1 Interviewee 1

This is a young man of 28 years who has been working at the Ecobank Nigeria branch for

almost six years in a remote city called Awka, where he is in the operation unit department.

He is single without kids but has a lot of family commitment because he is the first son and

the breadwinner of his family, so we can understand that there is a certain level of stress

from the family for him which he admitted to. Holding the position of a service teller. His

day-to-day activity is to cash in money for those depositing it and also dispensing cash for

those that want to withdraw, he attends to ATM, and handles cash, even though sometimes

his work exceeds just being a service teller. He tries to create time to hang out with friends

and colleagues, and some customers and days he does some relaxing stuff and others do

some productive stuff before he sleeps. He hardly goes on vacations because of the

workload that will occur if he goes on a vacation. He describes his working environment as

being conducive sometimes because of the area the bank is located, it’s a remote area where

sometimes electricity was a problem. He is satisfied with the fact that people can trust him

with their money, they can come to him for financial advice even though he is not a financial

adviser and he is not satisfied with the fact that the job takes up most of his time.

25

5.2.1.1 Empirical findings from Interviewee 1

Stress

When asked what stress means to this interviewee who has been an employee of the

Ecobank for over six years, what he understand by stress, he answered thus, “I don’t really

know the definition of stress but to me, I think that stress is when you are in a state of fatigue,

overworked, and tiredness.”

When asked how stress affects their daily activities, he answered thus “I don't think stress

can affect my daily life, in fact, stress does not affect my activities at work, especially, but

somewhere else maybe, but not work.”

When asked the employee how he handles, or deals with, or react to stress at work, this is

what the interviewee had to say, “depending on the situation, it depends on the scenario,

but if it pertains to my work, I will just take a quick break to calm down, I also decided to

play music, it really helps me a lot, sometimes I even take a nap and sleep too”

When asked if he was able to cope with the stress, the interviewee said “yes, I am able to

cope with the stress, because, no matter how stressful the job can be I always try to be at

peace with myself, be on time at work and always have a positive mind, that is how I cope

with the stress of my job.”

Job stress on employees

When asking the employee what kind of stress he perceive in his workplace, he came up

with a lot of similar answers with the other interviewees. But here is what he had to say

about it, “there is a lot of pressure on us especially from customers, multitasking and

brainstorming on how to satisfy the customers, and not having enough time for themselves,

the work consumes most of their other time.”

When asked what he perceive to be the most stressful part of his job. He said, “the most

stressful part of my job is when I have to use a particular program and application that is

very complicated and confusing at times and working with software that is not familiar to

us and having to work with a poor network server.”

When asked if the bank policy and management also contribute to his stress, he answered

saying “definitely, there are some bank policies that are too rigid on us and that can be very

stressful for us to deal with” though he didn't mention them.

When asked if the bank management provide some kind of amenities for the stress he

encounters at work, he answered that “maybe other regional branches have their

management providing them some sort of amenities but not in this my own branch but then

we can go on a quick break in case we are so stressed and tired.”

Productivity

When asked if the stress affects his productivity either in a positive or negative way and

how exactly he handle the stress. He answered saying that “it depends on the kind of stress

and the situation, sometimes when I get so tired and don't feel productive, I won't be able

to do anything and will just shut down but with positive stress, I get more productive, I aim

to finish and do a good job at it.”

26

When asked if he would have done anything different concerning the stress faced at work.

“It is hard to say, stress cannot be totally dealt with because it's a part of the job but we

can only learn to manage the stress, nothing much could actually be done about the stress

but allowing people to go on random breaks would really be nice.”

5.2.2 Interviewee 2:

This is a young lady of 23 years who works in the Ecobank Nigeria branch for almost two

years in an urban city called Abuja, she works as an executive assistant to the divisional

health and education. She is married without kids and does not have any family

responsibilities at home that generates stress. Her activities are basically to keep her boss in

check, anything that concerns her boss concerns her too, booking schedules and taking notes

for her boss during meetings. Most times she works from home, so she doesn't really go to

the office. She really doesn’t have any particular activity because she literally works from

home, she does relaxing activities before going to bed. She always goes on her vacation and

that could be one month or two. She is satisfied with her job because her job is easy and

she's on welfare, no bullying by other staff and high chances for someone to grow in their

career, and she has no reason to be dissatisfied with her job.

5.2.2.1 Empirical findings from Interviewee 2

Stress

When asked what stress means to this interviewee who has been an employee of the

Ecobank for over two years, what she understand by stress, she answered saying “stress is

like pressure, probably when you are tired and suffering from fatigue and also need to

rest.”

When asked how stress affects her daily activities, she answered saying “I will just shut

down as in, I'll just be unable to do any further work”.

When asked the employee how she handles, or deals with, or react to stress at work, she

didn't say much about handling stress, she was hesitant “I really don't know if I’m faced with

the stress and if it's something I must do I will try as much as possible to do it but then if I

can't I will just tell my boss that I can't do the job.”

When asked if she was able to cope with the stress, she said, “I can't say for sure because

to me both the positive and negative stress seems like a scam to me, at the end of the day it

all points down to the negative stress which I can’t be able to cope with.”

Job stress on employees

When asked what kind of stress she perceives in her workplace, “most time I work from

home so basically, the stress I perceive is the pressure of trying to meet up with deadlines

from my boss especially and also meeting up with the bank’s target on time.”

When asked what she perceive to be the most stressful part of their job. She said, “The most

stressful part of my job is going to the office due to a lot of traffic since I stay very far from

my office, I have to be up very early to avoid staying in the traffic.”

27

When asked if the bank policy and management also contribute to her stress, the she said

“the management, especially my boss will always tell me, if I’m tired and I need a break or

vacation, I should take it because is better for me to be working in my full state of mind than

tired and frail. The management always advises us to take a break if we ever need one, so

the bank policy and management do not contribute to the stress.”

When asked if the bank management provides some kind of amenities for the stress she

encounter at work, she answered that “the bank will always tell you, whenever you feel

stressed or tired, always try to take a time off and rest, the bank would not want you breaking

down at work because of stress.”

Productivity

When asked if the stress affects her productivity either in a positive or negative way and

how exactly does she handle stress? She answered, “I mostly work from home so stress does

not affect my productivity at work, even when I go to the office, and the productivity level is

still not affected by stress.”

When asked if she would have done anything different concerning the stress faced at work.

She said, “I would like to encourage the use of online banking and a cashless economy to

reduce the number of workers coming to work and increase working from home.”

5.2.3 Interviewee 3:

This is a lady of 30 years who works in the Eco-bank Nigeria branch for almost three years

in an urban city called Lagos. She worked as a customer service officer, she is single without

kids and has no family obligations to stress her in any way. She had a lot of activity at work

such as providing customer service, opening, and closing of accounts, activating accounts,

ordering checkbooks for customers. After work, she usually hangs out with her friends even

though she closes really late and her activities after work are mainly relaxing ones. She

hardly goes on vacations because she overworks even during the weekend but then she goes

on an annual leave which is just one month. She described her working environment as a

friendly and conducive one because she had nice colleagues and also worked in a team as a

synergy. She had a passion for what she had and overlooked all things else so she is satisfied

with her job and she didn't see her job as much stress because she expected them, but then

she was dissatisfied with the fact that they always called her up during the weekend for

MPR (Monthly Profit Review) meetings and that took up a lot of her resting time and that

was stressful.

5.2.3.1 Empirical findings from Interviewee 3

Stress

When asked what stress means to this interviewee who has been an employee of the

Ecobank for over three years, what she understood by stress, she had a whole different

definition of stress, and intended it to be something positive, “stress is something that

stretches your ability and wants to know how much your strength can carry you while

carrying out your activities.”

When asked how stress affects her daily activities, she answered saying “I have a passion

for my job, so I am not stressed at all by doing what I love.”

28

When asked the employee how she handles, or deals with, or reacts to stress at work, she

answered saying “the way I handle stress is by facing it because I love a little challenge and

that's how I handle it, it brings out the best in me and wants to make me do more.”

When asked if she was able to cope with the stress, the interviewee said, answering in a

positive manner saying “as I said before, I love my job, so when it becomes stressful, I see

it as an opportunity to learn and to improve at the job.”

Job stress on employees

When asked this employee what kind of stress she perceive in her workplace, she answered

saying “the pressure to meet up with the deadline, dealing with stubborn customers, a lot of

workloads, especially by the end of the day, causing overtime at work.”

When asked what she perceive to be the most stressful part of her job. She said, “The hardest

part of my job is dealing with troublesome customers that are very hard to please and also

impatient customers, they make my job very stressful and unbearable.”

When asked if the bank policy and management also contribute to her stress, the interviewee

said “the bank policy does not add to the stress at work but instead they always advise us

against over-stressing ourselves.”

When asked if the bank management provides some kind of amenities for the stress she

encounters at work, she answered that “in case I'm so stressed and tired, the bank manager

may send another colleague who is experienced in the field to assist me or something like

that.”

Productivity

When asked if the stress affects her productivity either in a positive or negative way and

how exactly she handle the stress. She said, “I do my best at work, I love my job, stress does

not affect my productivity at work if anything, stress boosts my productivity, I am more

productive under stress.”

When asked if she would have done anything different concerning the stress faced at work.

She simply said “but it would be easier if they employ enough people to do the job.” she

also added “it’s not like there is something in particular that can be done about the stress,

it comes with the job, you just learn to deal with it or not”

5.2.4 Interviewee 4

Interviewee 4 is 34 years old, married with three kids and she said helps support the family

as well. She has been working for 6 years in one of the Ecobank branches in Cameroon,

Douala in the financial department. She is Mainly an Accountant and a part-time cashier.

The daily activities carried out are bookkeeping for customers, customers’ invoices

receiving payments, bank reconciliations with cashiers, and loan repayment schemes. She

works 40 hours a week and most often works overtime. When asked to briefly explain her

working environment, she said it is comfortable but she gets to experience a high level of

customers every day. She was also able to testify that great teamwork makes work go faster

and smoother. The interviewee was able to tell us what aspects of her job she’s satisfied

with and dissatisfied with and she said she’s very satisfied solving customers' problems and

29

also with the good team and dissatisfied with the fact that she works more and sometimes

overtime but she is underpaid and the high volume of work to do

5.2.4.1 Empirical findings from interviewee 4.

Stress

When asked what the interviewee understood by stress, she replied saying “according to

me, it is the mental state of worry due to work overload and other things that bring you

down physically, and emotionally.''

When asked how stress influences her day-to-day activities, she said stress “socks out the

energy in her and especially if it affects her emotions, it makes her not fully focused on what

she’s doing.”

When asked how she handles stress, she said “when am stressed in a situation, I try not to

work because I will just add my stress by doing the wrong thing, so I always try to take a

break if possible to relax and continue later on or rather still I call in a colleague to assist

if it’s an urgent work to do.”

When asked if she was able to cope with stress in this way, she replied saying “in most

cases, I cope in this way by being able to take a break because I come up with other

perspectives and better ideas and solutions.”

When asked what changes could be made in her daily life to reduce stress or what she thinks

if she did differently would reduce her stress. She said, “like in dying minutes of work, it

stresses her a lot so if more time is allocated to work it will help reduce. Also if extra workers

are employed it will help reduce the workload and practically stress. Lastly, if meetings are

held to talk about situations that could help reduce stress for employees.”

Job stress on employees

When asked what she perceived to be stress in her work?, she replied listing work overload,

the environment, customer worker interaction, liquidity crisis (huge withdrawal and no

resources at hand), pressure to get work done within the required time set in place.

We went ahead to ask what she perceived to be the most stressful part of her job, but she

replied saying “I can’t really say what stresses me most but it all depends on the situation

I found myself in. For example, in a workload situation, sometimes I get help, and sometimes

it’s all on me because everyone is busy with their own work. So whether I get help or not I

still feel stressed and same with other situations.”

When asked if the company’s policies contribute to her job stress, she said “ yes, certain

policies are rigid and limiting, and this contributes to my stress, limiting policies make

things very difficult, for example, some policies favor some category of people and disfavor

others, and working with those people that the policies disfavor is very stressful, also it

stressful when my supervisors, especially the newly appointed supervisors, they don’t

understand the roles to play and expect the employees to do their work for them.”

When asked if the bank management provides some amenities to help reduce the stress, she

replied saying “yes, there is a room where someone can relax during his or her break

30

but most often the manager will say stress is normal to experience since it comes as a result

of the job.”

Productivity

When asked if stress affects her productivity in a positive or negative way, she replied

saying “I will say stress affects me positively because it makes me mentally, prepared for

the task.

5.2.5 Interviewee 5:

Interviewee (5) works in a different branch in Yaoundé Cameroon. She is 38 years of age

and married with 2 kids. She has been working for 5 years in the bank as an investment

analyst. She has had previous jobs which makes her well fit for the position. Her role as an

investment analyst is talking to most clients like traders, to make good decisions about

investment by providing reliable information. She works 40 hours a week. Interviewee 5

was able to mention that the working environment is sometimes calm and sometimes tense

and tense in cases of arrogant clients and supervisors making work over-bearing by

allocating too many tasks within short periods and calm in the sense that sometimes there

is smooth and good collaboration and no pressure from top management. She gets satisfied

with her job whenever she gets the opportunity to work with high-priority projects and is

dissatisfied with the aspects of the high level of responsibilities.

5.2.5.1 Empirical findings from interviewee 5

Stress

When asked what she understood by stress?, she replied saying “ stress can be seen as a

situation where one feels pressured to get something done with just a little or no resources

allocated and time to get the work done.”

When asked how stress influences her day-to-day activities? She replied saying “stress

sometimes influences me to make wrong and hasty decisions which affect me personally and

affects the organization as well.”

When asked how she handles stress, she answered by saying, “I take a pause and allow my

brain to think properly so I avoid making wrong decisions.”

When asked if she was able to cope with stress in this way? She said “yes because I am able

to be more creative in my thinking and solve issues or problems in a better way.”

When asked what changes could be done in her daily life to reduce the stress, she replied

saying, “have shorter breaks than having one long break. Also having more strict

supervision from management due to the fact that colleagues can sometimes increase my

stress by having their work not done on time which can affect mine.”

Job stress on employees.

When asked what she perceived as stress in her job, she listed a number of factors which

are customer stress, stress from top management, and work overload, she added saying that

there are more but these are the most common in her job.

31

When asked what she perceives to be the most stressful part of her job, she said “work

overload, this happens often and the time given is always short which makes me work

overtime.”

When asked if the bank policy and management also contribute to her stress, she said “yes,

pressure from the bosses to get work done within a specific period of time is stressful”.

When asked if the bank management provides some kind of amenities for the stress she

encounters at work, she answered by saying “the bank helps by providing a private room

for staff to relax.”

Productivity

When asked if the stress affects their productivity either in a positive or negative way, she

said, “Stress affects my productivity in a negative way because when I am stressed, I don’t

work as fast as I should and sometimes I push forward the work to some other time which

leads to procrastination”.

5.2.6 Interviewee 6:

Interviewee (6) happens to work in the same bank branch as an interviewee (4). She works

in the customer service department as a customer service agent and she has worked for two

(2) years. She is 27 years of age and is single with no kids. Her daily activities are as

follows, she tries to find out what exactly customers want and be able to channel them to

the right quarters, she explains to customers the procedures of creating an account and helps

them in creating one if it’s needed, sometimes as a team, they go out trying to convince

people on opening accounts thereby creating more customers for the bank. She works

approximately 40 hours a week. The working environment is sometimes calm and

sometimes tense and tense when dealing with troublesome customers and communication

barriers sometimes make the environment tense. Calm when dealing with reasonable and

understanding customers. She gets to be satisfied whenever customers are satisfied and gets

to give tips for a job well done, also satisfied when she receives good comments from her

manager concerning her job. She gets dissatisfied with the aspects of having too much to do

alone with little or no help. And with the presence of many customers, it becomes difficult

to manage.

5.2.6.1 Empirical findings from interviewee 6

Stress

When asked what stress means to the interviewee what she understands by stress, she

said “stress occurs when one has little or no control over his or her situation and also when

the body responds to pressure.”

When asked how stress affects their daily activities, she responded by saying, “when

stressed it makes me very tired and sometimes I am unable to complete my task”.

When asking the employees how they handle or deal with or react to stress, she said, “it

depends, sometimes I just keep working even if I am stressed and sometimes I might take a

break.”

32

When asked if she is able to cope with the stress, her response was, “I am able to cope when

it is a positive stress but when it is a negative stress it kills my spirit and makes me less

motivated”.

When asked what changes could be made in her daily life to reduce the stress, she answered

saying, “stress is a daily occurrence that can hardly be changed but just managed.”

Job stress on employees

When asking the employee what kind of stress she perceive in her workplace, she said

“stress from customers, the environmental condition can also be stressful, stress from some

of my colleagues who do not understand their job responsibility and have inadequate

knowledge about the task, they keep asking for my help and what to do almost all the time”,

overtime, targets are set and when customers don’t meet the requirements they turn to bring

trouble making my job stressful.

When asked what she perceives to be the most stressful part of her job, she said “the hardest

part of my job is dealing with difficult customers that are very hard to please and also

impatient customers, they make my job very stressful.”

When asked if the bank policy and management also contribute to her stress, her response

was “yes, some top management like the senior staff contributes to my stress by giving me

different work to do at the same time, and sometimes it could be two different senior staff

giving different work to do at the same time. Also, limiting policies make things very

difficult for me. For example, some policies favor some set of people and disfavor others,

and to work with such a group of people that the policies of the company don’t work in

their favor you need permission from upper management and at this point, it can be very

stressful.”

When asked if the bank management provides some kind of amenities for the stress, she

said “the bank helps by providing resting rooms where you can relax when you feel

stressed”.

Productivity

When asked if the stress affects her productivity either in a positive or negative way, she

replied saying “stress doesn’t affect my productivity in any way.”

In the table below, the authors present a summary of bio-information details, and the coding

used ‘‘INT.’’ simply means Interviewee.

Table II: Brief description of the interviewees.

Code Country Working

Experience

Designation and functions

INT.

1

Nigeria 6 years Service Teller in the operation unit department also

makes cash deposits and withdrawals for customers

then attends to ATMs, and even more.

33

INT.

2

Nigeria 2 years Executive Assistant to the Divisional health and

education officer.

INT.

3

Nigeria 3 years Customer Service provides customer services,

creating and closing of accounts, ordering

checkbooks for customers.

INT.

4

Cameroon 6years Accountant mainly and partly cashier.

Responsibilities are bookkeeping for customers,

invoices, receiving payment, bank reconciliations

with cashiers, and loan repayments schemes.

INT.

5

Cameroon 5years Talks to most clients like traders, managers

stockbrokers to make good decisions about

investment by providing reliable information.

INT.

6

Cameroon 2years Her daily activities are as follows, she tries to find out

what exactly customers want and be able to channel

them to the right quarters, she explains to customers

the procedures of creating an account and helps them

in creating one if it’s needed, sometimes as a team,

they go out trying to convince people on opening

accounts thereby creating more customers for the

bank.

34

Chapter 6

6. THEMATIC NETWORK AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, we are going to discuss and interpret data from the empirical findings in

detail and link the findings to the theoretical frame or, reference towards responding to the

research questions. Afterward, we will analyze the data in a table showing the comparison

of Nigeria and Cameroon, with the theories that we described in the theoretical framework

chapter. Which we will conclude by summarizing the qualitative findings.

6.1 THEME: PERFORMANCE

To begin with, one of the themes we discovered from our qualitative data collection is

performance. This theme was derived based on the question “if stress affects their

productivity in a positive or negative way?” According to Ilgen & Schneider (2011), job

performance can be seen as the extent to which employees are able to carry out their job

responsibilities, obligations, and expectations effectively and efficiently. Also, Performance

can be seen as the employee's ability to produce work or goods and services according to

the expected standards set by the employers, or beyond the expected standards (Ali et al,

2019). Ashfaq also added that job stress has a significant effect on the employee’s job

performance (Ashfaq et al, 2013, p.62).

Based on the responses gotten from the interviewees, we were able to see that stress affects

some employees in a positive way, it affects some in a negative way and doesn’t affect some

at all. When doing the comparison on both countries, we are able to find some similarities

in them, the employees in both countries express the same attitudes towards the same job

stress. Interviewees (2), (3), and (6) gave similar answers saying stress doesn’t affect their

productivity. This can only mean that their performance at their work is as expected. The

employees in both countries get the job done within the stipulated time and also the stress

of working with deadlines and pressure can promote their products.

Also, we see a similarity between interviewees (1), (4), and (5) whose productivity is

affected both in a negative and positive manner, which is where our question focuses. The

employees in both countries admit to being affected by stress in both positive and negative

manner which in turn affects their productivity at work. Two individuals may be exposed

to the same levels of stressors but may cope differently. Thus, one worker may experience

stress, whereas another does not, even though they have the same work environment, the

argument states that burnout is a reflection of the individual’s ability to cope (Donald et al,

2005, p.413). Also, it could all depend on their thoughts, how they think about the stress

because the brain interprets and perceives situations as stressful, difficult, painful, or

pleasant, positive or negative (Muhammad & Kishwar, 2019, p.35). Considering the cultural

differences of the employees, we were able to get different responses of if stress affects

them in a positive or negative way and we believe these responses are based on their cultural

background. We can draw conclusions by saying no matter the situation of stress, be it

positive or negative, the work has to be done. That is, employees are supposed to meet their

goals as well as the organizational goals.

35

6.2 THEME: ROLE CONFLICT

Another theme we were able to develop was role conflict. Based on the responses from all

six interviewees (especially interviewee 6), we were able to come up with such a theme

explaining how role conflicts can contribute to employee stress. As stated by Ali et al (2019)

role conflict refers to incompatible requirements and expectations that the employees

receive from their supervisor or coworker. Jackson & Schuler, (2017) went further to say

that stress occurs when employees receive two or more job roles or responsibilities at the

same time from different or the same supervisors that are incongruent in nature. This stress

is commonly known in the financial sector because one of the employees mentioned

such. Role conflict is also one of the eleven forces used as an antecedent of work-related

stress by some researchers (Ashfaq et al, 2013, p.62). Role conflict is one of the distress

factors pointed out by an interviewee which arises when an employee faces a conflict

between their work demands and to accomplish the work given.

In comparing Cameroon and Nigeria, in relation to the theme of role conflict we were able

to discover that management contributes to the stress of employees in Cameroon unlike the

case of Nigeria. Employee (6) was able to testify that top management contributes to the

stress when they appoint different conflicting roles to be performed at the same time and

sometimes it could be two different top management leaders giving two different roles to

perform at the same time. Even though interviewees 6 and 4 work in the same bank, they

were able to give different responses in regard to the question of the bank policies and

management contributing to stress. From the different responses, only one interviewee

could relate to this theme which pushes us to say that this could be as a result of the

environmental condition and position of the employee and why not the geographical

landscape. As a result of this, we say culture has an influence on stress because the

interviewees see things differently and experience stress differently.

6.3 THEME: WORK DEMAND

Another theme derived from our qualitative research is work demand. After conducting the

interview with the employees from Nigeria and Cameroon, we were able to identify the

theme work demand. As defined by Bakker (2016), Work demand can be seen as the

situation in which the organizational aspects of a job require a sustained effort on the part

of employees for it to be achieved. When there is an increase in the expectations of

employees it results in stress. Jex (2017) went ahead to say that job stress comes as a result

of work demand which threatens the well-being of employees. Mimura et al. (2003), stated

that where requirements are so huge, they have difficulty managing, this, in turn, affects

their mental being and will also contribute to physical and behavioral problems. A major

resultant of work demand could be workload, workload refers to the concentration of

assignments at work, which is one of the main causes of stress in employees and the attitude

of various employees towards workload is usually different, some comfortably manage it at

the workplace while for some it becomes difficult to manage (Ali et al, 2014, p.15).

Looking back into the answers we got from the interviewees from both countries, we were

able to find a similarity in this area of work demand. When expectations are high, employees

turn to experience work overload, pressure from bosses, and spending more time at work

than expected. The interviewees from both countries were able to mention work overload,

pressure, and overtime as some of the stress they perceive. Most of the employees from

both countries could relate to this theme. We could see that 6 employees were able to talk

about pressure from bosses, overload and overtime, despite the difference in their cultural

backgrounds, they were still able to come up with similar stressors. This leaves us with the

36

conclusion that there are some stressors that are more popular and common and can easily

be perceived by everyone no matter the difference in cultural backgrounds.

6.4 THEME: ROLE AMBIGUITY

The theme of role ambiguity regards how the employees from the Ecobank in Nigeria and

Cameroon react towards the job/task they are faced with. Some interviewees answered the

question of what they perceive to be the most stressful thing in their job and role ambiguity

seemed to be one of them. This is one of our themes and as explained in the theoretical

framework, role ambiguity operates when the employee is in the stage of confusion on how

he will perform the tasks or when an employee is asked to do the task without clear

instructions and no clear responsibilities assigned to him resulting in role confusion

(Revenio J., 2017, p.3). Beehr and Bhagat (1985) stated that role ambiguity is another factor

that leads to job stress, thus it occurs when the expectations, objectives, responsibilities have

not been clearly designed for employees (Muhammad E. et al 2019, p.36). Also, lack of job

clarity and predictability is the reason for role ambiguity; it is the most common factor in

any working environment that affects job performance. Role ambiguity is higher in the

financial industry due to the job requirements which means that employees ought to perform

different sets of tasks daily. Those with role ambiguity face difficulties in attaining their

performance goals. Previous work done by some researchers discovered that those

employees with high levels of role ambiguity were linked with poor performance

effectiveness. Role ambiguity can also be considered damaging to employee performance

In Nigeria, it appears that role ambiguity is one of the most stressful aspects of working in

Ecobank similar to the Cameroon Ecobank branch, where it seems that the employees

sometimes don’t clearly understand their job roles and responsibility which thereby would

affect their productivity. Nigeria and Cameroon Ecobank branch, where interviewee (1)

mentioned that using some applications and software that are complicated and confusing,

which implies that there is no understanding of the job role at hand, causing the job stress

and this affecting productivity. Also, interviewee (6) mentioned during the interview that

some colleagues who do not understand their job responsibility and have inadequate

knowledge about the task always ask for help and what to do almost all the time. This is

considered a role ambiguity stress which could affect the productivity of the employees.

Based on the interviews, only two employees could match this theme, one from Nigeria and

another from Cameroon. Both of them were able to experience this stress despite their

differences in their cultural backgrounds. This pushes us to draw the conclusion that

employees of both countries can face this type of stress no matter the circumstances

surrounding their background.

6.5 THEME: RESOURCE CONSTRAINT

The last theme we were able to formulate from our interview is resource constraints which

could also be described as resource inadequacy. It is one of the major most researched

stressors and also one of the themes derived from our qualitative analysis. It is described as

not having the adequate resources and tools to complete given tasks or projects and usually

being incapable to handle all of the work (Ashfaq et al, 2013, p.65). As seen in one of the

interview questions where we asked employees “What do you perceive as stress in your

workplace?”, the interviewees in Cameroon were able to perceive resource constraints as

stress as they replied saying the liquidity crisis was stress. This is interesting since Bharathi

and Gupta were able to see resource constraints as one of the factors that can contribute to

stress by stating that, resource constraints occur when the role occupant encounters

37

inadequacy of the available resources, equipment, and tools for performing their role

responsibility (Bharathi & Gupta, 2017). It is also seen by Ali in his article that the level of

stress minimizes when resources are adequate to meet demand (Ali et al, 2014, p. 15). It is

understandable to not be able to perform effectively with limited resources, not being able

to be productive at its maximum level due to limited resources also constitute a stress to the

employees.

In comparison to Cameroon and Nigeria, it can be seen that employees in Cameroon are

likely to experience stress as a result of resource constraints unlike the case in Nigeria where

no interviewee mentioned stress based on this theme. Employees from Nigeria seem to be

provided with all they need to work effectively and be productive at all times. Based on the

background differences and also taking into consideration the circumstances surrounding

the work environment, stress is likely to occur in Cameroon more based on the theme

provided. We can then go ahead to say that, this type of stress can be a result of the

environmental situation.

TABLE III: COMPARISON BETWEEN CAMEROON AND NIGERIA EMPLOYEES

Cameroon Nigeria Comments

Performance The employees in

Cameroon seem to

perceive stress in both

negative and positive

manners. Some don't

perceive stress at all.

So there is an effect

of stress on their

performance level

either in a positive or

negative manner

The employees in

Nigeria seem to

perceive stress also in

a negative and

positive manner. This

means that stress also

affect their

performance at work

either in a positive or

negative manner too

In the case of

performance at work,

we see similarities in

how the employees

perceive stress. Some

of them perceive stress

in a negative way, some

perceive it in a positive

way and others don't

perceive stress at all at

their places of work in

both countries.

Role Conflict The employees in

Cameroon seem to

perceive stress at

work when it comes

to role conflict. Too

many responsibilities

and different roles to

be played by one

employee at work

seem to be stressful

for the Cameroon

employees

The employees in

Nigeria do not

perceive role conflict

as stress at work. The

Nigerian employees

seem to know exactly

what to do at any

given time amidst too

many responsibilities

and different roles to

be played at work

In the case of role

conflict at work, there

is a difference between

the two countries.

Employees in

Cameroon seem to be

conflicted at work and

it contributes to their

job stress and this

reduces their

productivity at work.

Unlike the employees

in Nigeria, who do not

perceive role conflict as

stress, since their

supervisors do not

stress them with it

38

Work

Demand

The employees in

Cameroon seem to

perceive work

demand as stress

The employees in

Nigeria seem to

perceive work

demand as stress

Work demand is one of

the most recurrent

stressors at work and

there is a similarity of

such perceptions in

both countries.

Employees from

Cameroon and Nigeria

perceive workload,

work pressure, work

overtime, and other

work demands as job

stress which also affects

their productivity at

work

Role

Ambiguity

The employees from

Cameroon seem to

perceive role

ambiguity as a stress

factor

The employees from

Nigeria seem to

perceive role

ambiguity as stress

too

The case of role

ambiguity is in both

countries, the

employees perceive it

as a stress factor. Not

having full knowledge

of their work

responsibility poses a

problem to them and

this, in turn, affects

their productivity at

work.

Resource

Constraint

The employees from

Cameroon seem to

perceive stress from

the resource

constraint factor

The employees from

Nigeria don’t

perceive stress from

the resource

constraint factor

From the resource

constraint factor, it

seems that the

employees in

Cameroon are suffering

from the stress of not

having all the resources

necessary to work

efficiently, and this

affects their

productivity at work.

Unlike the employees

in Nigeria. They did not

mention anything about

resource constraints,

stating that all they

needed was provided by

the bank management

to work efficiently and

be productive at work

at all times.

39

6.6 SUMMARY OF QUALITATIVE FINDINGS

From our thematic analysis, we will summarize how we interpreted the themes based on the

findings we derived from our interviewees from a common institution from both Nigeria

and Cameroon. To begin with performance (level of productivity), we described

performance based on how the employees are still able to carry on their job and reach

expected standards regardless of how much the stress affects them. Because from the

responses we gathered, we were able to find that stress affects some employees positively,

affects some negatively, and does not affect others. But with this stress, employees are still

able to perform tasks effectively and efficiently. We also derived the theme of role conflict

based on the responses of some of the interviewees regarding how stress comes to them as

a result of multiple tasks and this was attributed to the case of Cameroon. With the theme

work demand, we derived this theme by looking at the aspect of the huge expectations on

the side of the employees. Huge expectations can lead to the employees experiencing

workloads, pressure from the bosses and possibly working overtime. Last but not the last

theme we were able to formulate was role ambiguity. This theme was formulated due to

some of the interviewees having inadequate knowledge and unclear role responsibilities,

which affects their productivity. Lastly, the theme resource constraints were developed. The

inadequacy of resources to work with as mentioned by some of the interviewees made us

develop the theme which best explains how it can contribute to stress.

40

Chapter 7

7. CONCLUSION

This chapter contains the final report of our research and will start by stating our general

conclusions which are related to our research questions and purpose. Still in this chapter,

we aim to answer our research questions. Next, we state our practical contributions along

with our theoretical contributions. Finally, we give our limitations and suggestions for

future research in this area.

7.1 GENERAL CONCLUSION

The aim of this paper is to examine and analyze the perceptions of the employee in regard

to the job stress, and also how it affects their productivity at work. In addition to this, the

authors also want to compare the job stress of the bank employees in Cameroon and Nigeria,

in order to know if they have the same perception in regards to the job stress. We can now

draw our conclusion based on the two research questions in chapter 1.

Our research findings show that the employees actually perceive stress at their workplace.

In everyday life, stress is fairly frequent. It has now become a part of our everyday lives.

We can only deal with stress, but we can't prevent it. Stress isn't always a terrible thing.

However, if it occurs at work, it will have an impact on our work performance. Moreover,

evidence from the finding shows that employees of the banking sector in both countries are

highly confronted with job stress. According to the findings of the study, employees of the

bank (Ecobank) which is found in both countries are suffering from stress at work such as

overload, lack of clear instructions, unrealistic deadlines, work overtime, work pressure,

resource constraints, poor relations with customers and inadequate monetary reward.

However, the findings related to how job stress affects employees’ productivity at work,

have shown that the employees are faced with different challenges of stress and have

different approaches to how they handle them. 3 out of 6 employees were able to testify that

stress affects them positively, 2 others said it affects them negatively while just one

employee seems not to be affected by stress at all. Moreover, the findings show that job

stress on employees is an inevitable situation in our society, not only in the financial

institutions but also in all sorts of careers in which the solutions could appear in many

different ways.

From our research findings, in order to answer the second research questions, we came up

with a comparison table (table III) comprising five themes coded from the empirical

findings of our qualitative research. Which are; performance, role conflict, work demand,

role ambiguity and resource constraints. We were able to find that the employees of the

bank found in both countries have some common perceptions. This is because in listing out

what they perceive as stress in their job, they listed common perceptions like work overload,

overtime and pressure to meet up deadlines. We were also able to find that some employees

from the Ecobank in Cameroon saw resource constraint and environmental stress as a stress

factor while this wasn't the same case as that of the employees from Ecobank of Nigeria

who did not perceive this as a stress.

However, our findings show that the employees were able to give some suggestions as to

what could be done differently for stress to be reduced. We can conclude by saying one

solution cannot fit all because the employees of different cultures have different stress

responses as they are open to different types of stressors, perceive stress differently, and

have different ways of how to cope with it.

41

7.2 CONTRIBUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

7.2.1 Theoretical Contribution

Stress in our present-day and even in workplaces is a trending and important topic and has

produced a great deal of interest in all kinds of careers mostly in developing countries. This

research contributes to the extant literature in this era of digitization and fast-paced

innovation, which is the case for developing countries. This is done by complementing some

of the prior studies on the topic, also by providing new insights into how job stress affects

employee productivity, especially from the employee's perspective since that is what our

study is about. This study also contributes to the existing literature by comparing the

perceptions of employees from two different developing countries regarding job stress and

how it affects their productivity. The empirical findings provide an understanding of how

job stress affects the employee’s productivity from two different countries. Prior to this

study, it was believed that job stress affects employees in just some particular manner which

is what we discovered too in the empirical findings. However, comparing the employees

from two different countries has shed more light on the previous studies. Furthermore, the

study identifies possibilities for future research, as well as reference points worth examining

in the academic evolution of the field.

Previous research relating to this topic has been able to provide some recommendations for

stress to be reduced and has little or no effect on productivity. If these recommendations are

considered to be helpful and implemented, it will make employees perceive stress no more

in a negative way but rather in a positive way and will definitely increase performance.

7.2.2 Practical Implications and Suggestion

In general, we think our research findings indicate that job stress could be a useful tool for

increasing employee productivity, which could be argued by other researchers. The findings

of our research could be used by the stakeholders, bank managers, and policymakers in the

financial institutions in the developing countries, to understand and have a better knowledge

of the challenges and stress their employees are perceiving at work. Since the employees’

perception of job stress influences their productivity at work which means, invariably, that

the employees’ perception is critical to the organization’s productivity and turnover, it is

considered important to know this as a manager. In general, we think our research findings

indicate that job stress is quite general but perceived differently by different employees in

different regions and this will enable them to have a better understanding of how to tackle

them accordingly. For the bank management to minimize the problems associated with the

employee’s turnover and productivity, the need to prioritize equitable job designs to help

the employees overcome their stress and the stressors. Though Muhammad (2019) stated

that stress is one of the burning issues that the banking sector must deal with so that

employees can comfortably produce quality work (Muhammad & Kishwar, 2019, p.33).

Our study provides several practical contributions in general, for the service industry, and

for financial institutions. Employee job positions should also be aligned with their

competencies and capabilities, according to organizational stakeholders. This will increase

the likelihood that employees will be interested in their jobs, making them more likely to

feel fulfilled in their work and less likely to experience job stress.

Policymakers can use our findings to have prepared regulations in the financial institutions

that can mitigate job stress among employees. In the particular case of Ecobank branches

42

both in Cameroon and Nigeria, the findings can be useful to them. Certain stress factors that

affect employees' ability to execute their jobs can be controlled by the company. Employees

might also try to relieve stress by doing physical exercises, yoga, or meditation. Employers

can assist employees in overcoming job stress by providing support.

Based on the findings, we recommend that the organization put the following measures in

place which could help reduce stress on the work of banked employees of Cameroon and

Nigeria.

Management should be able to call up meetings so employees can express their

feelings about how stress affects them and management should be able to introduce

management at the bank to help employees feel better when stressed.

Management should be able to employ people with the necessary skills and required

knowledge for the job and also be able to clarify the roles of each job so people get

to know exactly what they are to do.

As a result of workload. In order for management to reduce this stress, it is possible

to employ more people so as to share the workload and avoid pressure on employees

and possibly finish the work before deadlines.

Lastly, management can create shorter breaks about two or three instead of one.

Having more break intervals helps the mind relax and reduces stress.

The suggestions provided above are just some of the things we think if implemented can

reduce stress as most of the interviewees said. Also, these solutions cannot be possible in

both countries looking at the cultural differences of both countries and the geographical

location of each bank.

7.2.3 Societal Implications and Suggestion

A vast number of stakeholders, policymakers, and even the society at large are affected by

the issues of stress and job stress. We think that in our study, we have not produced any

kind of recommendations that negatively impacts any of those potential stakeholders,

policymakers, and society at large, that our thesis is in an unfair manner. The findings of

our research could also be useful and valuable to the society at large since they perform

their services to the public which means they have contact with almost all the population.

A study like ours might have a significant impact on the local community since stress is

directly related to the community and society, so it is also important to keep the local

community in mind when producing a study like this. We believe that our recommendations

might also be useful and helpful for other companies, not only the financial institutions and

also small and medium enterprises.

The societal implications considered for this study is that management not only in financial

institutions but in other organizations should be able to look into the aspect of the stress

various employees face. Though it is very difficult to solve the issue of stress employees

face because they get to experience stress differently. For example, the type of stress

employee A will perceive might not be the same type of stress employee B will face. This

study can be used as a perfect example because we realized from the interviews conducted

that employees perceive stress differently. If management is able to look at the issue of

stress more seriously, it will help increase productivity in the organization and this will also

be beneficial to the society at large.

43

It therefore can be concluded that sustainable practices can help reduce stress and result in

a harmonious society. There is a higher pace in society in general, the wheels are turning

faster and faster. At the same time, things are speeding up with organizations world wide.

We also see a society where people retire early, this means that both from the company and

society perspective, the company need to take care of their employees so they can hold up

till they retire later in life, and also, the society needs the company to take care of their

employees so they can be productive until they retire latter on. This simply means the

retirement of healthy employees.

7.3 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The period in which the study is conducted is during the busy season for the employees.

Most of them had to squeeze out time for us to conduct the interview over the phone. It was

challenging to obtain participants to participate in the research. This led to the fact that the

authors could not bring in more participants so we were limited to just six respondents. This

study was limited to two countries, Cameroon and Nigeria with not quite a number of

employees from one mutual financial institution. Further research needs to be conducted in

other regions and in other countries with an added number of interviewees. This study was

to the best of our knowledge the first one to know what the employees perceive as stress at

work. In order to ascertain the generality, we would suggest that this should be repeated in

other developing countries and other financial institutions. The interviews we conducted

were all done so by telephone, which if those interviews were conducted in person the

interviewees may have felt more comfortable and secure which would have led to them

giving us more information. Therefore, our suggestion for further research is to conduct a

quantitative study throughout different developing countries, by conducting a survey on

employees of several financial institutions in order to measure the differences and map

progress over time. The authors of this research thought it would be more interesting if a

similar study were conducted with a focus on more employees from different institutions

from different developing countries.

The mix of the interviewed participants does not include participants from top management.

It is thought that respondents from the top management would have provided more valuable

information, particularly on the aspect of professional judgment. This opinion is based on

the perspective of the employees. It can be argued that the top management and other users

of financial institutions may have a similar or different opinion. Therefore, the authors of

this research thought it would be interesting for a similar study to be conducted with a focus

on this point in mind. The findings of such studies can be compared with the findings of

this study too. Moreover, the timing for this study may not have been convenient for some

of the employees, some of them were not in the mood for the interview, some of them were

still busy and had limited time for the telephone interview, this might have influenced the

various answers we had from our respondents. In order to assess the generality of the

findings, we suggest that the study should be repeated during a different context under a

more normal circumstance. We also suggest that further research should involve gender

base, whether the stress affects more males than females or vice versa.

44

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49

APPENDIX I. EMAIL SENT TO OUR PROPOSED INTERVIEWEE

MASTERS THESIS

We, (Lena Chufor and Chibuzor Grace) are graduate students in Management and Finance

at Umeå University in Sweden. Currently, we are conducting research on "The perception

of job stress by employees and its effect on employees’ productivity in financial institutions"

with research delimitation in Cameroon and Nigeria.

The interview will be a semi-structured interview, this means, we would like to interview

you as an employee in the financial sector in Gambia and Rwanda, to provide us some

information in relation to research questions. Due to the distance and time for us to meet

you in person, we would like to conduct the interview via telephone (Whatsapp calls) if

possible. As our master’s program is in English, the interview process will be undertaken

in English and taken for roughly 60 minutes in duration.

This interview will follow the ethical guidelines as stipulated in the Umea School Business

Economic (USBE) academic writing. Research participants will be informed about their

rights as an interviewee. The following principle will be fully observed: participants’

privacy and personal data protection will be highly taken into consideration, and the

anonymity of the participants will be confidential, the researchers will maintain honesty in

all aspects and stages of the research process, during the interview, the processes will

include recording for analysis and transcription purposes. Also, you are entitled not to

answer any question you feel uncomfortable with. We will be glad to have an interview with

you as soon as possible after reading this mail, at any time convenient for you.

During the interview process, you will be in control of how to respond to the interview

questions. The data collected will be handled confidentially, which means the researchers

will not disclose or use the interview data without your permission. Please also find attached

to this email the interview guide that will be utilized during interview processes

We will highly appreciate your contribution toward completing our master’s thesis.

50

APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW GUIDE

General Questions: 1. How old are you

2. What about your family situation? (tell me about your marital life, how many kids

and how that contributes to your stress, tell us if you are the breadwinner of your

family or not)

3. How long have you been working in the Ecobank

4. What department do you work in at the Ecobank

5. What position do you hold at your job place and what kind of activities do you do

on a daily basis? (talk about the nature of your job and tell us what you do after work

)

6. How many hours do you work in a week? And tell me if you do overtime sometimes

7. How many vacation days do you have in a year?

8. How do you experience the working environment at your workplace? (how

comfortable is your working environment, is it too tense or calm, is it comfortable,

9. is the toilet clean enough, just talk about your working environment)

10. What aspect of your job are you satisfied and dissatisfied with

Theme: Stress 1. What do you understand about stress? (in your own words, what do you think stress

could be)

2. How does stress influence your day to day activities

3. How do you handle/deal/ react to stress? (What are your thoughts?, your feelings?,

what happens to your body)

4. Are you able to cope with the stress in this way? (give reasons for your answer

assuming the stress is a positive or negative one)

5. In your own opinion, what changes could be made in your daily life to reduce the

stress? (what do you think if you did differently would change the stress you

experience every day, it could be saving your money for yourself, no family

problem, could be getting a car or a bicycle, anything you think)

Theme: job stress on employees 1. What do you perceive as stress in your workplace? (just state the kind of stress found

in your workplace, it could be anybody's point of view as stress)

2. What do you perceive to be the most stressful part of your job? (to you as an

individual, what do you think is your point of view or stressing you the most in your

job)

3. Does the company policies and management contribute to the job stress

4. Does the bank management provide some sort of amenities to help ease the stress?

(for example, is there like a room where you can go and lay down for a bit, or a

massage chair in the office to relief you or a gym in the office where you can stretch,

what kind of relief does the bank provide for you to help with the stress)

Theme: Productivity 1. Does stress, in general, affect your productivity in a positive or negative way, and if

so how does it affect your productivity at work? (When it comes to work there is a

positive and negative stress, the positive stress is the one that makes your work faster

to meet up deadlines then the negative one is the one that breaks you down and

makes you unable to do anything. So which one is affecting you, if both, please still

say it. )

51

Conclusion: 1. What would you do or change about the stress at your workplace? (if you were to

decide what to do differently at work what would it be)

52

APPENDIX III: THEMATIC NETWORK ANALYSIS

Performance Ability to get the work done within the stipulated time

Working with deadlines and pressure can promote productivity

the employee being able to provide the services according to the expectation of the

employer

Role conflict The struggle of accomplishing different tasks affects productivity

Conflicted with too many roles from different employees at work

Performing different tasks at the same time.

Work demand How much workload enhances productivity.

Sees learning opportunity amidst the stressing

Role ambiguity Ability of not being able to understand your job description

Confusion of the job description

Working two different jobs at a time

Resource constraint Insufficient bank funds to operate