Role of Self-Efficacy and Collective Efficacy as Moderators of Occupational Stress Among Software Development Professionals

Theoretical Background

Recent occupational stress research has explored the role of moderators in stress-strain relationships (e.g., Srinivasan, 1988; Parkes, 1990; Heinisch & Jex, 1998; Jex & Elacqua, 1999). Among them, studies that have given prominence to self-beliefs have demonstrated that stressors are less detrimental when individuals have more positive self-perceptions (Jex & Bliese, 1999). One type of self-belief that has received relatively little attention in the occupational stress literature is self-efficacy (Jex & Gudanowski, 1992; Schaubroeck & Merritt, 1997; Jex & Bliese, 1999) and collective self-efficacy (Jex & Gudanowski, 1992; Jex & Bliese, 1999; Schaubroeck et al., 2000). Self-Efficacy need to be applied to occupational stress because (a) they are likely to have an impact on the way in which employees cope with stressors at the workplace (Stumpf et al., 1987; Leiter, 1991; Jex & Bliese 1999), (b) they influence individuals’ preference for various types of work environment and (c) they determine perceptions of situations as stressors.