ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an understanding of how work organization features can lead to stress and adverse health effects. It will discuss the working conditions that produce stress, and organizational interventions to reduce adverse health effects due to stress. The physiological basis of stress theory lies in the work of Selye (1956) who described a pattern of physiological reactions to environmental stressors which he called the “general adaptation syndrome” (GAS). This GAS was activated in a non-specific, stereotyped form by any environmental demand (Selye 1956). One of the characteristic features of this theory was that stress was understood as a stimulus-response phenomenon. The organism’s reaction was activated in the same manner by any environmental demand which was called a stressor. Later theorists believed that this response-based definition was limited because the same reaction pattern could be evoked by a wide array of stimulus conditions.
