ABSTRACT
Life stress is generally defined as the manifestation of negative psychological reactions to various encounters in life. Due to its negative consequences, both academic researchers and managers have devoted efforts to understanding the factors that cause life stress among employees (Hall and Richter 1988; DeFrank and Ivancevich 1998). It has long been argued that life stress of employees is largely triggered by the work-related factors in the workplace. For instance, Karasek's (1979) job demands-decision latitude model focused on job demands experienced by employees as a key determinant of employee stress (Fox, Dwyer and Ganster 1993; Xie 1996; Schaubroeck and Merritt 1997; Schaubroeck, Lam and Xie 2000). On the other hand, other researchers have suggested that obligations and responsibilities in the family domain can also be the source of life stress among employees (Frone, Russell and Cooper 1992; Williams and Alliger 1994).
