ABSTRACT
Stress and health at work are important for two reasons, one economic and one humanitarian. The economic rationale for the concern for workplace stress is based on the direct and indirect organizational costs of workplace stress. Absenteeism, strikes, turnover, grievances, accidents, health care costs, and compensation awards are multicause organizational problems with direct economic costs to which stress may be a contributing causal factor (Macy & Mirvis, 1976; Quick, Quick, Nelson, & Hurrell, 1997). In addition, communication breakdowns, faulty decision making, and poor quality of working relations are also multicause problems at work with in-direct economic costs to which stress can be a contributing causal factor (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosen thal, 1964). The emotional suffering endemic to organizational life has both economic costs, even if hard to calculate, as well as a human burden (Frost & Robinson, 1999). Further, the humanitarian rationale for the concern for workplace stress is based on the moral and ethical grounds that employees should be treated as ends in themselves, with dignity and respect (Aristotle, 310/1998; Solomon, 1992). Right and fair treatment at work is important in and of itself, and contributes to good physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual health.
