title: Job Stress in the United Kingdom: Are Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Large Enterprises Different?
abstract: This paper examines the relationships between firm size and employees' experience of work stress. We used a matched employer-employee dataset (Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011) that comprises of 7182 employees from 1210 private organizations in the United Kingdom. Initially, we find that employees in small and medium-sized enterprises experience lower level of overall job stress than those in large enterprises, although the effect disappears when we control for individual and organizational characteristics in the model. We also find that quantitative work overload, job insecurity and poor promotion opportunities, good work relationships and poor communication are strongly associated with job stress in the small and medium-sized enterprises, whereas qualitative work overload, poor job autonomy and employee engagements are more related with larger enterprises. Hence, our estimates show that the association and magnitude of estimated effects differ significantly by enterprise size.
authors.affiliation: Small Business Research Centre, Kingston Business School, Kingston University, Surrey, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Yanqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Small Business Research Centre, Kingston Business School, Kingston University, Surrey, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Saridakis
authors.affiliation: Small Business Research Centre, Kingston Business School, Kingston University, Surrey, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Blackburn
mesh_terms: D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D017132:Workplace / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: SMEs; enterprise size; job stressors; work stress