Organizational Change and Employee Stress

This article analyzes the relationship between organizational change and employee health. It illuminates the potentially negative outcomes of change at the level of the employee. In addition, it relates to the ongoing debate over how employees react to and respond to organizational change. I hypothe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Management science 2011-02, Vol.57 (2), p.240-256
Main Author: Dahl, Michael S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age groups
Applied sciences
behavior
Cooperation
Denmark
Depressive disorders
Drug prescriptions
Employees
Employment
Employment practices
Employment statistics
Exact sciences and technology
Firm modelling
Health aspects
Hierarchy
Insomnia
Job stress
Management science
Medications
Mental depression
Mental health
Mental stress
Occupational health
Occupational stress
Operational research and scientific management
Operational research. Management science
Organizational behavior
Organizational change
Organizational structure
organizational studies
personnel
Planning methods
Prescriptions
Productivity
Psychological aspects
Risk
Sales growth
strategy
Stress
Studies
Western Europe
Workers
Working conditions
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Summary:This article analyzes the relationship between organizational change and employee health. It illuminates the potentially negative outcomes of change at the level of the employee. In addition, it relates to the ongoing debate over how employees react to and respond to organizational change. I hypothesize that change increases the risk of negative stress, and I test this hypothesis using a comprehensive panel data set of all stress-related medicine prescriptions for 92,860 employees working in 1,517 of the largest Danish organizations. The findings suggest that the risk of receiving stress-related medication increases significantly for employees at organizations that change, especially those that undergo broad simultaneous changes along several dimensions. Thus, organizational changes are associated with significant risks of employee health problems. These effects are further explored with respect to employees at different hierarchical levels as well as at firms of different sizes and from different sectors. This paper was accepted by Jesper Sørensen, organizations.
ISSN:0025-1909
1526-5501
DOI:10.1287/mnsc.1100.1273