Coping Strategies among Construction Professionals: Cognitive and Behavioural Efforts to Manage Job Stressors

Abstract

Construction professionals are constantly exposed to varying stressors in their working environment and are likely to experience a high level of job burnout. Burnout threatens the mental and physical health of individuals and also decreases levels of job satisfaction and productivity. Research relating to managing job burnout has so far concentrated mainly on identifying job-related factors which are associated with burnout. Coping strategies affect the cognitive and behavioural efforts an individual exerts on stressful encounter and are considered to be moderators of burnout. This exploratory study investigated the coping behaviour of construction professionals in their working environment. It was designed to provide fundamental knowledge in deriving the most effective coping strategies for job stressors in the Hong Kong construction industry. A web-based questionnaire was adopted and a total of 342 valid responses were received. Factor analysis revealed that the coping behaviours observed could be satisfactorily described by four dimensions: Rational Problem Solving, Resigned Distancing, Seeking Support/Ventilation and Passive Wishful Thinking. Among these four coping dimensions, Rational Problem Solving was found to be used most frequently and to be explained by the most significant percentage variance. On-going research based on these findings will attempt to identify the most effective coping strategies associated with low levels of burnout.

Keywords:

• Burnout
• Construction Professionals
• Coping Strategies
• Job Stressors

Introduction

Coping is among the most widely studied topics in contemporary psychology. However, the explosion of interest in coping has produced little to help the burnout crisis in the construction industry. The Hong Kong construction industry is very demanding and competitive in its external as well as its internal environments. Construction professionals are exposed to stress from widely different sources in the workplace. Previous research suggests that job characteristics such as long working hours, tight schedules and unfavourable working conditions, are major contributors to the burnout found in construction professionals. Burnout is defined as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach et al., 1996). Levels of burnout vary considerably even when compared within similar environments. Individuals appear to develop cognitive and behavioural efforts to cope with their own particular stressful situations. However, it has also been shown that stress factors found within differing occupations need very different coping strategies (Chan, 1994; Hurrell, 1995). This research included a survey among construction professionals in Hong Kong and investigated coping strategies which might act as moderators when dealing with stressful situations at work. This knowledge is important for future research in deriving the most effective coping strategies to tackle job stress and hence reduce the threat of burnout. This would enable avoidance of burnout and would be considered desirable for both the well-being of construction professionals and the overall performance of the industry.

Theoretical Background

Coping is defined as the cognitive and behavioural efforts used to manage specific external order and/or internal demands appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the individual (Folkman and Lazarus, 1988). Coping is a process that consists of both problem-focused coping potential (options for influencing the situation) and emotion-focused coping potential (ability to emotionally adapt to the situation). Gianakos (2002) on the other hand, classifies coping behaviour in another way that includes control-related coping and escape-related coping. How individual efforts to manage distressing problems and emotions affect the physical and psychological outcomes of stress have been the focus of a prodigious amount of research over the past two decades (Coyne and Downey, 1991; Somerfield and McCrae, 2000).

Measure and structure of coping

Among numerous studies related to coping, different coping measures and structures were found. The most widely used instrument in measuring coping is the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) which consists of eight coping scales (Folkman and Lazarus, 1988; Gueritault-Chalvin et al., 2000; Haynes and Love, 2004) They are Confrontive Coping (which describes aggressive efforts to alter the situation and suggests some degree of hostility and risk-taking); Distancing (describing cognitive efforts to detach oneself and to minimize the significance of the situation); Self-controlling (which describes efforts to regulate feelings and actions); Social Support Seeking (searching for informational, tangible and emotional support); Accepting Responsibility (acknowledging a personal role in the problem and concomitantly trying to put things right); Escape Avoidance (which describes wishful thinking and behavioural efforts to escape or avoid the problem); Planful Problem Solving (deliberate, problem-focused efforts to alter the situation, coupled with an analytic approach to solving the problem); Positive Reappraisal (creating a positive meaning by focusing on personal growth).

Despite the wide usage of WCQ coping scales, its conceptualisation and psychometric properties were critically reviewed by Chan (1994). As a result, a new structure of four coping scales was identified innovatively using a sample of 657 Hong Kong secondary school teachers and students with high levels of validity and reliability. An examination of each item in the original methodology, along with confirmatory factor analyses, supported Distancing remaining as a single factor. Seeking Social Support was combined with efforts to regulate feelings and actions, Ventilation. Escape Avoidance was transformed to become Passive Wishful Thinking. Planful Problem Solving was adjusted to become Rational Problem Solving. This contracted factor structure clarifies the multi-dimensional nature of the WCQ.

Coping in the construction industry

The construction industry offers numerous potential stress sources in the workplace. These include dangerous and dirty working conditions on site (Dainty et al., 1999); role conflict and role ambiguity (Leung et al., 2005); long work hours (Aldous et al., 1979); job insecurity (Larson et al., 1994); bureaucracy and lack of opportunity to learn new skills (Ng et al., 2005) as well as work-family conflicts (Lingard and Francis, 2004).

The individual experiencing long periods of chronic job stress is likely to encounter physical health problems (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993); reduced productivity or effectiveness and lower levels of satisfaction and organisational commitment (Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998; Maslach et al., 2001). High levels of job burnout have been identified by Lingard (2003) among Australian civil engineers and Yip et al. (2005) among construction professionals in Hong Kong. These phenomena not only threaten the well-being of construction professionals but also reduce industrial efficiency and long-term competitiveness.

However, as a result of limited theoretical and empirical research into occupational stress within the construction industry (Haynes and Love, 2004), it would appear that many construction professionals are unaware of the potential consequences of the burnout syndrome. Little of the existing research addresses the role coping plays when managing occupational stress to reduce the exposure to burnout.

Coping has been recognised as a moderator of job demand (Rijk et al., 1998). The effects that such stressors have on construction professionals depend upon the cognitive and behavioural responses evoked. Such responses, or coping behaviours, are determined by the amount and quality of resources available when the problem or stressor arises (Heaney et al., 1995).

Research has found burnout to be related to coping styles. Maslach et al. (1996) confirmed the relationship of personal accomplishment with coping; in particular, control-oriented coping is negatively related to emotional exhaustion (Leiter, 1990). Leiter (1991) later conducted further research on workers in a mental hospital. This confirmed that coping patterns predicted burnout in terms of both control and escapist coping patterns. Individuals vary in their responses to work-related demands. Some individuals have been shown to cope better than others, reducing the detrimental effects of burnout (Haynes and Love, 2004). It is necessary to investigate why some people appear to cope well, escaping the effects of burnout, despite heavy job demands. Their specific coping strategies, however, require quantification in their particular work settings. Acquisition of this knowledge could be used in the development of a hypothesis aimed at eliminating or moderating the effect of burnout.

The intention of this study was to explore the coping strategies adopted by construction professionals in Hong Kong. The research identified the factorial structure of the coping strategies together with the frequency of use of each coping dimension. This would form a foundation for future research investigating the extent to which coping strategies neutralise the negative effects of job demands and how this relates to the phenomenon of burnout.

Research Method

Sample

The population consisted of construction related professionals; i.e. project managers, architects, engineers and surveyors engaged in property development, consulting and contracting companies in Hong Kong. A web-based self-administered questionnaire was developed for the purpose of this study. Within those companies or professional organisations who agreed to participate, a web-based hyper-linked questionnaire was sent to the participants’ internal e-mail systems by the human resources department, or other responsible management groups. Completed questionnaires were submitted online and returned directly to the data base system controlled by researchers. The front page of the questionnaire consisted of plain language statements briefly describing the objectives of the study. The statements also explained the voluntary nature of participation and assured the respondents of both anonymity and confidentiality. Upon completion of the survey, participants became eligible to receive analysis of personal coping styles and a copy of the survey analysis itself.

Measures

Demographic information collected included the age, gender and marital status of the respondents. Respondents were also asked to provide information about their professions and the nature of the organisation in which they were employed at the time of the survey. Respondents were also asked to indicate their most advanced level of education.

Coping strategies were measured using the simplified version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) which consists of 29 items (Chan, 1994). In this study, these 29 coping activities were further divided into two categories: coping activities used during the stressful situations and coping activities used following a stressful situation. Respondents were first asked to recall the most stressful situation that they had experienced in the past week and keep this situation in mind while responding to the 29 statements. Each statement described the thoughts or actions used to cope with that specific stressful situation. Respondents were then asked to indicate the frequency with which they had used each strategy in a 4-point Likert scale (0=does not apply or not used; 1=used somewhat; 2=used quite a bit; 3=used a great deal). Relative scores describe the proportion of effort represented by each type of coping and are expressed as a percentage. A high relative score represented that the person used these coping activities more often than they used other categories of coping behaviour.

Results

Description of the sample

The results in this paper were based on 342 completed usable questionnaires assessing the coping strategies of construction professionals. 30% of respondents were employed in consulting firms, while 28% were in contracting organisations. Another 15% worked for developers and 12% for the government. The remainder of the respondents were employed by other organisations, including public utilities companies and property management companies. 75% of respondents expressed their interest in obtaining an analysis relating to their personal coping strategies.

Factor analysis of coping scores

While coping has originally been classified into eight categories, there is an ongoing debate as to its factorial structure. For example, the model of coping developed by Folkman and Lazarus (1988) consisted of eight factors; however, factor analysis of Chan (1994) revealed that coping activities could be adequately described by four relatively independent dimensions. The structure of the coping behaviours among the sample in this study was examined using Principal Components Factor Analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation.

The initial unconstrained PCA yielded five components with eigenvalues larger than 1, explaining 57% of the total variance. Items loading on these five factors were examined but no theoretical distinction between items loading on the fourth and fifth factors could be determined. Consequently, a forced four factor solution was generated. Both the five and four component solutions were submitted to varimax rotation and the item loadings were compared. The four factor solution was the less complex and also the four rotated components were consistent with the underlying factor structure suggested by Chan (1994). It confirmed the discriminant validity of the four coping dimensions in the sample. As the item loadings indicate, Rational Problem Solving (25% of variance), Resigned Distancing (13% of variance), Seeking Support/Ventilation (6% of variance) and Passive Wishful Thinking (4% of variance) scale items loaded as expected. The results of this analysis are presented below in Table 1.

Table 1 Factorial structure of coping (N=342)

		Factors Loadings
	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4
Rational Problem Solving
Q1	670
Q5	.608
Q6	.544
Q7	.664
Q11	.453
Q12	.493
Q13	.631
Q14	.597
Q15	.562
Q19	.668
Q20	.569
Q22	.579
Q27	.406
Resigned Distancing
Q16		.634
Q17		.740
Q18		.509
Q21		.606
Q23		.706
Q29		.524
Seeking Support/Ventilation
Q24			.798
Q25			.741
Q26			.535
Passive Wishful Thinking
Q2				.549
Q3				.400
Q4				.672
Q8				.606
Q9				.563
Q10				.474
Q28				.424

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Loadings of magnitude below .40 have been omitted.

Intercorrelations, mean relative scores and internal consistency of the four coping dimensions

Table 2 presents the intercorrelations of the four coping dimensions; together with their mean relative scores and internal consistency. It can be seen from the mean relative scores that among the four revised scales, Rational Problem Solving was most commonly used, followed by Seeking Support/Ventilation and then Passive Wishful Thinking. Resigned Distancing was least commonly used. It is observed that all four coping dimensions were significantly interdependent; in particular, Resigned Distancing is significantly associated with Passive Wishful Thinking (correlation = 0.639).

Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (α) were calculated to determine the internal consistency reliability of the four coping factors. These coefficients were 0.851 for Rational Problem Solving, 0.775 for Resigned Distancing, 0.762 for Seeking Support/Ventilation and 0.786 for Passive Wishful Thinking respectively. This indicates that each of the coping sub-scales has satisfactory internal consistency and reliability.

Table 2 Intercorrelations, mean relative scores and internal consistency of the four coping dimensions (N=342)

	1	2	3	4
1. Rational problem solving	-
2. Resigned distancing	.361**	-
3. Seeking support/Ventilation	.344**	.482**	-
4. Passive Wishful Thinking	.283**	.639**	.503**	-
Mean relative score	34.89	19.82	24.18	21.11
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (α)	.851	.775	.762	.786

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Discussion

This study investigated 342 construction professionals representing a good cross-section of construction industry related organisations in Hong Kong. Among the 342 respondents, an extremely high portion of them (75%) indicated they wished to obtain an analysis of their personal coping behaviour. This suggested that construction professionals recognise that they are subjected to stressful experiences at work and wished to understand more about their coping behaviours, potentially enhancing their ability to deal with future stressful situations effectively. However, limited theoretical and empirical studies so far have fulfilled this requirement; in particular with reference to the specific job characteristics of the construction industry.

The factorial structure of coping among the Hong Kong construction professionals was found to be composed of four dimensions with high internal consistency and reliability. The four dimensions are Rational Problem Solving, Resigned Distancing, Seeking Support/Ventilation and Passive Wishful Thinking. This is consistent with Chan (1994) in a study related to secondary school teachers and students in Hong Kong. This demonstrates that the simplified version of WCQ is a valid and reliable scale in assessing coping within the Hong Kong context. These results provided confidence for further research to be extended to the application of WCQ to other professionals in Hong Kong with high levels of validity, internal consistency and reliability.

Of the four dimensions of coping, Rational Problem Solving was found to have the most significant percentage of variance (almost half of the total variance) when compared with that of the other three coping dimensions. The second most significant dimension was found to be Resigned Distancing which represented almost a quarter of total variance. While the percentages of variance of the remaining two dimensions, Seeking Support/Ventilation and Passive Wishful Thinking, were comparatively least significant among the four dimensions of coping. Attention is drawn to the finding that Rational Problem Solving was the most commonly used coping strategy. It indicated that the construction professionals within the sample tended to deliberate problem-focused strategies to alter such situations and have an analytic approach to personal problem solving. It is therefore important to investigate the effectiveness (positive or negative) of this particular coping behaviour on the unique nature of job stress in the Hong Kong construction industry. It is also important to understand the interrelationships of the coping dimensions and their individual contributions to moderate the relationship between job demands and burnout. As different cognitive and behavioural efforts are required for handling different sources of occupational stress, it is crucial to derive effective coping strategies specifically for the job characteristics of construction professionals so as to reduce the burnout phenomenon.

Past research into occupational stress focused mainly on the relationship between its contributing factors and consequential effects. This was intended to provide a basis for intervention strategies and job-redesign to minimise the exposure to occupational stress. However, any change related to company policy can only be implemented at organisational level. In contrast, coping strategies can be adjusted more flexibly and effectively by training individuals through awareness programmes. This also enables mutual help in the avoidance and minimisation of the negative impact of burnout. Gueritault-Chalvin et al. (2000) demonstrated the important roles of cognitive and behavioural coping styles in understanding burnout by developing a coping model for work-related stress and occupational burnout. These encouraged confirmatory studies on the role of coping in the causational relationship between job demand and burnout. Little research has been done to identify those persons who can cope well under high pressure without developing burnout. It is therefore important to investigate how some construction professionals cope better than others despite the presence of many burnout predictors. Successful development of this knowledge would deliver substantial and novel information in the field of coping and burnout research.

Conclusions

Both the structure of coping strategies and the proportion of effort of each coping dimension were explored innovatively among construction professionals in Hong Kong. Coping activities of the sample in this study were found to be adequately described by 4 dimensions. They are Rational Problem Solving, Resigned Distancing, Seeking Support/Ventilation and Passive Wishful Thinking. Among these four coping dimensions, rational problem solving was found to be used most often and Resigned Distancing was found to be used least. These findings make a significant contribution to the target of deriving effective coping strategies for the reduction of the currently high levels of burnout in construction professionals.

Limitation and Further Research

This is a cross-sectional research which is unable to ascertain the causal direction of relationships between the variables of job stressors, coping and burnout. This research is ongoing and future studies will address the interrelationship of job stressors, coping and burnout. Measures of job characteristics, quantification of burnout and individual/organisational outcomes will also be evaluated. Future research might also adopt a longitudinal design which enables an important contribution to theory of the role played by coping as a moderator between job demands and burnout.