A Comparative Study: Commonalities of Job Stress Factors in Conventional Banking vs. Islamic Banking in Southern Punjab (Pakistan)

Abstract

Banking sector works as the back bone for the Economics development for a country. Stability of the economic system is dependent on the stable banking system. Banking system is the most efficiency way of transferring the money from savor to borrowers in a safe mood.

Banking system are categorized in many ways like government and private banking, conventional and Islamic banking, private and semi government banking and many others. This researched is conducted to find out the job stress factors in two banking sector which are conventional and Islamic banking sector. The research is trying to rank the stress factors from most stressor to non stressor and then finding the commonalities of these high ranked stress factors in both sectors of banking.

For the research, 300 respondents are taken, 150 from conventional and 150 from Islamic banking, 25 Branches of each sector are selected for responses which are taken from the 10 Districts of southern Punjab (Pakistan). Four Conventional Banks are  “National Bank of Pakistan”, “United Bank Ltd”, “Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd”, “Allied Bank Ltd” and four banks from Islamic banking which are “AlBaraka Bank (Pakistan) Limited” “Bank Islami Pakistan Limited” “Dubai Islamic Bank Pakistan Limited” “Meezan Bank Limited” are considered in this study. Literature review and interviews make the research team able to find 9 factors of job stress in banking sector. For ranking and finding the commonalities, A questionnaire was used on which the responses are taken.

Data analysis on the basis of scale used reveals the fact that among 9 factors of job stress there are 4 common factors in both sectors which are ““Over Work Load” “Public Dealing” “Long work timing instead of official timing of 9am to 5pm” and “market competition”. In addition to this, 1 factor which is high ranked for conventional banking is not included in Islamic banking is the pressure of deposit and other targets but it is not included in Common stress Factor Class as it is not highly ranked in Islamic Banking Response. In the same way 1 factor is high ranked in Islamic Banking that is “Low Salaries as compare to work Load” but it is not classified as high ranked in conventional banking, so this factor is particularly attached to the Islamic banking but not common in both sector.

The Research is winded up with the recommendations that State Bank of Pakistan, Branch Manager, Operation Manager and HR Manager should play their role in order to manage the work load and good scheduling system to reduce the job stress factors in Banking sector.

Research provide the new ways of research by considering the Gender and Designation discrimination in banking sector as stress factor varies on gender and designation level which can be new door for future research.

Keyword:               Islamic Banking, Conventional Banking, Job Stress Factor, Comparative Study