Role of Organizational and Personal Factors on Work Stress Among the Managers of State Owned Enterprises in Kenya

Abstract

The current stagnation of both the public and private enterprise sectors in Kenya’s economy, suggests among other things that, Kenyan managers/leaders may not be performing to their full managerial and leadership potential.  This observation engenders the need for further investigations.  Managerial work stress is a major organizational problem that has not been adequately addressed neither by organizations nor researchers despite concerted attempts. This paper sought to examine how work stress may be impacted by organizational and personal factors in Kenya commercial State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). To achieve this, the paper examined how the organizational and personal factors affect work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. Primary data was collected using questionnaires administered to 175 senior managers of SOEs in Kenya. Using random sampling, the paper collected data from 162 managers representing a response rate of 93 percent. The paper found out that organizational factors significantly influenced work stress while organizational structure and climate were major sources of stress. The paper recommended that organization structures and work environment should be streamlined so as to reduce work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya.

Keywords: State-owned enterprises, work stress, personal factors, organizational factors.