What can occupational stressdiaries achieve thatquestionnaires can’t?

Gail P. Clarkson and Gerard P. HodgkinsonESRC/EPSRC Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) and

Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Abstract

Purpose – The paper aims to demonstrate the efficacy of the qualitative occupational stress diary asa means by which to attain additional depth of insight into the way people experience stress, to fosterindividual reflection and self-assessment, and as an aid to the development of context sensitiveinterventions.

Design/methodology/approach – Using a free response format, a critical incident diary wascompleted by 15 clerical workers, employed in a higher education organisation, over five consecutiveworking days.

Findings – The factors constituting causes and consequences of occupational stress were cognitivelyframed differently from one day to the next and it is unlikely that these insights would have beenattained had we employed a series of preformed quantitative response scales. The diary facilitatedself-reflection and was reported to have cathartic qualities.

Research implications/limitations – There is a need for context specific, tailored interventionmeasures. Accumulation of corroborating descriptions of how people respond to specific stressors willcontribute to the development of such measures. The work reported now needs to be extended to largergroups and over longer periods to identify the most frequently used coping strategies, and which aremost efficacious in a given situation.

Practical implications – The qualitative occupational stress diary is a simple but powerfulself-reflective tool, which may lead to therapeutic outcomes.

Originality/value – A growing number of researchers are critical of the practical influence ofquantitative measures of occupational stress and coping. The study illustrates how the qualitativeoccupational stress diary might usefully complement traditional methods for research andintervention purposes.

Keywords Stress, Higher education, Service industries, Conditions of employment, Qualitative research

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionOver the past 40 years or so, evidence has steadily accumulated showing thatwork-related stress not only causes high levels of sickness related absence but alsocontributes to a high turnover of staff and reduced performance in organisations (e.g.Briner and Reynolds, 1999; Cartwright and Cooper, 1997; CIPD, 2002; Cooper andMarshall, 1976; Daniels and Harris, 2000; Jex, 1998; Smith et al., 2000). Stress and therelated conditions of depression and anxiety accounted for an estimated 12.8 million

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The financial support of the UK ESRC/EPSRC Advanced Institute of Management Research(AIM) in the preparation of this article (under grant number RES-331-25-0028) is gratefullyacknowledged.

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Received October 2005Revised May 2005Accepted June 2006

Personnel ReviewVol. 36 No. 5, 2007pp. 684-700q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0048-3486DOI 10.1108/00483480710773990

working days lost in the UK in 2004/2005 alone, and the financial costs to business andindustry have been well documented (for details see Health & Safety Executive, 2005).

A plethora of quantitative measures have been devised for the assessment of jobstressors (or strain manifestations), for example the Job-Related Strain Index (Indik et al.,1964) and Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1986). Increasingly,context specific instruments, such as the teacher-specific measures by Cooper (1995) andFimian (1984), are being devised. Many scholars have pointed out that no matter howappropriate these general and context specific measures are to a given work environment,it does not necessarily follow that the occupational stressors identified will be experiencedas stressful by any given individual (e.g. Fineman and Payne, 1981; Firth, 1985). Inresponse, researchers have sought to develop more comprehensive instruments, whichincorporate a range of stress and outcome scale items, together with many moderatorvariables, for example the Pressure Management Indicator (PMI) (Williams and Cooper,1998) and its forerunner the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) (Cooper et al., 1988).

There is no question that the psychometric tradition has laid important foundations forthe advancement of our understanding of the nature, causes and consequences of stress inthe workplace (for a recent review of work in this tradition see Hart and Cooper, 2001).However, there have been a number of calls to extend the repertoire of methods for theinvestigation of occupational stress (e.g. Newton et al., 1993; Schabracq and Cooper, 1998;Zapf et al., 1996). This reflects a growing recognition that the changing nature of workorganisations and jobs demands approaches that take us beyond the quantification ofextant categories of the causes, consequences and coping mechanisms if we are to deviseinterventions that have practical applicability in contemporary work settings (Burke,2002; Coyne and Racioppo, 2000). Moreover, researchers are increasingly agreed that it isthe cognitive appraisal of workplace situations and events that is the crucial factor indetermining their stressfulness rather than their objective nature (e.g. Daniels et al., 2002,2004; Folkman and Moskowitz, 2004; Lazarus, 1999).

For all of the above reasons, over the past decade there have been a number of callsfor more attention to be devoted to qualitative methods, with a view to capturing apotentially wider range of causes and manifestations of stress and individual copingstrategies (e.g. Alford et al., 2005; Dewe, 2001; Newton et al., 1993; Schabracq andCooper, 1998; Summers et al., 1995). The diary is one technique that has the potential tomeet this requirement.

The diary method has long been advocated for the qualitative investigation ofoccupational stress and well-being (Fisher, 1984, 1988; Newton, 1989). However, whilethe diary method has been employed effectively in several recent studies ofoccupational stress and well-being (e.g. Daniels and Harris, 2005; Fuller et al., 2003;Harris and Daniels, 2005; Harris et al., 2003; Totterdell and Holman, 2003) it has beenlargely used in a highly quantitative fashion, essentially little different in form fromtraditional questionnaires (for a notable exception see Alford et al., 2005). As with anymethod, there are inevitable tradeoffs to be made and in this case this relates to thedegree to which the diary should be constructed, i.e. allowing participants the freedomto record their responses in a free flowing format or highly structured for thequantification of the extent to which respondents agree or disagree with preformeditem statements. Gains in quantitative rigour per se are necessarily attained at theexpense of depth of insight. However, the latter is arguably the fundamental promise ofthe diary method.

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The aim of the study reported in this article is not to supplant the achievements oftraditional psychometric measures. Rather, our intent is to explore the potential of thequalitative occupational stress diary as a complementary method by which to attainadditional depth of insight into the ways that people experience work related stress ona day-to-day basis, as a means by which to foster individual reflection andself-assessment, and as an aid to the development of context sensitive intervention.

Study contextThe context of the present study is the UK higher education sector. Stress is thepredominant cause of work-related illness in the education sector as a whole, and theprevalence of self-reported stress and the related conditions of depression and anxietyare among the highest compared to other industries (Health and Safety Executive,2005). It has long been recognised that organisational change can be a significant causeof occupational stress (e.g. Callan et al., 1994; Cartwright and Cooper, 1997) and changehas probably been the most consistent feature in higher education over the past decade,not least the dramatic increase in performance monitoring of UK institutions in respectof their teaching and research functions. Thus, while disturbing, the Health and SafetyExecutive findings are unsurprising.

There have been a number of quantitative surveys of the incidence of occupationalstress among university employees, both in the UK (e.g. Abouserie, 1996; Bradley andEachus, 1995; Daniels and Guppy, 1992; Wilkinson and Joseph, 1995) and overseas (e.g.Winefield et al., 2003). While some studies have included support staff (Bradley andEachus, 1995; Daniels and Guppy, 1992; Winefield et al., 2003), most research in thissector has tended to focus on academic and academic-related staff.

Participants in the present study were all mid-grade clerical support staff.Financial-cutbacks and audit mechanisms are undoubtedly placing increasinglydemanding workloads and higher levels of uncertainty on this particular group ofworkers. Arguably, the erosion of traditional barriers between academic/academic-related and support staff (Doidge et al., 1998) are placing increasinglygreater demands upon the latter group of workers, but without the necessary discretionthat is ultimately required to meet them. Yet it is often those not in a position to shapewhat they do who are most likely to be suffering from stress (Karasek, 1979).Furthermore, their “junior” status means it is likely that support staff have had lessconsultation and participated to a significantly lesser extent in the change managementprocess, relative to their academic and academic-related counterparts.

The importance of this issue is recognised by a number of key senior managers inthe participating organisation, who are committed not only to helping staff cope withthe experience of work-related stress, but also to minimise its occurrence in the firstinstance. The study was designed in full collaboration with the organisation’s HumanResources Director, and in consultation with additional key staff members, includingthe University’s Counsellor and the Senior Training and Development Officer.

MethodA computerised pseudo random number generator program was written to selectpotential participants from a list of all clerical grade personnel as detailed by theorganisation’s Human Resources Department. It was not envisaged, or intended, thatrandom sampling would enable us to generalise our findings from this small-scale

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study to the wider population of clerical staff as a whole but the randomisation processenabled us to assure employees that there were no ulterior motives behind ourapproach to them as potential voluntary, unpaid participants.

The participants comprised 15 clerical support staff, spanning a diverse range ofacademic departments and central services. All were all were employed in mid-rangeclerical staff grades of a similar status and salary banding. Thirteen of the participantswere female (reflecting the overall gender composition of the University’s clericalgrades, which is predominantly female). Their mean age was 34.07 years (SD ¼ 9.63),and they had mean job tenure of 5.53 years (SD ¼ 5.57). Of the participants, 11 wereemployed on a full-time basis, while four were part-time workers.

The participants were presented with a diary booklet (outlined in Figure 1) in whichthey were requested to record self-identified critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954) that hadtriggered a perception of stress. Using a free-response format, participants recordedtheir recollections of each event at the end of each working day. The individualprovided details of how each stressful incident made them think and feel and theirperceptions of its consequences, both for themselves and their employing organisation.Participants were also asked to recount their own particular coping strategies inrelation to any identified incidents.

Diary studies must achieve a level of commitment from the participant that is rarelyrequired in other types of research study but, as our primary concern was to allow thepotential capture of in-depth and rich reporting, we nevertheless placed demands onparticipants by asking them to report their detailed experiences. However, we balancedthese demands, and enhanced our chances of compliance, by asking for this high levelof commitment for a relatively short period of five consecutive working days. Alongwith an assurance that the content of the diaries would be confidential, it was alsoexplained that the diary would be used for research purposes with the understandingthat participant anonymity would, in all instances, be maintained.

Previous researchers have indicated that only by focusing on stressful incidents is itpossible to get close to the coping behaviours that a person actually uses, as opposed totheir overall coping style (Newton, 1989). Accordingly, as noted above, participantsfocused on particular incidents in their diary entries but, at the end of the five-dayperiod, they were additionally asked to describe their on-going experience of stress andhow they tended to cope in general, that is their overall coping style.

A simple (highly portable) paper and pencil format was adopted. To reduce thepossibility of error in diary completion:

. the diary was preprinted with days 1-5, with a separate page allocated to eachday of entry;

. participants were asked to note the date of completion; and

. full researcher contact details were given to all participants, who wereencouraged to use these in the event of any queries or unforeseen difficulties.

Results and discussionInsights into new categories of stressIn order to manage and objectively report the data amassed from a total of 75 days ofdiary entries, participant responses were assigned (where possible) to one of 18 initialcategories, formulated on the basis of various published reviews of the extant literature

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Figure 1.Occupational stress diaryformat

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(e.g. Cooper and Marshall, 1976; Hart and Cooper, 2001). These categories reflected themajor causes (six categories), consequences (four categories) and coping mechanisms(eight categories) associated with occupational stress. The initial list of codes regardingthe causes and consequences of stress was compiled according to Cooper andMarshall’s (1976) model of occupational stressors, variously reflecting factors intrinsicto the job, organisational structure and climate, career development, role in theorganisation, relationships at work, and the home-work interface. The consequencescategories reflected a variety of physiological, psychological, behavioural, andorganisational manifestations. The initial list of codes regarding coping were based onEdwards and Baglioni’s (1993) taxonomy, which encapsulates various earlier copingtaxonomies and defines eight mechanisms.

One of the authors and an assistant who was blind to the purpose of the studyindependently coded the diaries. In view of the comparatively small number of studyparticipants, we assessed the inter-coder reliability by computation of the percentage ofoverall agreement (Hodson, 1999, p. 51). This enabled us to explore the extent to whichour initial list of codes adequately captured the dataset in its completeness, prior to thedevelopment of new codes (Miles and Huberman, 1994). As shown in Table I, initialinter-coder reliabilities for the 15 individual diaries were very good to excellent, with anoverall average percentage agreement of 87.20 per cent (SD ¼ 9.28) between the twocoders. All discrepancies were resolved satisfactorily through subsequent discussion.

The final coding scheme is reproduced in full in Table II. In total four additionalcategories emerged from the discussion that followed from the initial reliabilityexercise. Two of these reflected additional causes, namely “external factors”, whichrelates to situations where a participant attributes their stress to some aspect of theirwork caused by factors external to the organisation, and “staff shortages”, reflectingparticipant perceptions of inadequacies in workforce numbers in relation to workload.The third addition was an overarching consequences category. Labelled as“stressed-out”, this category reflected an amalgam of physiological, behavioural, andpsychological reactions. The fourth category related to a further coping mechanism,namely “humour”.

Participant number Agreements/agreements and disagreements Percentage agreement

1 23/30 772 10/11 913 20/23 874 18/21 865 10/10 1006 27/31 877 14/20 708 13/18 729 6/6 100

10 11/13 8511 26/31 8412 24/27 8913 15/16 9414 12/14 8615 13/13 100

Table I.Initial inter-coder

reliabilities (percentageagreement)

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Category Illustrative data

CausesIntrinsic factorsWorking conditions (physicalenvironment and equipment)

Equipment not functioning, network down, e-mailnot reliable, etc. (PT03)The heat in the building is too much (PT06)

Hours of work Stayed late to try catch up on my work (PT07)Working over the weekend (PT11

Quantitative work overload (too much) Increased workload – how will I get through allmy own work plus the extra? (PT02)There was work piled high (PT14)

Quantitative work underload (not enough) No citationsQualitative work overload (too difficult) No citationsQualitative work underload (too easy) No citationsOrganisational structure and climateIneffective and/or lack of I felt completely unconsulted (PT01)communication/consultation There is a distinct lack of communication, some

managers seem reluctant to inform me of what isto arrive and when (PT06)

Work politics No citationsLack of and/or unclear policies No citationsEmotional labour No citationsCareer developmentFear of obsolescence No citationsLack of opportunities No citationsOver promotion No citationsLack of job security No citationsTraining No citationsRole in organisationMismatch between knowledge, skills,competencies and job

Answer queries . . . which I was not totallyconfident about (PT10)

Level of autonomy She [manager] was the one who had keys (PT03)Role conflict Several different urgent tasks all on the go at once

(PT05)The variety of goods that come in are far toonumerous to mention, we seem to finish checkingoff one delivery just as the next one arrives... I am[job role] and get called away (PT06)

Role ambiguity Unsure of priorities (PT01)Responsibility Dealing with examination meeting (PT11)

Meeting of international visitor whose programmeI am responsible for (PT15)

Unclear lines of authority No citationsRelationshipsRelationships with management After a hard day one of the senior managers came

to survey our day’s work, all he could say was “Ihope you are going to move those empty pallets”– not a candidate for “our appreciation society” Ithink (PT06)Felt let down that our supervisor had not helpedout (PT14)

(continued )

Table II.The final coding schemeused to analyse theparticipants’ diaryentries, withillustrative data

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Category Illustrative data

Relationships with peers One particular women who moans and complainsso often it’s really off-putting (PT01)Lack of co-operation of the people I’m workingwith (PT12)

Relationships with subordinates No citationsHome-work interface Had not got round to mentioning it – due

mainly to fact that my boss is part-time,so am I, and we had both been takingleave to cover the “children at home” situation(PT04)All this [following stream of work issues]combined with a visitor expected at home for along weekend (PT07)

Additional causesExternal factors British Rail had not removed seat for wheelchair

[of a senior colleague] again! (PT08)Delivery for us went to the wrong part of theUniversity, so I have to waste time tracking itdown and collecting it (PT06)

Staff shortages Both managers have booked this week off forholidays which means most of the goods forthese shops cannot be priced up and put away(PT06)Having to deal with more telephone queries due toless staff (PT04)

ConsequencesPhysiologicalImmediate responses, e.g. sweating/hotand cold flushes

Hot flushes (PT07)

Hot, sweaty (PT12)Other ailments Tired (physical rather than mental) (PT06)

Felt tired (PT13)Long-term responses, e.g. pepticulcers/heart disease

No citations

PsychologicalPoor concentration and mental blocks Affected my concentration (PT04)

Felt that I couldn’t concentrate properly on issues(PT13)

Anxiety Worried (PT09)Felt panicky (PT15)

Depression Demoralising (PT11)Job satisfaction No citationsBoredom and apathy No citationsBehaviouralIrritability, annoyance Swore at my computer (PT03)

Swore loudly at the phone – after replacing thereceiver (PT08)

Alcohol Drinking (PT11)Eating Eating (PT11)

(continued ) Table II.

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Category Illustrative data

Smoking No citationsAccident proneness No citationsLack of interest, i.e. people/life No citationsOrganisationalReduction of commitment Why bother to be conscientious? (PT07)Impaired performance Not able to get down to certain tasks as well as I

ought to have done (PT04)I didn’t achieve as much as I’d hoped (PT-11)

Absenteeism No citationsIntention to leave No citationsLegal action No citationsAdditional consequenceStressed-out (amalgam of symptoms) Felt stressful (PT07)

Felt stressed! (PT15)

Coping mechanismsConfrontive I encouraged them to find their own answers –

instead of expecting me to do it! (assertivenesstraining!) (PT07)Make it known that they are causing difficulties(PT08)

Distancing Try to ignore and concentrate on working alone(PT05)I basically ignore him (PT12)

Self-controlling Felt like walking out but didn’t (PT07)Gritted my teeth and got on with it (PT08)

Seeking social support Coping involves confiding and sharing workload(PT01)Had a chat about it with some colleagues who feltlikewise (PT13)

Accepting responsibility No citationsEscape avoidance Eating, drinking, you know, all the really sensible

and constructive solutions! (PT11)Nothing you can do but have long toilet breaks(PT12)

Planful problem solving Just got on with the tasks involved and organisedothers for next day (PT02)I tried to prioritise. I decided to work thisafternoon as well and to take a half-day off at alater stage (PT15)

Positive reappraisal I did a lot of little jobs – which waspsychologically good. I know I am goodat my job and an asset to mydepartment (PT07)Other people would be feeling the same. It couldonly happen the first time and would get easiernext time (PT13)

Additional coping mechanismHumour He who laughs lasts (PT06)

Laughed off my boss’s bad humour (PT08)Table II.

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It is unlikely that these additional insights would have been attained had we simplypresented our participants with a series of preformed quantitative response scales. Forexample, the fact that staff shortages was raised by more than half of our participantswas perhaps unsurprising in the context of the aforementioned financial-cutbacks inhigher education but this issue was not a feature of the published reviews of the extantliterature which had formed the basis of our initial coding scheme. Moreover, use of thequalitative diary method permitted rich insights to be gained into the ways in whichperceptions of staff shortages spiralled many incidents into quite stressful situations.For instance, while PT01 detailed that her work performance suffered because of whatshe perceived to be a personal squabble between her colleagues, the situation escalatedconsiderably because “We’re low on staff”. Similarly, PT14 returned from two weeksannual leave to find the “reception in chaos”. She attributed this mayhem to a lack ofcover during her period of absence, which had resulted in an unworkable situation forher colleagues. Further illustrations of participant perceptions of staff shortages, and ofall other cited categories, are depicted in Table II.

A number of our findings run contrary to what might have been expected, givenprevious studies of occupational stress, based on traditional questionnaire approaches,within the higher education sector (e.g. Bradley and Eachus, 1995; Daniels and Guppy,1992). For instance, contrary to our expectations, as can be seen in Table II, none of theparticipants regarded “qualitative work overload” to be a significant problem. Bearingin mind that in total our data span some 75 person-working days this is a surprisingfinding. As we have seen, the sector as a whole has been beset by numerous changes,not least the dramatic increase in performance monitoring of UK institutions in generalin respect of the teaching and research functions and, arguably, support staff haveborne the worst excesses of the administrative burdens brought about by thesechanges; yet none of the study participants found the difficulty levels of their jobs to beexcessively onerous.

The changes alluded to above notwithstanding, much of the work performed byclerical grades is of a routine nature, but again none of the participants reported“qualitative work underload” as a concern. Other potential causes of stress within theworkplace that are conspicuous by their absence, given the context of this study,include issues around (lack of) career development (including job insecurity and thefear of obsolescence) and organisational politics. Similarly, in respect of theconsequences of stress, the fact that none of the participants reported jobdissatisfaction and/or boredom with their jobs runs contrary to our a prioriexpectations. Had we employed traditional Likert-scales to assess these facets ofoccupational stress, it is almost certain that a number of participants would havepositively endorsed statements reflecting the presence of these factors and accordinglya rather different pattern of findings would have emerged (Mezias and Starbuck, 2003).

The incidence of stress and other patterns of occurrenceAs expected, no participant reported that the five-day period covered by her or hisdiary was totally free from occupational stress. One participant (PT09) reported fourdays to be stress free, five participants experienced three stress free days (PT02, PT07,PT08, PT14 and PT15), three reported two stress free days (PT05, PT12 and PT13),two experienced one stress free day (PT04 and PT10), while four had no stress free day(PT01, PT03, PT06 and PT11). More surprisingly, participants who had detailed many

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stressful incidents over the course of their diary completion did not state these ason-going stressors. For example, while ten participants cited “quantitative workoverload” as being stressful on more than one occasion (including PT06 for whom thisissue featured on a daily basis) no participant reported this as an on-going stressor.Similarly, incidents caused by “staff shortages” were mentioned by seven participantson more than one occasion over the five-day diary period, yet no participant consideredsuch shortages to be an on-going stressor. It could, of course, be that the five-dayperiod of diary coverage was not representative of stress at work as experienced moretypically by our participants over the longer term. On the other hand, as has beendocumented well elsewhere, we know problems can occur in the recollection of eventswhen time has passed (Bolger et al., 2003; Newton, 1989). Hence, an equally plausibleexplanation for these findings is that by focusing on particular incidents closer to theirmoment of occurrence, our method minimized problems associated with retrospectiverecall, thus ensuring that a more accurate representation of the events was captured.

With one exception, all participants experienced fluctuating levels of stress(operationalised as the number of stressful incidents cited) over the five-days of diarycompletion. This, in itself, is unremarkable and such fluctuations could have beendemonstrated by quantitative methods (e.g. Williams and Alliger, 1994). However,from the rich descriptions obtained using our qualitative diary method, it is clear thatthe factors constituting the causes and consequences of occupational stress arecognitively framed and reframed differently from one working day to the next. Thefluctuations observed repeatedly in this study represent wholesale qualitative shifts inthe way in which actors internalise their experience of work, well beyond quantitativechanges of the sort typically detected using measurement scales of the adjectival andLikert variety. Consider, for example, the following illustration taken from the diary ofPT07. In her diary entry for day 1 this participant reported:

Visits to office, phone calls, colleagues in and out, member of staff requiring instruction rephotocopier, Admin. Officer not in – working at home, workmen in dept. drilling, MAmarking to sort out and distribute, MA admissions (registration docs. and bar codes to check).Lost dissertation – had to chase up post room. Queries re fees to sort out. Many e-mails todeal with and respond to. Member of staff (MA tutor) complaining he didn’t know he hadmarking.

This resulted in the following negative consequences:

I couldn’t concentrate at all on the job I needed and wanted to do for myself. I felt muddledand confused. Bad tempered. Resentful. I felt panicky.

Day 2 was equally eventful for this participant. Indeed, on this second day she wrote:

Pretty much the same as day 1. Chasing up marks for the MA, as scripts must go to theexternals tomorrow. Only a quarter of the scripts have been found so far. Trying to prepareinduction packs for the start of term next week. I had to greet three new overseas studentsand show them round. Didn’t know when the research tutor would be in, so e-mailed to home,then entered into a quite angry exchange via e-mail. Stayed late to try to catch up with mywork.

The consequences detailed for day 2 included:

Resentment, anger. Felt stressful, hot flushes. Felt like walking out – but didn’t.

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Once again, on day 3 this participant reported that the day included:

The usual stuff. Six MA scripts missing – he [the tutor] said he had never been given thembut I thought otherwise. Didn’t get lunch till 1.30, stayed till 6 pm. Last one in the dept.

Later, on day 3, she reported:

The six scripts are still missing – we will have to ask the students to resubmit(embarrassing). Tutors haven’t returned marks to me on time – today being the deadline. Imust now wait till Monday which is too late for my deadlines.

In terms of consequences on the third day, however, she wrote:

I quite enjoyed my day, I felt in control. I did not feel stressed. This was probably because theMA Tutor and Head of Department were in to refer problems to. Still have a problem with theresearch tutor but that’s his problem, not mine! I coped very well, I think. Felt relaxed. Noproblems and looking forward to the weekend to hopefully relax and be a “normal” person for2 days!

Clearly, a virtually identical list of incidents reported on day 3 resulted to thosepreviously reported on days 1 and 2 resulted in a very different set of subjectiveoutcomes for this participant.

Aiding self-reflection and catharsisOur findings revealed that a number of our participants found our diary method to behighly beneficial suggesting it has considerable potential as a tool of intervention.Perhaps this is best illustrated by the remarks of PT01 in her final reflections:

I’ve decided this diary is very therapeutic and will keep it on successive days if possible.

This observation bears out the recent findings of Alford et al. (2005), who askedparticipants to keep a stress journal for three consecutive days and found that thegroup as a whole believed the exercise to be beneficial, to the extent that this led todecreased psychological distress and increased job satisfaction. The work ofPennebaker and colleagues (e.g. Suedfeld and Pennebaker, 1997) has documented howself-reflective processes more generally can yield positive therapeutic outcomes. Thefindings of our study suggest our diary method has the potential to derive suchbenefits. Significantly in the last page (p. 8) of her diary, PT07 reported:

It has been useful to be able to complete this diary. I have been able to draw my ownconclusion about the factors which cause me stress. Despite being extremely pressurised atwork, I was remarkably stress-free for the last few days. I think this is because I have learnedto be extremely well organised well before a busy time at work, and am willing and able toput in extra time when necessary. I also have a good Head of Department who is fully awareof the difficulties with one academic member of staff and very supportive.

Similarly, PT12 observed:

It’s been an interesting exercise in itself and has made me aware of how I do and don’t copewith stress. I also found it is more people than work that wind me up!

Coyne and Racioppo (2000, p. 657) suggest that “The retrospective nature of [coping]assessments make it exceedingly difficult to distinguish between how a stressfulsituation is resolved and the contribution of individual coping efforts to that

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resolution”. In the present study, it may well be that very similar categories of stressorand deleterious outcomes would have emerged using structured psychometricinstruments. However, in keeping with the above line of reasoning, we suggest thatthere is a crucial difference in that the individuals concerned self-identify what theyconsider to be the most pertinent sources of stress and associated outcomes, as directlyexperienced, naturalistically in their daily existence at work. Hence, use of the diarymethod as reported in this article should lead to greater self-insight. In turn, it shouldbe possible to devise superior interventions, i.e. ones grounded in the lived experienceof the participants.

Limitations and future directionsWhatever claims of confidentiality and assurances of anonymity, issues of a sensitivenature are typically underreported (Orne, 1962). It is therefore feasible that, despite ourreassurances, participants were unwilling to admit to deteriorations in jobperformance. This could go some way towards accounting for the negligible datathat was reported regarding the personal and organisational consequences of stress. Inorder to assess the association between individual perceptions of stress andindependent indicators, future work should incorporate the use of objective outcomemeasures of performance and of well-being,

A second limitation is related to the five-day diary period encompassed by thestudy. A potential reason for lack of citation of various issues, which are welldocumented in the occupational stress literature as being triggers for stressfulemotions, for example qualitative work overload (French and Caplan, 1972) andqualitative work underload (Cox, 1993), could be the issue of timing. Similarly, citationsrelated to career development may have been raised had the diary been completed overa period in which staff promotions were being considered. Indeed, a wider range ofcitations might well have emerged had the diaries run over a longer period. In practicalterms, had our study been extended beyond a five-day period, this might have enabledour participants to reflect in greater depth on the coping strategies they used and tohave considered which of these were most relevant and efficacious in a given situation.

ConclusionThrough the evaluation of a small number of self-report critical incident diaries in thecontext of a UK university, we have illustrated the potential of the qualitativeoccupational stress diary to complement traditional questionnaires as a means forattaining additional depth of insight into the ways in which people actually experienceand cope with work-related stress on a day-to-day basis. We are in no way advocatingthat this form of diary should substitute organisational level strategies directed to thedevelopment of healthy work environments, the setting of achievable work targets, andsensitive and supportive management. We do, however, propose that the qualitativeoccupational stress diary is a simple, flexible and potentially powerful instrument thatis at least worthy of serious consideration as a useful addition to the manager’s kit bagof tools for the diagnosis of and intervention in work-related stress.

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About the authorsGail P. Clarkson earned her PhD at Leeds University Business School, The University of Leeds,UK, where she is currently employed as a Research Fellow of the ESRC/EPSRC AdvancedInstitute of Management Research (AIM). Gail’s research is focused on gaining a deeperunderstanding of how managers can engage employees in employment relationships that will

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enhance individual and organisational performance and wellbeing. A second stream of researchis related to the development and validation of research methods.

Gerard P. Hodgkinson is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Strategic Managementat Leeds University Business School. In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of both the BritishPsychological Society and the British Academy of Management, in recognition of hiscontribution to the psychology of strategic management as an emergent field of study. This, andrelated work on managerial and organisational cognition, is currently being taken forwardthrough the award of a fellowship under the ESRC/EPSRC management research initiative(AIM). A practising chartered occupational psychologist, he has conducted numerousconsultancy assignments for leading private and public sector organisations, including theInland Revenue, Marks & Spencer PLC, KPMG and the NHS. Gerard Hodgkinson is thecorresponding author and can be contacted at: g.clarkson@lubs.leeds.ac.uk

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