The effect of job stress on job performance amongst IT professionals: the moderating role of proactive work behaviours

Abstract

The heavy dependence of modern businesses on information technologies and systems has expanded the job roles and increased the work demands and pressures of Information Technology practitioners. IT professionals who cannot cope with the ever increasing demands of their work experience high levels of occupational stress. Occupational stress has a negative income on work-related outcomes such as job performance. Extant research on stress-related studies have focused on passive or reactive strategies of coping. I propose a proactive approach by arguing that proactive work behaviours moderate negative relationship between job stress and job performance. I draw on Hobfoll's Conversation of Resources theory (1989) and the proactive coping literature (Aspinwall and Taylor, 1997) in the present proposal. A quantitative methodology is proposed for the study. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.