WELL-BEING AND WORK-RELATED STRESS: MEASURES AND DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH

Occupational stress is considered to be one of the ten leading work-related health problems. Several research showed that stress consequences have a negative impact on the worker in several way. Moreover, literature have shown that the work environment can have a major effect on employee work-related stress. For this reason, occupational health psychology is increasingly focused on identifying the relationships between job characteristics and psychological well-being. In light of these considerations, the central aim of this dissertation was to give a significant contribution to the understanding of work-related stress. Specifically, the main aims of the present dissertation were: (a) to provide supports for future research in the Italian context, examining the psychometric characteristics of a measures of job-related affective well-being; (b) to examine, within the JD-R model, whether certain working conditions can play a key role within the stress process and, more in detail, whether job-related affect can mediate the relationship between job characteristics and outcomes of job stress; (c) to explore the relationship of job stress and specific working conditions with business performance in a group of entrepreneurs of microenterprises. These objectives have been pursued by means of three empirical studies presented in the three chapters respectively. In general, this dissertation confirmed that work-related stress is a complex and multi-dimensional problem with the potential to negatively impact the individual and organizational health.