Research Article - (2014) Volume 4, Issue 1
Department of Sport Management, Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, Iran
Nowadays, time management is regarded as one of the effective management principles requiring the recognition of effective factors on reactions to stressful events and has significant role in controlling the stress of employees and staffs. Based on this, the main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between time management and organizational effectiveness and the stress coping styles employed by employees of sport and youth directorate of Alborz province. This is a descriptive correlational study done through field study. The sample includes all employees of sport and youth directorate of Alborz province, 140 employees completed the questionnaires. The measuring instruments of this study include Macan time management scale (1950), Hsu organizational effectiveness scale (2002) and Endler and Parker stress coping styles (1990). The results of Pearson correlation coefficient tests and multiple regression showed that there is meaningful relation between stress coping styles and time management among male employees, however, there is no meaningful relation between the stress coping styles and organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, the best predictor of stress coping styles is time management. Among female employees, there is no meaningful relation between stress coping styles, time management and organizational effectiveness. Moreover, time management and organizational effectiveness do not predict the stress coping styles. Within the employees, from time management and organizational effectiveness, targeting is meaningfully able to predict stress coping styles.
Time management, Organizational effectiveness, Stress coping styles
Time management is one of the effective factors for stress reduction, recently most management and organizational psychology books emphasize much on time category. Time management is not distinct and separable from management in general and its aim is to prevent dawdling and waste of time and regulate working time. This management emphasizes on preventing unnecessary activities, increase of efficiency, organizing and delegating tasks [1]. Today, the professionals and practitioners of management introduce a new topic as effective management, to the extent that efficiency and productivity are the most valuable target and the highest goal of all managers. Everyone seeks more efficiency, higher effectiveness and increasing productivity and focus their endeavours on this area [2]. In this new approach, the experts and professionals believe that management is one of the main requirements for managers' effectiveness and time management such that Locket considers performing time management as the key to leading and effectiveness. He considers time control as a critical task for every manager who wants to reach the best result [3]. Occupational stress is a mental and physical distress and inconvenience or a combination of them which is created following inability to respond to the occupational needs [4]. The stress coping method is a critical necessity for everyone both in work environment and in life. In the advanced and technology era, stress is a natural part of life; however, it is obvious that stress has relations with some positive and negative perspectives. Stressful conditions are among the main dilemma of human communities, and stressful events affect individuals emotionally, cognitively and physiologically; however, people have some strategies for coping with stress and their effects. Individuals reduce the harmful effects of stress through coping styles (problem-focused, emotion-focused and avoidance-oriented) [5]. Therefore, concerning the role of time management in increasing the success and effectiveness of employees and decreasing their occupational stress [6], and due to the widespread changes in the world and aggregation of competitions; many scholars have focused on designing proper strategies for making effective the organizations and their quick and influential execution. Sport organizations are not exceptional to this [7].Time management for employees of sport organizations is the result of balance between time of sport, personal and occupational life. They should employ (a) prioritization of duties, (b) planning, organizing and evaluation of activities, (c) identification of the strategies for improving time management and (d) stress management to achieve time productivity [8]. As a public organization, Sport and Youth Directorate plays a great role in planning and developing sport in cities and towns and serves as part of a social organ which continuously acts for supplying sport goals in one or several sport fields (Championship, public, professional, etc.). These directorates and offices are constituted from individuals and groups which purposefully collaborate with each other to fulfil the objectives of organization [9]. The responsibility of the organizations' managers requires their function in the offices to be both effective and productive; although efficiency is very significant, effectiveness is critical and necessary [10]. The present study seeks to provide helpful information to the managers of organizations by investigating the stress coping styles in the sport and youth directorates through their employees' approach and its relation with time management and organizational effectiveness hoping that the results of study help the sport planning authorities in qualitative and quantitative development of sport. Furthermore, the employees' familiarization with stress coping strategies and their awareness of the organizational skills of time management can increase the efficiency of the organization.
Kaya et al (2012) in their study entitled, the evaluation of time management skills and anxiety level in nursing and midwifery students in Turkey selected 584 students as sample. The results obtained from Spearman correlation test and Mann-Whitney U showed that time management skills of students are realized as increasing the anxiety level [11].
Whipper and Career (2011) studied the combined sports and time management. The results of study showed that the life of an athlete could be very cumbersome, especially when he is constantly engaged in education. Time management effectively help the athletes in making balance in all aspects of their life [12]. Furthermore, Abedalhafiz & et al (2010) in their study, investigated the stress sources and coping styles among the student athletes in Jordan universities. A sample including 56 college athletes (38 men and 18 women) was selected, stress coping (Andler and Parker) and Stress sources (Anderson) questionnaires were used. The results obtained from t-test showed that coping strategies are used for stress management in athletes and preventive methods are mostly used for stress reduction [13].
Biswas (2010) conducted a study entitled the relation between mental environment and organizational effectiveness in India organization where 357 managers were used as sample. The results of study showed that there is meaningful relation between mental condition and organizational effectiveness and job satisfaction is an important intermediary [14].
Oleasi and Ayo (2009) investigated the effects of three factors: time management, effectiveness and job motivation on job performance in one of the industrial states of Nigeria. According to the results obtained from this study, the organizational employees and managers who appropriately used time had better satisfaction in their performance and success in organization level; they obtained a direct positive relation between the mentioned items [15]. In this regards, Classens (2004) investigated time management and personal satisfaction in job and found that by time control and management, individuals are more satisfied with their job, which in effect leads to effectiveness and increase of insight in their performance and organizational effectiveness [16].
Ho (2003) investigated time management and the coping strategies of the supervisor of senior year undergraduate. The results showed that there is meaningful relation between time management and emotion-focused coping methods. Students showed emotional responses and reaction against decision-making, satisfaction and conflict [17]. Hosseini (2012) in a study investigated the causal relation between some of occupational features, organizational skills of time management and occupational stress of Sport and Youth Ministry employees who constituted a sample of 300 members. Occupational characteristics (Morgson and Hanry, 2006), Time management (Karami Moqadami, 1998) and occupational stress (Harigel and Oslocam, 2000) questionnaires were used. The results of path analysis showed that there is meaningful relation between the dimensions of time management and occupational stress and proved that improvement of time management can be effective in stress reduction [18]. Furthermore, Shadman Far (2009) in their study investigated the crisis coping style with time management and the personal characteristics of fire fighting students who constituted a sample of 120 students of Tehran applied and science university. Crisis coping style inventory of Lazarus and Folkman (1994), Costa and McGarry five traits inventory (1992) and earth time management inventory (2006) were used. The results of regression indicated that problem- oriented coping style has meaningful positive relation with time management and personality traits [19].
Mahbodi (2006) in his study investigated the relation between organizational skill of time management and effectiveness of the managers of Shiraz schools through a sample of 30 managers who were selected randomly. Two questionnaires of time management and organizational effectiveness were used. The results of correlation test indicated that no meaningful relation was observed between time management organizational skill and organizational effectiveness [20].
According to the results obtained, most scholars conducting studies about time management and organizational effectiveness concluded that there is meaningful relation between organizational skills of time management and organizational effectiveness. That is, better time management skills and better time usage will make better effectiveness at the organization level, and positive effect on organizational behaviours especially organizational effectiveness could be seen. Generally, they are indicative of the benefit of time management training on stress reduction and work delay. It can be argued that time management can be very effective factor against stress. However, no study was found with three variables of the present study, concerning the investigation of time management as one of the main elements of organizational effectiveness and its potential role in stress coping styles, the significant of this study become obvious. Thus, the present study seeks to find whether there is any relation between time management and organizational effectiveness with stress coping styles of employees of sport and youth directorate of Alborz province or not?
The research methodology is descriptive correlation, applicable in terms of goal and field study in terms of data collection. The sample of the study includes all the employees working in sport and youth directorate of Alborz province including 172 subjects (116 men and 56 women). To make the information more accurate, sampling is ignored and all employees of sport and youth directorate of the mentioned province were studied and included. Thus, the statistical sample and statistical population were the same. All employees were given questionnaires, however, just 84 filled questionnaires were returned from men and the final number of sample became 140 (84 men and 56 women). In this study, the variables of time management and organizational effectiveness are as predictive variable and stress coping strategies is considered as the baseline variable. To conduct this study, three questionnaires including time management (Macan, 1950) including 39 items, Organizational effectiveness (Hsu, 2002) including 19 items and stress coping styles (Endler and Parker, 1990) including 48 items designed based on 5- value Likert scale were used. The construct validity of time management questionnaire, organizational effectiveness and stress coping styles were calculated as 0.79, 0.76 and 0.83. The reliability coefficients for time management scale, organizational efficiency and stress coping styles inventories were obtained by alpha Cronbach respectively as 0.89, 0.94 and 0.87. For data analysis, descriptive statistical methods (calculation of mean, frequency, percentage, standard deviation), inferential statistical method (Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression) were used. Furthermore, for all hypotheses, meaningful level a= 0.05 was considered and SPSS- version 19 was used for data analysis.
Descriptive findings related to personal information of male and female employees are presented in (table 1).
Table 1. The distribution of participants in terms of demographic features according to gender
The results related to descriptive statistics of research variables are shown in the sample of male and female employees. According to these results, in the sample of women, the varied range of time management was obtained as 105.6± 7.5, organizational effectiveness as 51.2± 14.1, stress coping styles as 146± 7.5. In the men sample, the varied range of time management was obtained as 112.2± 22.8, organizational effectiveness as 47.9± 13.1, stress coping styles as 144.5± 18.1 (table 2).
Table 2. Description of research variable in sample of employees
The results of Pearson correlation don’t reveal meaningful difference between stress coping styles, time management and organizational effectiveness in female employees. Concerning men, there is meaningful relation between stress coping styles and time management, however, there is no meaningful relation between stress coping styles and organizational effectiveness (table 3).
Table 3. The results of Pearson correlation results of stress coping styles, time management and organizational effectiveness
Pearson correlation results show that when goal setting for problem- focused coping strategy and the session management increase, the emotion-focused coping strategy among female employees will improve. Increase in communication management, operational planning, goals prioritization, goal-setting, delegating tasks leads to improvement of problem- focused coping style, increase in session management leads to improvement of emotionfocused coping style and increase in goals prioritization and goal-setting, avoidance-oriented coping style improves among men. Increase in the organizing leads to improvement of avoidance-oriented coping style among women. There is no meaningful difference between the dimensions of organizational effectiveness and the dimensions of stress coping styles in male employees (table 4).
Table 4. The results of Pearson correlation results between the dimensions of time management and organizational effectiveness and the dimensions of stress coping styles
The results of multiple regression show that in the sample of female employers, regression analysis of time management variables and organizational effectiveness are not meaningful. Thus, the mentioned variables don’t predict the stress coping styles in female employees. Furthermore, the results indicate that in the sample of men, the best predictive variable of stress coping style is time management. Time management has the highest simple correlation coefficient with stress copings style. Thus, by taking into account the regression coefficients and constant value of 104.6, the regression equation for male employees with time management variable and constant value will be obtained as follow (table 5).
Table 5. The results of multiple regression between stress coping styles of time management and organizational effectiveness in employees
y'=104.6+0.46(time management)
The regression analysis shows than in the sample of employees, the best predictive variable of stress coping strategy is goal-setting. Goal setting variable has the highest simple regression coefficient with stress coping styles variable. Thus, taking into account the regression coefficients in the table and constant value of 125.8, the regression equation in female employees with goal-setting variable and constant value will be obtained as follow.
y'=125.8+0.28(goal-setting)
Moreover, by taking into account the regression coefficients in the table and constant value of 109.4, the regression equation in male employees with goal-setting variable and constant value will be obtained as follow (table 6).
Table 6. The results of multiple regression between stress coping styles and dimensions of time management and organizational effectiveness in employees
y'=109.4+0.69(goal-setting)
The results of the present study between the dimensions of time management and stress coping styles in the employees showed that increase of sessions management leads to emotion-focused coping style between employees. Furthermore, the increase of goal setting leads to improvement of problem- focused coping style among female employees and the increase of communication management, operational planning, goal prioritization, goal setting, and delegation of duties lead to improvement of problem- focused coping style among female employees. These results as well as the results obtained from Briun study (2007) found that there is some relation between the proper use of time and flexibility against the critical condition. As well, this study along with the results obtained from Hafezi et al (2011) study concluded that the employees could plan for stress reduction. The results of the present study are in line with some of the results obtained from Shadman Far (2009) study on that there is some relation between problem- focused and emotion- focused coping styles and time management. The result of this match and consistency might be that individuals show different reactions toward mental pressures in different conditions. Furthermore, these results are consistent with the results obtained from Hosseini (2012) and Jamshid Malek Ara (2009) who found that there is some meaningful relation between the dimensions of delegation of authority, goal prioritization and operational planning and stress reduction. The use of time management in organizations makes the employees suffer from less stress. In the present study, when the goal prioritization and goal-setting increase, the preventive stress coping strategy of male employees improves. These results are consistent with the results obtained from Van Eerde (2003) study who found that time management training is effective in stress reduction. For individuals who use preventive coping strategies, this strategy helps them avoid feeling severe upset when exposed to stressful condition and have the opportunity to realize different coping sources. The results of the present study concerning the dimensions of organizational effectiveness and the dimensions of stress coping strategies in employees showed that increase of organizing, preventive coping style among female employees improves. The results obtained from these findings are in line with those of Feqhi Farahmand (2009) study who found that the organizational structure and improper occupational condition have positive effect on the neural pressure. They are incongruent with the results of Callen (1995) and Mosalaei (2007) who found that there is some relation between problem- focused and emotion-focused coping strategies and job satisfaction and no relation was found between preventive coping method and relational job satisfaction. The reason for such inconsistency can be the difference in executive policies of organizational effectiveness and difference in the selection of coping methods with stress. Furthermore, the relation between the dimensions of organizational effectiveness and the dimensions of stress coping strategies is not meaningful among male employees. These results are consistent with the results obtained by Behroozian et al (2009) on that there is no relation between job satisfaction and coping strategies with general health. The reason for such consistency is that wider range of employees’ responsibility leads to higher stress which leads to monotony and ineffectiveness of employees. Furthermore, the employees cannot make use of stress coping styles. The results showed that in male employees, the best predictor of stress coping styles is time management and organizational effectiveness doesn’t predict the stress coping styles. In female employees, time management and organizational effectiveness don’t predict stress coping styles. This finding indicates that individuals who have time management have the ability to resist the stressful events and situation. These results are consistent with some of the results obtained from Mazarei study (2011) who found that time management training and stress coping styles are meaningfully effective on quality of life and family coherence of employees. Time management is predictor of stress coping styles and individuals who have time management can make use of stress coping styles effectively when exposed to stressful conditions. Thus, it confirms Endler and Parker (1990) findings which consider personality traits effective in using stress coping strategies. Thus, if sport and youth directorates act based on time management, some conditions will be provided where the employees can pursue stress coping styles, act to identify the main organizational standards, better understand the issues of the organization. By increasing stress coping capability in occupational skill of employees, it is possible to create a good and healthy ground for progress of all employees. Furthermore, in the present study there was no relation between time management and effectiveness. This result doesn’t match with some results obtained by Oleasi and Ayo (2009), Akbari (2011), Khonak dar (2011) and Zareei (2000) who found that there is some relation between time management skill and effectiveness. The reason for such inconsistency might be due to different statistical sample which the difference due to the nature of occupation and job can influence the result of the study. Furthermore, it is in line with the results obtained by Mahbodi (2006) who showed that there is no relation between organizational skill of time management and organizational effectiveness. On the other hand, the effectiveness in every organization focuses on fulfilling the organizational objectives. If focusing on time management and its training are not among the objectives of the organizations, it is obvious that effectiveness will have no relation with it. In fact, time management has not been considered among the duties of employees in directorates so far. Thus, looking at time management makes it clear that the regulation of managers’ competency needs to be adjusted. Effectiveness takes into account a wide range of concepts related to organization performance’s both in organization and sections level. Determination of effectiveness in an organization is problematic since organizations are wide, diverse and have different parts.
The results indicated that employees (male and female) are the best elements of predictive variables of stress coping strategies and goal setting. The better the abilities and skills of optimum control by the individual, effective use of time and employees, goals and conditions, motivations and communications are applied in organization, they can lead to better selection of stress coping styles as employed by employees in the organizations and good predictive of time management. The results of this study are consistent with the results of studies done by Kaya et al (2012) who showed that goal setting is related to anxiety levels. The reason for this consistency can be put in these words, the goal setting and goal development are the main managerial tasks and save individuals from ambiguity in organizations, thus, goal setting can be considered as the best predictor of stress coping styles. In fact our goals clarify our path of individual and organizational life and goal- setting is as drawing a path for future. One of the main barriers on success is the inability of individuals and organizations in goal development. Those who have mental confrontation and don’t have any goal written on paper will have unknown target and destination. One of the skills which managers and employees should reinforce is goal-setting skill. The results obtained from this study are in line with some results obtained by Mola Hosseini and Arsalan (2010) that showed that determination and realization of goals is the main factor which leads to success of individuals in organizations.
The results related to effectiveness of organizations showed that organizational effectiveness is not in desired level, thus, in the sport and youth directorate of Alborz province: 1. The employees’ opinions are less used in decision making and decisions are made by the managers. 2. Information exchange is not done fully and accurately among the individuals in organization. 3. The responsibilities and duties of employees are not logical and proper. 4. There is no trust between personnel and management and not enough endeavors are made to make trust by the management. 5. Improvement of working condition and employees’ satisfaction are less considered. All these factors which lead to reduction of organizational effectiveness are in line with Hsu study (2002). Thus, the managers of sport and youth directorate of Alborz province can achieve better results in organization by making use of time management. Furthermore, the managers can help development and reinforcement of time management by using stress coping styles.
According to the results of this study and the results obtained from other studies on effectiveness of time management on stress coping styles, it is required to familiarize the employees with the time management organizational skills and stress coping strategies. Concerning the results of the study on that among time management and organizational effectiveness elements, goal setting is the best predictor of stress coping strategies, the executive managers are recommended to make collaboration among the employees by clarifying the tasks and goals of the organization and pay attention to the fact that every executor should have executive position to be able to provide the ground for proper selection of stress coping styles.
