{n “title”: “New Job Stress Scale”,n “excerpt”: “An in-depth psychometric review of the New Job Stress Scale (NJSS) developed by Abhishek Shukla and Rajeev Srivastava, evaluating occupational strain, role expectation conflict, coworker support, and work-life balance.”,n “slug”: “new-job-stress-scale”,n “categories”: [n “Psychological Assessment”,n “Organizational Psychology”,n “Occupational Health”n ],n “tags”: [n “Job Stress”,n “Occupational Strain”,n “Work-Life Balance”,n “Role Conflict”,n “Coworker Support”,n “Psychometrics”,n “Industrial-Organizational Psychology”n ],n “seo_title”: “New Job Stress Scale (NJSS): Psychometric Profile & Guide”,n “seo_description”: “Explore the psychometric foundation, structural validity, reliability, and administration protocol of the New Job Stress Scale (NJSS) by Shukla & Srivastava.”,n “focus_keyword”: “New Job Stress Scale”,n “content”: “
Abstract
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The New Job Stress Scale (NJSS), developed by Abhishek Shukla and Rajeev Srivastava (2016), is a multidimensional psychometric instrument formulated to capture modern occupational stressors across dynamic corporate, technological, and service work environments. Recognizing that contemporary workplaces impose stressors distinct from traditional industrial settings—specifically stemming from hyper-connectivity, shifting organizational hierarchies, role ambiguity, erosion of private boundaries, and relational team interdependencies—the authors constructed an extended, parsimonious assessment tool. The instrument captures four core structural dimensions: general occupational stress (manifested through somatic strain, workload anxiety, and compulsory presence), role expectation conflict, coworker support, and work-life balance. Across its standard configuration, the instrument employs a total of 22 items evaluated via differentiated Likert-type response formats (including a 5-point agreement continuum for core stress, role conflict, and work-life balance, and a 6-point temporal frequency continuum for coworker support). Psychometric validation conducted among corporate professionals demonstrated robust construct validity, high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .78 to .89 across subscales), robust convergent and discriminant validity established through structural equation modeling (SEM), and definitive confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model fit indices. This article provides an exhaustive, academically rigorous review of the NJSS, analyzing its theoretical underpinnings, empirical validation metrics, diagnostic utility, scoring mechanics, and its authentic verbatim items.
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Keywords
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New Job Stress Scale, NJSS, occupational stress, role expectation conflict, coworker social support, work-life balance, organizational psychometrics, Job Demands-Resources model, workplace mental health, job strain.
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Authors
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The New Job Stress Scale was authored and psychometrically validated by:
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- Abhishek Shukla, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor and Researcher specializing in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Management Studies, Shri Ramswaroop Memorial Group of Professional Colleges, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. His research concentrates on work-related mental health, employee retention, and contemporary occupational dynamics.
- Rajeev Srivastava, Ph.D. — Professor and Academician in Organizational Psychology and Management, associated with leading management institutes in India, focusing on structural equation modeling, psychometric measurement in industrial settings, and corporate stress interventions.
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Correspondence regarding the original development and institutional validation of the instrument was coordinated through the Department of Management Studies, published in the open-access peer-reviewed journal Cogent Business & Management (Taylor & Francis Group).
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Purpose
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The primary purpose of the New Job Stress Scale is to furnish researchers, human resource strategists, and industrial-organizational psychologists with a standardized, empirically substantiated diagnostic instrument that quantifies the multifaceted nature of employee distress in contemporary organizations. Work environments in the 21st century are characterized by high cognitive intensity, accelerated turnaround times, ubiquitous digital communications, flat management structures, and blurred demarcations between professional obligations and personal living spaces. Classical job stress inventories, developed predominantly during the late 20th century (such as early iterations of Karasek’s Job Content Questionnaire or the Occupational Stress Indicator), frequently focused on physical workplace hazards, rigid assembly-line pacing, or strictly mechanical supervisory hierarchies. Consequently, Shukla and Srivastava formulated the NJSS to overcome these historical limitations by capturing systemic socio-cognitive and relational stressors.
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In applied organizational settings, the NJSS serves multiple essential diagnostic functions:
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- Organizational Health Auditing: The scale enables occupational health departments and leadership teams to conduct enterprise-wide audits of employee strain, pinpointing departments or functional units experiencing disproportionately high role conflict, systemic burnout risks, or dysfunctional coworker dynamics.
- Targeted Ergonomic and Psychosocial Interventions: By disentangling distinct stress vectors—such as distinguishing whether employee distress arises from unmanageable workload expectations versus interpersonal friction with peers or clients—the scale allows human resources to implement tailored structural interventions (e.g., role negotiation, job redesign, conflict mediation workshops) rather than generic wellness programs.
- Longitudinal Intervention Evaluation: In quasi-experimental organizational change studies, the NJSS provides sensitive pre- and post-intervention outcome metrics to determine the clinical and practical efficacy of flexible working policies, leadership coaching, or peer-support initiatives.
- Predictive Risk Modeling: In occupational psychology research, the scale serves as a potent predictor variable for distal organizational outcomes, including voluntary employee turnover intentions, psychological absenteeism, presenteeism, clinical anxiety, psychosomatic morbidity, and diminished task performance.
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Psychological Construct
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The New Job Stress Scale conceptualizes occupational stress not as a unidimensional affective response, but as a dynamic, transactional state of strain arising when perceived workplace demands systematically outstrip personal, interpersonal, and structural resources. The instrument measures four interlinked theoretical constructs:
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1. Core Job Stress and Somatosensory Strain
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This central dimension encompasses nine items measuring the affective, physiological, and compulsive manifestations of excessive workload and perceived temporal scarcity. It reflects the individual’s subjective experience of being perpetually overburdened, experiencing cognitive anxiety regarding impending deadlines, and enduring somatic tension. A defining aspect of this subscale is the capture of modern corporate compulsivity, wherein professionals report psychological guilt or persistent unease when attempting to take official leave, alongside physical sensations of anxiety (e.g., tightness in the chest) and pervasive apprehension regarding corporate demands.
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2. Role Expectation Conflict
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Rooted in classical and modern role theories, this five-item construct measures the psychological friction experienced when an employee is confronted with incompatible, contradictory, or mutually exclusive expectations from diverse organizational stakeholders. In modern decentralized matrices, workers frequently report to multiple functional leaders while simultaneously managing lateral peer collaborations, subordinate demands, and external client mandates. When senior managers demand immediate cost reductions while clients demand expanded services and juniors demand intensive developmental supervision, the employee experiences severe role expectation conflict. The NJSS captures the cognitive distress and perceived paralysis associated with attempting to reconcile these divergent professional pressures.
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3. Coworker Support
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Operating as an essential psychosocial buffer, the four-item coworker support dimension gauges the availability, frequency, and functional utility of lateral interpersonal resources within the immediate work group. Rather than measuring superficial social cordiality, this construct targets instrumental, informational, and emotional social support: the provision of concrete task assistance, the sharing of critical operational advice, empathetic understanding during operational setbacks, and actionable, constructive feedback. Deficits in coworker support exacerbate subjective stress, whereas robust peer support buffers against the deleterious consequences of elevated workloads.
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4. Work-Life Balance
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This four-item dimension evaluates the degree of equilibrium, mutual compatibility, and cognitive boundary control between an employee’s occupational commitments and their external personal, domestic, and recreational life. Modern telework, mobile connectivity, and nonstandard hours frequently precipitate severe inter-role conflict, where work domains deplete the psychological and temporal resources required for non-work living. The NJSS assesses the employee’s subjective sense of equilibrium, their conscious perception of systemic balance, and their difficulties in partitioning cognitive energy across work and life domains.
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Theoretical Framework
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The theoretical architecture of the New Job Stress Scale is rooted in three complementary paradigms within organizational behavior and occupational health psychology:
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The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model
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Formulated by Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, and Schaufeli (2001), the JD-R model posits that employee strain develops via two parallel psychological processes: an energetic process of demand-driven exhaustion and an interpersonal/motivational process of resource depletion. Job demands represent physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained cognitive or emotional effort (e.g., heavy workloads, unyielding deadlines, role conflict). Job resources represent aspects that facilitate the achievement of work goals, reduce physiological and psychological costs, or stimulate personal growth (e.g., coworker support, role clarity, autonomy). The NJSS operationalizes this paradigm by capturing prominent demands (Core Job Stress, Role Expectation Conflict) alongside critical resources (Coworker Support, Work-Life Balance equilibrium).
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The Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) Model
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The foundational work of Robert Karasek (1979) and subsequently expanded by Johnson and Hall (1988) emphasizes that psychological strain is greatest when high psychological demands intersect with low control and low workplace social support (the \”iso-strain\” hypothesis). Shukla and Srivastava embedded the support mechanism as an independent operational pillar within the NJSS, recognizing that peer-level coworker support can moderate the physiological and cognitive strains imposed by high-intensity task demands.
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Classical Role Theory
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Pioneered by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal (1964), role theory conceptualizes organizations as systems of interlocking roles where individuals occupy specific structural positions. When role senders (supervisors, coworkers, clients) transmit conflicting behavioral expectations, the focal person experiences role expectation conflict. Inability to satisfy mutually exclusive role demands triggers chronic psychological distress, subjective feelings of inadequacy, and physiological stress responses.
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Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory
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Articulated by Stevan E. Hobfoll (1989), COR theory asserts that psychological stress occurs when individuals perceive a threat to, a net loss of, or a failure to gain vital personal or social resources (time, energy, emotional reserves). Excessive job demands and role conflicts threaten energy reserves, while lack of work-life balance signifies persistent depletion of temporal resources, precipitating defensive psychological strain and emotional burnout.
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Validity
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The psychometric validation of the New Job Stress Scale involved rigorous analytical procedures conducted on diverse employee samples across corporate sectors, as documented by Shukla and Srivastava (2016):
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Content and Face Validity
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Initial item pools were generated through qualitative interviews with corporate professionals, human resource executives, and organizational psychologists. An expert panel evaluated each item for representativeness, clarity, and theoretical alignment with occupational stress constructs. Items displaying semantic ambiguity or insufficient content validity ratios (CVR < .70) were eliminated, leaving items that comprehensively addressed the intended psychological domains.
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Construct and Convergent Validity
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Construct validity was examined through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Convergent validity was established by computing the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each latent construct. All subscales exhibited AVE values exceeding the recommended threshold of .50 (ranging from .52 to .68), demonstrating that the latent constructs explained more than half of the variance in their respective indicators. Standardized item factor loadings across all subscales were substantial and statistically significant (p < .001), with values ranging between .61 and .87, confirming that the individual survey items are robust indicators of their underlying latent dimensions.
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Discriminant Validity
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Discriminant validity among the four subscales was confirmed using the Fornell and Larcker (1981) criterion. The square root of the AVE for each latent dimension exceeded the inter-construct correlation coefficients between that dimension and any other construct within the measurement model. Furthermore, heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) values remained consistently below the conservative threshold of .85, verifying that Core Job Stress, Role Expectation Conflict, Coworker Support, and Work-Life Balance represent distinct, non-redundant theoretical constructs.
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Predictive and Criterion Validity
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Criterion-related validity was established through bivariate correlations and multiple regression analyses examining relationships between NJSS dimensions and established organizational outcome variables. Core Job Stress and Role Expectation Conflict exhibited significant positive correlations with turnover intentions (r = .48 to .56, p < .01) and self-reported somatic health complaints, while showing significant inverse correlations with overall job satisfaction (r = -.42 to -.51, p < .01). Conversely, Coworker Support and Work-Life Balance exhibited significant positive relationships with organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
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Reliability
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The NJSS displays strong internal consistency and measurement stability across validation cohorts:
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- Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha): Shukla and Srivastava (2016) reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceeding conventional psychometric standards (α ≥ .70) across all subscales:\n
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- Core Job Stress (9 items): α = .88
- Role Expectation Conflict (5 items): α = .84
- Coworker Support (4 items): α = .81
- Work-Life Balance (4 items): α = .79
- Overall NJSS Composite Battery: α = .89
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- Composite Reliability (CR): To guard against the potential underestimation bias of Cronbach’s alpha in multidimensional structures, composite reliabilities were computed from structural models. CR values ranged from .80 to .89 across the four latent dimensions, corroborating high internal construct reliability.
- Split-Half and Temporal Stability: Spearman-Brown split-half coefficients verified strong internal stability (> .80). In sub-sample test-retest assessments administered over a 4-week interval, intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) ranged from .76 to .83, demonstrating that the instrument captures stable patterns of workplace strain rather than transient, momentary mood fluctuations.
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Factor Analysis
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The factorial validity of the NJSS was confirmed through rigorous Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) on independent split-half sample groups:
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Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
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Initial principal axis factoring with Promax (oblique) rotation was conducted to account for expected correlations among workplace stress dimensions. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy yielded an outstanding index of .87, and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was highly significant (χ² = 3412.6, p < .0001), indicating excellent data factorability. The scree plot examination, along with eigenvalues exceeding the Kaiser criterion (> 1.0), unambiguously revealed a clean four-factor solution accounting for over 61.4% of the total cumulative variance. No problematic cross-loadings (> .30 on secondary factors) were observed.
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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
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To confirm the structural viability of the four-factor framework, CFA was performed using maximum likelihood estimation. The hypothesized four-factor model demonstrated superior fit compared to competing unidimensional and two-factor models:
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- Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio (χ²/df): 1.84 (well below the conservative threshold of 3.0, indicating acceptable model parsimony).
- Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .948 (exceeding the standard .90 criterion for good fit).
- Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .939 (demonstrating robust relative fit).
- Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .049 (90% CI [.041, .058], falling comfortably within the ≤ .06 standard for excellent approximation).
- Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .044 (confirming minimal residual covariance).
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Alternative model testing verified that collapsing the dimensions into a single general stress factor resulted in a statistically significant degradation of model fit (Δχ² test, p < .001), underscoring that Core Job Stress, Role Expectation Conflict, Coworker Support, and Work-Life Balance constitute distinct operational dimensions.
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Instrument / Measurement Tool
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The New Job Stress Scale is a structured self-report psychometric battery designed for rapid paper-and-pencil or computerized administration. Its formal administration details are structured as follows:
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- Test Type: Multi-dimensional self-report occupational stress inventory.
- Administration Format: Supervised or unsupervised; accessible via pen-and-paper questionnaires, online corporate survey portals, or computerized assessment batteries.
- Target Population: Adult employees, corporate professionals, managerial staff, and technical knowledge workers across service, manufacturing, and technology industries.
- Completion Time: Approximately 7 to 10 minutes.
- Item Inventory: 22 items distributed across four discrete sections:
- Section I: Core Job Stress (9 items)
- Section II: Role Expectation Conflict (5 items)
- Section III: Coworker Support (4 items)
- Section IV: Work-Life Balance (4 items)
- Response Continuum and Rating Scales:\n
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- Core Job Stress, Role Expectation Conflict, and Work-Life Balance: 5-point Likert scale:\n
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- 1 = Strongly disagree
- 2 = Disagree
- 3 = Undecided
- 4 = Agree
- 5 = Strongly agree
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- Coworker Support: 6-point temporal frequency scale:\n
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- 1 = Never
- 2 = Very Occasionally
- 3 = Sometimes
- 4 = Often
- 5 = Very Often
- 6 = All the Time
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- Core Job Stress, Role Expectation Conflict, and Work-Life Balance: 5-point Likert scale:\n
- Scoring and Directionality Guidelines:\n
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- Core Job Stress (Items 1–9): Sum or mean score (Range 9–45). Higher scores denote elevated subjective workload strain, somatic anxiety, and compulsive presence.
- Role Expectation Conflict (Items 1–5): Sum or mean score (Range 5–25). Higher scores denote severe cross-stakeholder expectation mismatch.
- Coworker Support (Items 1–4): Sum or mean score (Range 4–24). Higher scores represent abundant informational, emotional, and instrumental peer assistance.
- Work-Life Balance (Items 1–4): Evaluated such that higher composite scores reflect better work-life integration. Item 2 (\”I have difficulty balancing my work and other activities\”) is reverse-scored (1 = 5, 2 = 4, 3 = 3, 4 = 2, 5 = 1) prior to calculating the subscale total or mean.
- Overall Indexing: Researchers typically analyze subscale profile scores independently to identify specific risk areas. When calculating an aggregated \”Net Workplace Strain Index\”, positive resource scores (Coworker Support and Work-Life Balance) are standardized and subtracted from standardized demand scores (Core Job Stress and Role Conflict).
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Permissions & Fee and Test Year
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The New Job Stress Scale was published in 2016 by Abhishek Shukla and Rajeev Srivastava in Cogent Business & Management. Under the terms of its original publication through Taylor & Francis / Cogent OA, the article and its contents are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) License.
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Consequently, the scale is an open-access, fee-free instrument available for use by academic researchers, organizational consultants, and corporate practitioners without explicit royalty payments or formal licensing fees. Users are legally and ethically required to provide appropriate scholarly attribution to the original authors by citing the primary validation publication. Modification, translation into other languages, or commercial enterprise integration requires transparent adherence to CC BY guidelines and clear documentation of the original source.
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References
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- Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499–512. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499
- Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
- Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513
- Johnson, J. V., & Hall, E. M. (1988). Job strain, work place social support, and cardiovascular disease: A cross-sectional study of a random sample of the Swedish working population. American Journal of Public Health, 78(10), 1336–1342. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.78.10.1336
- Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D., & Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. John Wiley & Sons.
- Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(2), 285–308. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392498
- Shukla, A., & Srivastava, R. (2016). Development of short questionnaire to measure an extended set of role expectation conflict, coworker support and work-life balance: The new job stress scale. Cogent Business & Management, 3(1), Article 1134034. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2015.1134034
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