Examination of the Relationship between Organizational Stress and Employee Performance : A Research on Staff Working on Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports

The purpose of this research is to study the relation between the level of organizational stress at the staff of the Youth Services and Sports Provincial Directorate and their performance. The study group of research, Istanbul province in the Uskudar district officials operating in the Youth Services and Sports Provincial Directorate constitute a total of 96 staff, including 36 women and 60 men. In this research, “Job Strain Questionnaire Scale” that was developed firstly by Theorell et al. (1988) and adapted to Turkish by Yildirim et al. (2011) together with “Employee Performance Scale” that was developed by Kirkman and Rosen (1999) and adapted to Turkish by Col (2008) were used to collect data. In the evaluation of data as statistical analyzes; descriptive statistics, for independent groups t-test, one way analysis of variance (Anova) and Pearson Correlation test was used to determine the relationship between the dependent variables. As a result of the research; participants’ employee performance showed significant differences according to marital status variables, there were no significant differences for organizational stress. In addition, there were no significant relationships between employee performance and organizational stress of the employees were determined.


Introduction
Social units have emerged as a consequence of organization.Therefore, each social unit displays an organization characteristic (Basaran, 1984;Yildirim, Tasmekepligil, Uzum, & Bulut, 2011).Organization is a community that is constituted by people or institutions coming together for a common purpose or service.Organizations are social system and founded on the basis of reciprocal interest (Baransel, 1993;Koc, 1994;Ilgar, 1996).The importance of human factor has been increased to conduct sporting events, contests and sport facilities systematically, and provide services neatly in provincial directorate of youth and sports that displays organizational structure and field services affiliated to center.The staff working in this institution can have some psychological problems as a consequence of intense work pressure and the fatigue of everyday life (Bastug, Pala, Kumartasli, Gunel, & Duyan, 2016).Stress, one of these problems, according to Daft (1991), is defined as physical and emotional reactions caused by problematic conditions such as imposition, oppression and uncertainty.The concept of organizational stress can be defines as physical and emotional reactions caused when the requirement of job can not meet the capacity, ability and needs of the worker (Cicei, 2012;Arrington, 2008;Blaug, Kenyon, & Lekhi, 2007).
There are many factors on which organizational stress can have impact.One of these factors is the performance of workers (staff) display.Performance is the serving a purpose degree of conducting events in a specified time (Akal, 1992).The performance of workers is important in terms of effectiveness, success and performance of the organization.Moreover, researchers like Campell state that performance is not only a result of the event but also it is the event itself.Campell characterizes performance as measurable and proper behaviors according to contribution level of workers to organizational purposes (Suliman, 2001).In the light of the information about organizational stress and employee performance, it can be suggested that these two concepts are important in terms of employee (workers).It is a stubborn fact that employee exposed to stress will have problems in their everyday life and that the performance will be effected negatively.When researches into these concepts are examined, some researchers have conducted studies into organizational stress (Kristiansen, Halvari, & Roberts, 2012;Uzum, Mirzeoglu, Polat, & Akpinar, 2013;Kristiansen, Murphy, & Roberts, 2012;Fletcher & Hanton, 2003;Didymus & Fletcher, 2014) and some have conducted studies into employee performance (Col, 2008;Yildiz, Dagdeviren, & Cetinyokus, 2008;Ozutku, Agca, & Cevrioglu, 2008;Yilmaz & Karahan, 2010;Turunc & Celik, 2010;Onay, Suslu, & Kilci, 2011;Dogu & Yilmaz, 2015;Cakici & Dogan, 2014;Ogut & Kaplan, 2015).
In our country, provincial directorate of youth and sports and field services of it have important role to provide sport services, coordinate sport events and train successful athletes.It can be said that stress, one of the most factors effecting staff working in these institutions, is an important issue that should be pursued and discoursed because it is thought that the concept of organizational stress has negative impact on employee performance.Besides, organizational stress can cause employee to estrange from their everyday life and influence their performance negatively.At this point, it can be thought that the results of this study become important in terms of employee to be aware of stress they have at work and how this stress can influence their performance.This study can contribute the literature because it provides reference for the organizational stress and employee performance researches conducted in all fields, especially in sport sciences.In the light of this information, the aim of this study is to examine the relationship between organizational stress and employee performance in provincial directorate of youth and sports.For this purpose, following questions will be answered: (1) What level is the organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?
(2) Are there any differences between genders in terms of the organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?
(3) Are there any differences between marital status in terms of the organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?(4) Are there any differences between educational statuses in terms of the organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?
(5) Are there any differences between monthly incomes in terms of the organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?(6) Are there any differences between age categories in terms of the organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?(7) Is there a significant relationship between organizational stress and employee performance of the staff in provincial directorate of youth and sports?

The Method of the Study
The study was conducted with relational scanning model, which is one of the general scanning models."Scanning Models are the research approaches that aim to describe an existing or past situation as is" (Karasar, 2000).

The Universe and the Sampling of the Study
36 female (37.5%) and 60 male (62.5%) working in Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports in 2016 consisted the sample group.

Data Collection Tool
"Organizational Stress Scale", "Employee Performance Scale" and Personal Information Form developed by the researchers have been used for data collection.Organizational Stress Scale was developed by Theorell, Perski, and Åkerstedt (1988) and adapted to Turkish by Yildirim et al. (2011).The scale consists of four subscales (Social Support, Work Load, Skill Usage and Decision-making) and 14 items, and it is likert type scale (Always:5, Mostly:4, Sometimes:3, Rarely:2, Never:1).
Employee Performance Scale was developed by Kirkman and Rosen (1999), and adapted to Turkish by Col (2008).The scale is one-dimensional and has 4 items (5=Strongly agree, 4=Agree, 3=Undecided, 2=not agree, 1=strongly not agree).Personal Information Form includes variables such as gender, marital status, educational status, monthly income, and age.
Instruments were conducted to employees in working time.Before conducting the scale, detailed information about the scales was given to employees.The scales were conducted to volunteer participants.96 of 109 raw data were collected after checking data if any wrong answers were given and computerized for the analysis.

The Analysis of Data
Collected data was analyzed by using descriptive test, independent t test for two groups, one-way ANOVA, Tukey test and Pearson Correlation test.It was decided whether data provided the precondition of parametric tests by examining the results of Skewness and Kurtosis values and Levene test (Buyukozturk, 2012).Kline (2005) has suggested that data displays normal distribution when Kurtosis is between -3 and +3; Skewness is between -10 and +10.Additionally, Equality of variances assumption is ensured when F value, calculated with Levene test, is not significant (p>0.05)(Cokluk, Sekercioglu, & Buyukozturk, 2010).It was reported that analysis ensured the parametric test assumption of the data.Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated for the reliability of scales.Internal consistency coefficients of Organizational Stress Scale and Employee Performance Scale were found to be 0.81 and 0.80, respectively.No significant differences were found between genders in terms of organizational stress (tOS=-.99,p>0.05) and employee performance (tEP=1.16,p>0.05) (Table 2).The Organizational Stress scores of males and females were found to be 3.23, 3.20, respectively.The Employee Performance scores of males and females were found to be 4.30, 4.44, respectively.Females reported higher scores than males in terms of employee performance.While no significant differences were found between marital statuses in terms of organizational stress (tOS=-0.49,p>0.05), significant differences were found between marital statuses in terms of employee performance (tEP=2.96,p<0.05, mean EP=4.46).Married employees reported higher scores than singles (Table 3).No significant differences were found between educational statuses in terms of organizational stress and employee performance (FOS=0.65,p=0.52>0.05;FEP=2.87,p=0.62>0.05)(Table 4).While no significant differences were found between age groups in terms of organizational stress, significant differences were found between age groups in terms of employee performance (FOS=2.55,p=0.08>0.05;FEP=4.92,p=0.00<0.05).According to Tukey test, applied to determine which group caused the difference, employees between the ages of 34-43 years (mean=4.54)reported higher scores than those between 24-33 years and 44 and over (Table 6).No significant correlation was found between organizational stress and employee performance (rOS=-0.06,p>0.05) (Table 7).

Conclusion and Discussion
According to analyzed data, no significant differences were found between genders in terms of organizational stress and employee performance of employees working in provincial directorate of youth and sport.In the literature, while the results of some studies are parallel to our findings in terms of gender (Gulluoglu, 2012;Kilic, Yumusak, & Yildiz, 2013;Ozkaya, Yakin, & Ekinci, 2008;Uzum, 2010), some studies show that female employees report higher scores than males in terms of organizational stress and employee performance (Can, 2010;Michael, Stalikas, Kallia, Karagianni, & Christine, 2009;Bayik, Ozsoy, Ardahan, Ozkahraman, & Iz, 2006;Ergun, 2008;Yurtseven, 2016).According to another result, no significant differences were found between marital statuses in terms of terms of organizational stress and employee performance of employees working in provincial directorate of youth and sport.In the studies of Ergun (2008), Ozkaya, Yakin and Ekinci (2008), Uzum (2010), Dereli (2010) and Akbas (2007) no significant differences were found between genders, and these results have parallels with our findings.In contrast with these results, married employees reported higher scores in the studies in nurses by Karahan, Gurpinar, and Ozyurek (2007) and in administrators by Yurtseven (2016), and these results are parallel to our findings.
No significant differences were found between age groups in terms of organizational stress.The findings of Ergun (2008), conducted in employee of health business, supported the results of our study.In contrast to this, Karahan et al. (2007) found statistically significant differences between age groups.In study in which academician participated, Yildirim and Tasmektepgil (2011) found significant differences between age groups.These results supported our findings.It was found that educational status had no impact on organizational stress.The findings of some research in which the differences between educational statuses were examined, supported our results (Gulloglu, 2012;Ergun, 2008;Uzum, 2010).However, Yurtseven (2016) found significant differences between educational statuses, and the results showed that employees having master degree had higher scores than others.
In this study, no significant differences were found between genders in terms of employee performance.The study results of Ergun (2008) in which the differences between genders were examined in terms of employee performance supported our findings.Similarly, Cengiz (2008) found no significant differences between genders in terms of employee performance of employees working in hotels.
Significant differences were found between marital statuses in terms of employee performance in favor of married employees.Married employees reported higher scores than singles.While Ergun (2008) found significant differences between marital statuses, Cengiz (2008) and Senturk and Tekin (2015) found no significant differences between married and single employees in terms of performance.It was found that age was a factor in determining employee performance.In another word, employee performance can vary by age groups.However, Cengiz (2008) found no significant differences between age groups.
Correlation analysis displayed that no significant relationship existed between organizational stress and employee performance in our sample.It can be said that organizational stress is not an impact on the employee performance of our study sample.However, Turunc and Celik (1987) found positive correlation between performance and stress.
Collected data from employees was analyzed.It was reported that data displayed normal distribution when Skewness and Kurtosis values of Organizational Stress and Employee Performance were examined.No significant differences were found between genders in terms of both organizational stress and employee performance.This result showed that both female and male employees had the same level organizational stress and employee performance scores of female and male employees were found to be close to each other.According to t test results, no significant differences were found between marital statuses, however, married employees reported higher scores than singles.It can be said that both married and single employees have organizational stress arising from the institution.It can be interpreted that regular family life and having responsibilities are effective in the differences between marital statuses in terms of employee performance.
No significant differences were found between educational statuses in terms of organizational stress and employee performance of the participants.It can be said that educational level is not an impact on organizational stress and employee performance.ANOVA test showed that no significant differences existed between monthly incomes in terms of organizational stress and employee performance.It can be interpreted that no significant differences exist between monthly incomes because there are no performance-based wage policy and accordingly there is no competition between employees.
Significant differences were found between age groups in terms of employee performance while no significant differences were found in terms of organizational stress.It was found that employees aged between 34-43 years had higher scores than other age groups in terms of employee performance.This result can be interpreted that these employees have more mature opinions mentality and may work conspiratorially.According to age group results, employee performance of employees aged between 24-33 years may be affected because they may have adaptation problems and work conspiratorially.For the employees aged over 44 years, it can be said that they may have reached the burnout level; correspondingly these employees reported lower scores in employee performance.Correlation results showed that no significant relationship existed between organizational stress and employee performance.

Table 1 .
The range of scale scores Arithmetic mean scores of employees reported in Organizational Stress Scale and Employee Performance Scale were found to be 3.20 (±0.35) and 4.35 (±0.58), respectively.When Skewness and Kurtosis values were examined, data collected from employees displayed normal distribution (Table1).

Table 2 .
Differences between genders in terms of organizational stress and employee performance

Table 3 .
Differences between Marital Statuses in terms of organizational stress and employee performance

Table 4 .
Differences between Educational Statuses in terms of organizational stress and employee performance

Table 5 .
Differences between monthly incomes in terms of organizational stress and employee performance

Table 6 .
Differences between age groups in terms of organizational stress and employee performance

Table 7 .
Correlation between organizational stress and employee performance