Verskille in werkstres en psigiese uitbranding tussen blanke- en swart middelvlakbestuurspersoneel in 'n Suid-Afrikaanse diensorganisasie

The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference in the presence of workrelated stress and psychological burn-out between white and black middle-level management personnel in a South African service organisation. A study of literature on stress reveals that stress, work-stress and psychological burnout are phenomena that are steadily increasing, not only world-wide, but also in South Africa. This fact is emphasised by the financial, organisational and human costs incurred as a result of stress, work-stress and psychological burn-out. Changes within the political and economical arena of South Africa contributed towards forcing South African service organisations to establish a work-force that is more representative. This in its turn, inter alia, contributes towards more black managers being appointed. In view of the fact that very little attention had in the past been paid to the way in which black managers experience work-stress and psychological burn-out in comparison to their white colleagues, the amount of literature on the causes of workstress and psychological burn-out for the said group is indeed very limited at this stage. It has, therefore, been decided to investigate the differences in work-stress and psychological burn-out between black and white management personnel in order to compile a data basis for future research, as well as to enable organisations to plan preventative measures in this regard. In this study stress, more specifically work-stress, and psychological burn-out are the topics used as a point of departure and these topics are discussed as systematical phenomena, in order to meet the aim/purpose of the study. The influence of race on the way in which work-stress and psychological burn-out is experienced, is studied by making use of a multi-cultural model of stress. A population consisting of 387 middle-level management personnel members from a South African service organisation, is included as test persons for the study. The Work and Life Circumstances Questionnaire of Van Zyl and Van der Walt (1991) was used to measure stress levels and certain stressors and the Maslach Burn-out Inventory (Maslach & Jackson 1986), was used to determine the level of burn-out. Statistical processing of data collected from 387 completed questionnaires, were done by using the SPSS computer program (SPSS, 1993). In this thesis descriptive as well as inferential statistics is implemented in order to meet the objectives set for the study; after having tested whether the inferential statistical comply with the statistical hypotheses underlying these methods. T-tests and co-variation analysis have been evaluated for grouped data, in order to indicate significant differences between groups, wherever applicable. Statistically significant differences have been found between the average totals in respect of work-stress and psychological burn-out for black and white middle-level management personnel members. From the results it has become apparent that the black group has statistically obtained significantly higher totals on external stressors; task attributes; career matters; social matters; and depersonalisation as sources of stress, work-related stress and psychological burn-out. The white group has - in comparison - obtained higher totals on emotional exhaustion than the black group. After an integration of the data, the conclusion was reached that the measures to prevent work-stress and psychological burn-out in black and white middle-level management personnel would have to be implemented at different levels of a system.