A meta-analysis of stress and performance at work: Moderating effects of gender, age, and tenure

This article provided a quantitative integration of 191 empirical samples (N=39,281 employees) that have investigated the relationship between various stresses and performance at work. We augmented and improved upon past stress-performance meta-analyses in the following ways: (1) in addition to role ambiguity and role conflict, we included other types of chronic stress, such as role overload, job insecurity, work-family conflict, environmental uncertainty and situational constraints. (2) We explored two specific dimensions of performance, such as quality and quantity of performance as well as other objective and subjective measures performance. (3) We identified all relevant unpublished dissertations and broadened significantly the number of samples. (4) We tested new moderating effects. As hypothesized, all stresses had consistently negative relationships with all measures and dimensions of performance. The type of stress measurement used was a significant moderator. However, the published vs. unpublished studies moderator was not consistent across the various stresses. In our moderator analyses, two significant interactions were found. We found that as the percentage of women in the studies and the respondents' age increased interactively, and as the tenure and age of the respondents in the studies increased interactively, there was a reduction in the negative relationship between role ambiguity and performance. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical contributions and implications for future stress-performance research.