Influence of Locus of Control on Employees’ Perception of the Effectiveness of Stress Management Strategies at Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA)

Abstract

Work stress and other psychosocial factors is globally recognized as the main threat both to the workers’ and organization’s health. Work stress has an adverse impact on the individual’s physical and psychological health, as well as the effectiveness of the organization. The burden of change, as well as challenges such as increased workloads, the information and technological revolution, financial constraints, changes in employees’ level of preparedness, changes in employees’ demographics, the merging of institutions, changes in management styles and structural changes are increasingly becoming stressors thus affecting more employees. This study aimed at examining the influence of locus of control on employee’s perception of the effectiveness of Stress Management Strategies at Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA). The study was guided by the following objectives: to find out the influence of Locus of control on employees’ perception of the effectiveness of stress management strategies at the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA), Nairobi. The study was guided by two theories namely the social learning theory and the attribution theory. This study employed a descriptive crosssectional survey. The population covered all 81 employees at the Insurance Regulatory Authority. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires while data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented using tables, mean and standard deviation. The association between the dependent and the independent variable was established using regression analysis so as to draw a causal relationship between locus of control and employees’ perceptions of the effectiveness of stress management strategies and results were presented on frequency tables. The level of significance obtained implied that the locus of control is significant in predicting the effectiveness of stress management strategies. The R square value attained implied that variation in stress management strategies can be explained by locus of control. The study therefore recommended that organizations intending to enhance effectiveness of stress management strategies in their organizations should put in place measures which help their employees develop the right mental attitude and a strong internal locus of control