Organizational and Individual Response to External Stress

Organizational and individual changes resulting from severe environmental stress in three research and development organizations were studied at the beginning and the end of a 20-month period. The changes were examined with both longitudinal and independent sample data. The greatest changes occurred in the way researchers perceived their jobs and their organizations rather than their self-perceptions or attitudes toward their work. Despite the greatly decreased satisfactions experienced by the researchers, their job involvement and aspiration levels did not change greatly, and their intrinsic motivation decreased in one of the two samples studied. It was concluded that this lack of expected individual coping behavior must be associated with high levels of internal strain for the researchers, although some strain was probably reduced by becoming alienated from the organization.