A comparison of the stress-strain process for business owners and nonowners: differences in job demands, emotional exhaustion, satisfaction, and social support.

One hundred sixty licensed morticians were surveyed to examine differences among business owners, managers, and employees on the relations proposed by G. F. Koeske and R. D. Koeske's (1993) stressor-strain-outcome model. Forty-eight percent of the morticians were owners, 16% were managers, and 36% were employees. Owners had less social support from work-related sources and perceived lower levels of role ambiguity and role conflict, less emotional exhaustion, and higher levels of job satisfaction and professional satisfaction than did nonowners. Social support from work-related sources and ownership each moderated the relationship between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction but not between emotional exhaustion and professional satisfaction. Emotional exhaustion partially mediated the effect of stressors on job satisfaction and professional satisfaction.

Understanding the provision of postretirement health care and pension benefits: which firm characteristics are most explanatory?

This article investigates the impact of firm work force characteristics, human resource practices, and external environmental attributes upon the likelihood that a company provides postretirement income and health care benefits. Using data from a national stratified random sample of 953 companies with 20 or more employees, logistic regression models were estimated to explore the impact of these three sets of variables on benefit provision. Results indicate that work force characteristics and human resources practices contribute considerably to the likelihood that these benefits are provided and that the impact of some of the more global characteristics, such as industry, diminishes in a fuller predictive model.