What Causes Stress among Academic Administrators: An Empirical Investigation

Purpose: The administrators like principals, head of the departments, deans & chairpersons play a very important role in achieving educational objectives in their respective educational institutions. This paper makes an empirical investigation about the major causes of stress for the administrators and presents the overall level of stress. Design/Methodology/Approach: A sample of 200 administrators was taken and different statements regarding causes of stress were asked. Factor analysis was applied to these statements to extract the main factor contributing to stress so that most important factors will be identified in order to make the effective strategies to cope up stress. Findings: The study revealed that the factor Role conflicts & Role ambiguity is the main stressor contributing more towards overall stress. Staff related problems are the second dimension contributing to the stress level. Work overload is considered as 3rd stressor while High self expectations and poor working conditions are ranked as 4th & 5th stressor. The overall stress level is 3.762 which indicated that administrators are having high level of stress on their positions.