Stress and coping : a study of project managers in a large ICT organisation

Abstract

Information technology (IT) project managers face a multitude of stressors in their workplaces. This has implications not only for the individual practitioners but also for their employers and society. Exactly what stressors are faced by IT project managers and how they cope with them has received little attention in the literature. In addressing this situation, this paper reports on an exploratory study aimed at identifying the sources of stress, coping strategies, and outcomes that are relevant to IT project managers in a large Queensland-based ICT organization. A critical incident analysis method was used involving interviews with a sample of 12 project managers, resulting in the identification of 50 stressor, coping, and outcome incident chains. These were then coded into categories for frequency analysis.