Problems are potential stressors which need to be properly handled for containing stress. Level of education influences individual perception. Management of problems is based on the individual perception of the problem and about his/her problem-solving skills and resources. Problem management is thus influenced by the level of education of the individual concerned. This paper reports a case of problem management in a large public sector industry in India, using coping strategy framework. Projective instrument for coping with stress in organizational roles - ‘Role-PICS (O)’ was used to measure eight problem management strategies on 155 randomly selected executives. The sample was divided in three groups depending on respondent's qualification level. For each qualification group, means for problem management strategies were rank ordered to identify dominant and back-up problem management strategies. T-test on means was performed for each problem management strategy to detect significant differences across the qualification groups. ‘Defending the Self’ was found to be the dominant problem management strategy across the qualification groups. The back-up problem management strategy for the lower qualification group was ‘Fatalistic Thinking’ but it was making self effort for the medium and higher qualification groups. ‘Defending the Self’ was stronger in lower qualification group as compared to medium and higher qualification groups. ‘Making Self Effort’, ‘Seeking External Effort’, and ‘Making Team Effort’ were weaker in lower qualification groups as compared to medium qualification groups. Study finding showed that executives with lower qualifications were relatively more dysfunctional in managing problems than their counterparts with medium or higher qualifications. Executives with medium or higher qualifications tended to become functional under pressure. Executives with lower qualifications, however, continued to remain dysfunctional under pressure.
Problem management, coping with stress, coping strategy
