ORGANIZATIONAL STRESS SOURCES AND SOLUTION PROPOSALS IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Organizational stress is a concept which can have negative effects for both the workers and the organizations. The purpose of this study is to determine and classify the organizational stress sources that public transportation is exposed to and to provide suggestions for managing these stress factors. A comprehensive literature survey is made in organizational stress factors and the following classes are identified: work structure, organizational structure, organizational policy, within-company relations and physical conditions. A questionnaire is developed for Ankara EGO General Directorate; applied to 2.137 drivers in Ankara in 2016 with a meaningful return of 1.554 data sets, representing 72% of the population and results are statistically analyzed. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis and related validity and regional variance analyses are performed by SPSS (22.0) software. The study revealed that: drivers are exposed to mid-level stress; and most critical stress causes are “injustice and/or insufficiency of salaries”, “aggressive, violent behavior and verbal abuse of passengers towards drivers”, “fear of losing jobs or renewal of the contract”. A significant level of variation in stress levels is identified with respect to different regions of Ankara where drivers are assigned. Suggestions are made in relation to different stress causes to lower the stress levels exposed.