International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 18; October 2011 232 Reduce Job stress in Organizations: Role of Locus of Control Roohangiz Karimi Department of Professional and Continuing Education University Putra Malaysia Farhad Alipour Department of Professional and Continuing Education University Putra Malaysia Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate theoretically how locus of control can reduce occupational stress in the workplaces so as to have an effective performance improvement. By utilizing job demand-control models, researchers explored how managers can help to reduce job stress among their employees. This study may help managers and human resource development practitioners to better understand to reduce the consequences of occupation stress by locus of control. Keywords: occupational stress, job stress, locus of control, internal locus of control, external locus of control. 1. Introduction and problem statement Job stress is increasing globally in all countries, organizations, professions, and among employees, employers, families and society in general. Studies show that employees in the United States and other developed countries experienced job stress as a serious issue so that American businesses pay more than $150 billion annually for occupational stress which leads to the absenteeism of employees , loss productivity and low performance (P. E. Spector, et al., 2002). Occupational stress has been known as a serious health issue for organizations and employees. Thus, the stressful situations of the workplace due to occupational stress lead to negative consequences like anxiety, headache, stomach distress and cardiovascular disease (P. E. Spector, 2002). So, occupational stress can be described as any discomfort that perceived by individuals who their capabilities and resources cannot be coped to demands, events and stressful situations in their workplace. Locus of control is viewed as an important element to deal to the occupational stress. Thus, it can determine any aspect of work like location, scheduling, and what kind of tasks and activities should be done. Studies show that employees display different amount of control in different jobs, for example an employee that woks in a machine- paced factory must adapt himself with determined time and specific tasks that have been determined by the machine (P. E. Spector, 2002). Therefore, people have ability to control themselves in order to cope with stressful situations as Chen & Silverthorne (2008) reported that individuals with internal locus of control can cope with job stress easily , in fact they perceived lower levels of job stress and show higher level of job performance. To sum up, Workplace stress is a serious phenomenon that leads to physical and psychological consequences such as headache, stomach distress, anxiety and depression. In addition, Stress is closely related to control in which employees can increase their control by making good decision or on the other hand, making balance between the determined demands and their capabilities at their workplace so as to prevent job stress. Although, previous studies investigated the antecedents and consequences of job stress, not much has been paid to locus of control as a vital factor in reducing occupational stress in the literature, so this study is going to investigate how locus of control can reduce occupational stress in the workplaces. 2. Occupational stress In general, Job stress can be defined as the physical and emotional responses that happen when the employee’s capabilities and resources cannot be coped with the demands and requirements of their job (Alves, 2005; Bianchi, 2004; Lindholm, 2006; Nakasis & Ouzouni, 2008).A phenomenon that is related to work and is known as occupational Stress may be expressed differently, and affects on employees in the different work contexts. Studying about job stress will demonstrate the perception of job stress and its negative effects on employee’s satisfaction, commitment and productivity in the different contexts and situations (Michael, 2009). According to Owen (2006), stressful situations in the workplace make occupational stress which leads to negative and harmful effects on both employers and employees. So, occupational stress will have unwelcome results such as absenteeism, loss of productivity and health care resources (Abualrub & Alzaru, 2008; Nakasis & Ouzouni, 2008).