The efficacy of stress coping strategies in Taiwan's public utilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Kuo-Tai Cheng; Kirk Chang

doi:10.1016/j.jup.2022.101431

The efficacy of stress coping strategies in Taiwan's public utilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Util Policy. 2022 Dec:79:101431. doi: 10.1016/j.jup.2022.101431. Epub 2022 Sep 23.

Authors

Kuo-Tai Cheng¹, Kirk Chang^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental and Cultural Resources, National Tsing Hua University, 521, RD Nan-Da, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.
² Yin Shu-Tien Educational Honorary Professor, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.
³ Royal Docks School of Business and Law, University of East London, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Covid-19 posed stress to the employees in the Public Utility Sector (PUS). Although employees adopted various stress-coping strategies, the actual coping-efficacy remained unclear and hence the current research followed. Research data were gathered from 678 employees of the four PUS companies, including Power, Water, Railways, and Petroleum in TAIWAN (anonymous surveys with ethical-guideline applied). The research revealed three findings: i). the coping-efficacy was affected by gender and education; ii). the nature of strategies mattered, either increasing or decreasing the stress reduction; and, iii). using two strategies does not reduce stress necessarily. Implications for stress-coping management in PUS are discussed.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coping strategy; Stress.