Psychological adjustment and coping among construction project managers

Construction project managers work under conditions of uncertainty and high risk, and this can contribute to an excessive level of work‐related stress being experienced. To date, there has been limited research that has examined how project managers cope with work‐related stress. This paper investigates whether coping and affect (both negative and positive) influence adjustment (anxiety, depression and stress) among project managers. A sample of 100 male project managers from Australian contracting organizations completed a questionnaire that measured coping strategies, affect state and potential stressors. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that specific work‐related characteristics such as work experience, project size, age and level of education influenced the psychological adjustment of the project managers sampled. Further, those who engaged in a more problem‐focused style of coping, such as active coping were found to be better adjusted than those who engaged in more emotion‐focused styles of coping such as cognitive avoidance coping, social coping, accepting responsibility and self‐controlling coping. In addition, it was revealed that increased adjustment of project managers was associated with positive affect. It is concluded that the psychological adjustment of project managers is influenced by specific work‐related characteristics, the types of coping strategies they use and their affect state.

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