Coping, Personality and the Workplace

How an individual responds to crises and critical incidents at work, both immediately and subsequent to the event, is heavily influenced both by personality characteristics and their use of coping strategies. These can, in turn, be affected by levels of education, gender and even the profession within which the individual is working. Coping, Personality and the Workplace offers theory, research and practice on our ability to cope with dangerous situations, critical incidents or other work crises. The chapters include perspectives on social and health habits and risks; gender and age differences as well as a range of different sources of threat: financial, psychological and physical; those within and outside the individual’s control; immediate and chronic. For organizations, this collection provides help and advice to build into employee safety and support programmes; for policy makers, a sense of the emerging sources of risk related to occupational health and for researchers, an anthology of original applied research from some of the leading authors in three continents.

’A comprehensive review and discussion of all aspects of the coping-personality relationship. For those wishing to enhance or refocus their knowledge, research or practice then this book offers a rich resource for engaging in and improving the quality of working lives.’ Philip Dewe, Birkbeck, University of London, UK ’Although stress seems to be endemic to modern life, the most interesting question is how, and why, individuals differ in their ability to manage or cope with the stressors they experience. In this volume, Professors Antoniou and Cooper have brought together an impressive array of authors to consider a wide variety of issues related to coping and personality in the workplace. The resulting collection both reviews, and extends, our knowledge of how individuals deal with workplace stressors and will be an important reference for both researchers and practitioners.’ E. Kevin Kelloway, Saint Mary’s University, Canada; President-Elect, Canadian Psychological Association

Alexander-Stamatios Antoniou (BA, MEd., MPhil., PhD., PhD., PhD., C.Psychol) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Athens, Greece and holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Psychology, Philosophy, Education and Management from universities in Greece and in the UK. Cary L. Cooper is the author and editor of more than 125 books and is one of Britain's most quoted business gurus. He is The 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK. He is a founding President of the British Academy of Management, a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and one of only a few UK Fellows of the (American) Academy of Management, past President of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and President of RELATE. He was the Founding Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, former Editor of the scholarly journal Stress and Health and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Management; now in its 3rd Edition. He has been an advisor to the World Health Organisation, ILO, and EU in the field of occupational health research and wellbeing, was Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Chronic Disease of the World Economic Forum (2009-2010, and currently a member of the Global Agenda Council on mental health of the WEF) and is Immediate Past Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences (comprising 47 learned societies in the social sciences and 90,000 members). He was awarded the CBE by the Queen in 2001 for his contributions to organizational health and safety; and in 2014 he was awarded a Knighthood for his contribution to the social sciences.