Cause, Effect, and Alleviation of Stress for Project Management Practitioners in the Built Environment: A Conceptual Framework

The concept of stress was not generally researched until the early 20th century. Early studies have led to further research being conducted to find out the effects of stress on a human being. Stress can have a large impact on a person’s physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. The construction industry is made up of a variety of different management roles. People working in these roles, known as project management practitioners (PMP), have an influence on the outcome of a range of areas in construction projects. These roles and tasks, due to the high importance, can bring different causes of stress and some likely reasons for this stress is due to the task and performance outcomes which need to be meet. Stress can affect project management practitioners regularly and can have negative impacts to performance. There is however minimal research conducted on project management practitioners’ stress in the Australian construction industry. This study is therefore conducted to examine how project management practitioners manage to conduct high quality performance while suffering large amounts of stress. In this paper, the results of an in-depth review and analysis of relevant literature are reported. In particular, the stressors impacting and stress types related to project management practitioners’ performance and the potential alleviation tools and techniques used to reduce stress levels have been identified. Resultantly, a theoretical framework is proposed for further empirical tests.