Culture and Resilience at Work: A Study of Stress and Hardiness among Indian Corporate Professionals

In 1979, Suzanne C. Kobasa propounded her theory of ‘hardiness’ in which she hypothesised her 3Cs—commitment, control, and challenge—as the basic ingredients of hardiness that make an individual stress-resilient. She was one of the early researchers who paid attention to personality features and illustrated that individuals who experience high levels of stress without mental and physical illness have a different personality than do those who become ill in stressful conditions. In current times, the discourse has enjoyed a sustained scholarly interest, but there is hardly any study on corporate professionals or the Indian context. Since the early 1990s, India has joined the corporate world and has been a fast-developing country. This change in the state of affairs provides a broader scope of study on hardy personality in coping with stress in the Indian context. This book examines the efficacy of hardiness on the Indian corporate professionals in the post-globalisation scenario. It endeavours to situate Kobasa’s foundational theorisation along with those offered by other scholars in the context of contemporary life situations with a focus on India. It presents a hypothesis that in the Indian context, culture could be looked at as yet another basic component of hardiness. Culture and Resilience at Work offers an assessment of the significant contribution of Indian culture as one of the major contributing components in enhancing hardiness in corporate professionals. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of stress management, human resource management, social psychology, cultural studies, and organisational behaviour.