Abstract

Tobephobia (TBP) cannot be ignored in the workplace. Research affirms that TBP is the fear of failure that can be experienced by any individual in any environment. The perceptual factors of gender in perceiving TBP forms an important component of this research. One of the aims of this quantitative study was therefore to investigate whether there were differences between male and female employees in how TBP is perceived in the workplace. Schools were identified as the workplace for this exploratory research. The target population comprised of teachers who were selected using convenience sampling based on their accessibility and availability. A total of 311 respondents completed the questionnaire, and this represented a return rate of 92.8 percent from a total of 335 distributed questionnaires. Internal consistency was examined using Cronbach’s alpha which resulted in a value of 0.867, well above the recommended value of 0.7. The results suggest that males regard the relationship between gender and TBP as significantly stronger than their female counterparts. The working environment for teachers differs between schools and across hierarchical teaching levels/ phases. This study found a statistically significant difference between the teaching phases. Post hoc tests revealed that teachers in the Further Education and Training Phase of schooling believed that there is a stronger relationship between gender and TBP than the Intermediate and Foundation Phase. The results of this study contribute to our knowledge in comprehending whether categorical thinking exists in organizations between male and female job behavior in perceiving TBP.