Twenty-first International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

Research affirms that tobephobia (TBP) is the fear of failure (FF) that can impact the job behavior of any employee. Symptoms of TBP can be prevalent in any working environment, at any time. Symptoms of TBP such as anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and depression can either be expressed overtly by employees, or be suppressed, for fear of embarrassment or humiliation by their coworkers and employers. The target population for this research comprised teachers who were selected using convenience sampling based on their accessibility and availability. Three-hundred-and-eleven respondents completed the questionnaire. This represented a return rate of 92.8% from a total of 335 distributed questionnaires. The focus of this paper was on the section of the structured questionnaire that listed forty-nine symptoms. Participants identified fourteen symptoms which impacted their job behavior most. These responses were classified as either intrapersonal or interpersonal symptoms. For example, 95.8% of the participants thought that stress, as an intrapersonal symptom, strongly impacted their job behavior. The results suggested that participants perceived the symptoms of TBP had permeated and consequently, impacted their job behavior. Internal consistency was examined using Cronbach’s alpha, which resulted in a value of 0.98, well above the recommended value of 0.7. Evolving from this study is a generic framework of the symptoms of TBP that can be used to address the emotions and the FF of employees. This framework can function as a foundation for future research in different organizational contexts. Findings of this research can be used to improve organizational policies and practices.