Stress and Stress Management in a Higher Education Tourism Institution

In modern societies stress has become a widespread phenomenon and therefore an issue of major concern to employees, organizations and the state. Organizations (i.e. management) that want to be competitive in the dynamic environment of today have to handle the problem of stress successfully. Higher education is not immune to this problem. The overall purpose of this analysis is to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of stress among scholars in tertiary education. Teachers’ work has always been considered to be very stressful. The aim of this research has been to find out how they combat stress operatively and strategically in a tourism educational institution. The case study method was used and data was collected in semi-structured interviews. Content analysis of the interviews was used to determine stress perception, assessment, and management on an individual and institutional level. While employees show great awareness regarding the effects of stress on their lives and apply several coping techniques, the institution seems to be rather uninformed about stress and, what is more, seems to generate causes of stress. Based on these findings, strategies are proposed for stress management within institution. So far research on occupational stress among academics has been conducted mostly in AngloSaxon environments. This paper gives an in-depth insight into this issue in a context of a Slovenian tertiary education institution.