The present research studies the effect of work motivation on occupational stress among executives from manufacturing and software industries. Work motivation (Agarwal, 1988) and occupational stress (McWilliams, 1984) questionnaires were administered to a sample of 80 male executives (40 from software and 40 from manufacturing). Results showed a significant difference between the two groups in all the dimensions of the occupational stress and work motivation questionnaires, except for negative stress coping in the occupational stress scale. Further analysis led to the following findings: (1) Manufacturing executives with low motivational organization orientation had significantly higher stress symptoms than executives with moderate and high motivational organizational orientation (2) Software executives with moderate motivational organization orientation had significantly higher negative stress-coping mechanisms than executives with high organization orientation (3) Software executives with moderate motivational job situation are significantly higher stress producers than executives with low and high motivational job situation.

Organizational effectiveness is determined by numerous factors. Those factors are classified into three major headings namely: Employee-related factors, process-related factors and technology-related factors. Among these three factors, people and employee-related factors play a significant role by influencing the other two. Employees as a psychological entity are susceptible to the influences by the cultural and social milieu of the organization and vice versa. Similarly, relationships between objective work conditions and productivity were moderated by subjective phenomena, such as the employees' motivation in his/her work, attitude towards the organization, etc.

The above scenario establishes the need to understand the nature and effects of psychological determinants of work behavior, so that the above key objectives can be attained. This, in turn, may lead to the increased employee productivity resulting in organizational effectiveness. On the other hand, human behavior at work is very complicated and diverse and employees are extremely dynamic. So, there is a need for an intense theoretical understanding backed by rigorous empirical research before applications can be made for managing people effectively.

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