**1. Introduction**

Stress is a common characteristic of most work environments, and in our fast-changing society, the number of highly stressed employees is on the rise. According to a recent poll, two-thirds of professional employees have reported that they are more stressed than they were five years ago [1]. Understanding the causes and consequences of stress should be a top concern for public managers and scholars alike. Stress has been linked to a variety of physical and psychological disorders [2].

Alleviating stress in the workplace is likely to improve job satisfaction, which has been found to be negatively associated with turnover [3–6].

Scholars have also explored work stress in the public sector. Recent polls have suggested that government workplaces are among the most stressful workplaces, when compared to private and nonprofit workplaces [7]. This fact may dampen the already strained public sector recruitment efforts. One potential solution to this conundrum is public service motivation (PSM), which is an altruistic need that attracts individuals to contribute to the well-being of their communities and to public service work. There is a large body of research that have explored the benefits of PSM on individual behavior in work organizations. This research has confirmed that PSM has both direct and indirect influences on a range of work outcomes such as job satisfaction [8, 9], performance [10, 11], and well-being [12] among public employees. However, one area of the literature that is still unresolved is the extent to which PSM reduces or increases stress in public sector workplaces. Some have theorized that high levels of PSM may cause individuals to be more resilient to the stress that is associated with public service [13]. However, empirical research has not confirmed this hypothesis. PSM has been found to be positively related to work stress [14–16].

There is a need for more research on this topic for at least two reasons. For one, there is a need to better understand the process whereby PSM impacts a wider range of stressors. Many existing studies in this area of research have used global unidimensional measures of work stress that conceal its more specialized and diverse sources. As Jiang et al. [17] have stated, the field has "*failed to deeply explore or classify the sources of work-related stress as well as the mechanisms that influence it*". This is important given the fact that the distinguishing aspects of work stress in the public sector stress come not only from the difficulty of the formal job tasks but also from the environmental of large impersonal bureaucracies and the scrutiny that public organizations routinely receive from the public. Exploring the connections that PSM has on a wider range of stressors will help the field build a deeper understanding of the extent to which PSM is a detrimental or beneficial predictor of stress.

More research is also needed to explore the connections between the stressors that are related to PSM and work outcomes. Scholars have argued that the positive association that PSM has to work stress is an example of the dark side of PSM [14, 15]. However, empirical research is needed that connects the stress that is positively associated with PSM to the attitudes and behaviors of employees. Given the diverse sources of stress, do all the stressors that are associated with PSM lead to lower job satisfaction and higher turnover among public employees? Addressing this question would boost the importance of fostering strategies (i.e., personorganizational fit) that have been shown to help mitigate the negative effects of stress [14, 18], and it will help pinpoint which stressors and related work outcomes need to be addressed.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship that PSM has to a range of work-related stressors and their impact on the job satisfaction and turnover intentions of a sample of federal employees. This paper is organized into several parts. First, this paper will explore research on work stress and various sources of stress in the public sector workplace. Second, the hypotheses that this study will test will be presented. Third, the methodology used to test this study's hypotheses will be explored. Lastly, this paper will conclude with a discussion of the findings and implications of research to the research and practice in public administration.

*Does Stress Type Matter? Clarifying the Relationships between Public Service Motivation… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112707*
