**5. Conclusion**

This book chapter presented a study that investigated how PSM is related to employee attitudes through its association with work-related stressors. This is one of the only known studies to explore the relationships that PSM has to a range of different types of stressors found in public service work organizations and environments. Unsurprisingly, the findings show that the job, organizational, and environmental stressors were detrimental to the work attitudes of employees, directly and indirectly. Employees who experienced high levels of job, organizational and job stressors were significantly more likely to report lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions. However, in contradiction to existing research [14, 15] and in support of Liu et al. [16], the influence that PSM appeared to have on job satisfaction and turnover intentions depended on the type of stress in question. PSM was associated with lower levels of organizational stressors, which increased job satisfaction and lowered turnover intentions. PSM had no direct relationship with the job stressors when organizational and environmental stressors were considered. Instead, PSM maintained indirect associations with the job stressors through its associations with the organizational and environmental stressors. The only potentially damaging impact PSM had on the work-related stressors was its association with the environmental stressors. The respondents with high levels of PSM were significantly more likely to report more concerns about the environmental stressors, which was associated with lower job stress concerns. However, outside of the respondents' job stress concerns, environmental stressors were not directly associated with their job satisfaction nor turnover intentions. There are several noteworthy implications of these findings.

Foremost, the findings of this study suggest that the connection that PSM has to work stress depends on the type of stress in question. Consistent with the findings of Liu et al. [16], this study demonstrated that PSM did not impact all work-related stressors in the same way. PSM appeared to increase the concerns that employees had regarding the environmental stressors, lowered concerns regarding the organizational, and had no direct relationship with their job stress concerns. These findings suggest that the association that PSM had to the stressors is neither monolithic nor uniform but is complex and often surprising. The findings also challenge the use of global measures of stress in PSM studies. While previous studies have found that PSM was associated with higher global measures of work-related stress, their results should be interpreted carefully. Considering the complex relationships that PSM has to the individualized categories of stress found in this study, the results of global measures of stress may be easily overgeneralized. Global measures of work stress may not be sensitive to the fine-tuned relationship that PSM has to the individualized dimensions of work stress.

Second, the findings of this study suggest that individuals with high levels of PSM have elevated concerns regarding the environmental stressors. The respondents who indicated that they possessed high levels of PSM were also significantly more likely to report experiencing high levels of environmental stress. While there are several

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

potential explanations offered in the literature, Boardman and Sundquist [81] perceived that the public service efficacy theory (PPSE) is one of the most compelling. This theory suggests that employees with high levels of PSM are likely to believe that public organizations offer valuable contributions to the community because of their own attractions to public service missions and are inclined to believe that the members of the public who receive these benefits share their positive viewpoints. When the viewpoints of public employees and citizens conflict regarding the contributions of their work, increased stress will result. This suggests that public managers must ensure that they not only remind their employees of the value of their work, but also work to communicate this value to the communities that are being served.

Third, despite the elevated concerns that employees appear to have regarding the environmental stressors, the findings of this study may suggest that the environmental stressors were the least important predictors of the work attitudes and behaviors of employees included in this study. No meaningful differences were found between the environmental stressors, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Yet this finding should not be interpreted as an indication that environmental stressors were unimportant to the attitudes and behaviors of employees. On the contrary, the environmental stressors, such as negative media coverage and citizen criticism, are likely to influence employees' perceptions of prestige [82]. The perception of prestige theory argues that individuals are compelled to seek relationships that maintain and/or enhance positive self-images. Relationships that are detrimental to a positive self-image lead to lower job satisfaction [83, 84] and higher turnover intentions [85, 86]. As a result, it is critical that managers and supervisors foster strategies that help public employees cope with environmental stressors before they destructively affect their self-image.

Fourth, this study suggests that public employees prioritize work-related stresses differently. For example, the findings demonstrated that the environmental stressors were negatively related to the job stressors. That is, the respondents who reported feeling high levels of environmental stress also reported having significantly lower job stress. The reason for this finding is not entirely clear. From one perspective it could be that environmental stress is not as concerning to employees when their job stresses are high. Hence, when compared to the environmental stressors, the job stressors may be the most important to public employees. If this is the case, this would mean that the relationship that job stress has to environmental stress was misspecified in the study model. Job stress may work to impact environmental stress, rather than vice versa. However, on the other hand, the findings also support the opposite viewpoint that job stressors become less salient concerns when environmental stressors are high. It is clear that more research is needed to improve the field's understanding of the effects of environmental stressors on job stress, as well as other work outcomes unexplored in this study.

Relatedly, the work-related stressors were not equal in their influence on the work attitudes. While the organizational and job stressors were both related to job satisfaction and turnover intentions, the relationships that the organizational stressors had to these outcomes were stronger. This suggests the most effective way that managers can improve job satisfaction and turnover among public employees in high-stress situations is to address their organizational stress concerns. The organizational stressors investigated in this study centered on how much employees believed their organization cared about their opinions and well-being and offered fair rewards. The stress associated with the lack of these opportunities not only affected the respondents' job stress concerns but also significantly lowered their job satisfaction and raised their turnover intentions.

Furthermore, while this study's findings will add to the field of research on the benefits of PSM in public organizations, they should be interpreted cautiously. Two weaknesses should be acknowledged. For one, this study relied on a cross-sectional design that limited the confirmation of causality among the study variables. It was assumed that PSM modifies the experiences employees have regarding work-related stress when the opposite relationship may be the case. Work stress may vary the levels of PSM possessed by employees over time. While longitudinal or experimental research designs are better equipped to isolate and test causal relationships, this study does confirm that meaningful relationships between PSM and work stressors are present. A second weakness of this study is that it drew its data from a convenience sample of Transportation Security Agency branch in Portland, Oregon. Even though the results are comparable to similar organizations in similar circumstances, there may be limits to the generalizability of this study. This presents an opportunity for future research to confirm the findings of this study with data extracted from a broader sample of organizations.

In conclusion, the public sector is unique in terms of the kinds of stress that public employees are expected to work under. However, the results of this study suggest that these concerns can be effectively managed. This study supports the view that effective stress management is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Even though individuals with high levels of PSM may be better suited to handle some kinds of stressors of public service, they can be more sensitive to other types of stressors, namely those that originate from the social context of public organizations. As result, effective stress management must include not only the recruitment of individuals with high levels of PSM to public service, but also the development of strategies that help public servants who are working in environments of low citizen trust and hostile media coverage. Effectively managing these various sources of stress will go a long way toward reducing turnover, increasing satisfaction, and improving the well-being of public servants.
