**2. Work stress and strain**

Work-related stress is one of the most researched areas in general literature. While there is no universally agreed upon definition of stress, there are several widely used definitions and concepts [19]. One of the most widely used definitions of stress was given by Folkman and Lazarus [20] who defined it as a "*relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being*". Others have conceptualized stress as a function of the level of control, resources, and/or support that are available to an individual to address the job demands [21, 22]. Still more have framed stress as a misfit between the characteristics of individuals and the demands of their environment [23, 24]. In most models and conceptualizations, stress by itself does not automatically lead to aversive outcomes. Stress will become aversive when it leads to a strain, which is a condition that occurs when stress surpasses the available resources, coping strategies, and control available to manage it. The consequences of stress and/or strain on the physical and psychological health of employees, as well as their performance, commitment, and satisfaction, are well-documented [25, 26].

### **2.1 Sources of stress and public sector work environments**

The public sector is home to many of the most stressful occupations, such as corrections and policing, nursing, firefighting, and other government occupations [27–33], even though the findings are mix in terms of whether public sector workplaces are more stressful than other sectors [34, 35]. The source and type of stress in the public sector varies greatly. There is a plethora of scale and typologies of stress that can be used to understand stressors in the public sector [28, 36–38]. Most of the typologies of stress can be organized into at least three levels: job, organizational, and environment characteristics.

For one, job level stressors stem from the formal job responsibilities of employees. Job responsibilities vary in terms of the exposure that employees have to emotional demands, co-worker relationships, and work role conflicts, and overload. Jobs that expose employees to high emotional demands, poor co-worker relationships, and tasks that are difficult to address are associated with higher stress [27, 30, 32, 33, 39–41]. Next, organizational-level stress stems from the internal characteristics of the organizations, such as goal ambiguity, climate, participative opportunities, and reward/ compensation strategies. For example, there are scholars that suggest that public organizations are unique in terms of the ambiguity of their goals [42, 43], even though some have challenged this assertion [44]. Nevertheless, goal clarity has important consequences on the attitudes and behaviors of employees, such as stress [45, 46]. Work environments that contain ambiguous goals, few participative opportunities, and unfair reward strategies are associated with higher stress [30, 32, 39, 41].

Finally, environmental stress stems from the characteristics of an organization's environment, such as media coverage and citizen perceptions/support. The mass media is a powerful institution that has shaped the behavior of organizations, governmental and nongovernmental alike. Many believe that the media is essential for democracy to thrive [47, 48]. As Blumler and Gurevitch [49] described, "*the media are thus responsible for providing the political information necessary to allow citizens to make political decisions and cast their ballot on the basis of informed choice*". Nonetheless, scholars have long argued that the media's coverage of democratic institutions tends to lower the public's confidence in these institutions by cultivating negative perceptions of those

institutions [50–52]. There is a body of research that has sought to clarify the process of how what is called the "mediatization" of public organizations effects political institutions [53–56]. This research revealed that the incompatibility between the media and bureaucratic logic is linked to media-stress and fear among public servants [57, 58].

The messaging of the mass media impacts the opinions that citizens hold of public organizations and their support of their practices. Citizens are the ultimate beneficiaries of government action, even though national polls suggest that American citizens maintain a high level of skepticism and distrust of the federal government. According to the Pew Research Center [59], only 20% of the Americans believe that government can be trusted to "*do the right thing*" always or most of the time. However, environmental stresses may not impact all public organizations and employees equally. Organizations and employees who are more experienced with negative media attention and citizen criticism have developed effective coping and other organizational strategies that lessen the impact of this stress [60]. Like job and organizational stressors, environmental stressors are associated with work-related stress [41, 61]. The goal of this study is to explore whether public service motivation helps employees effectively cope with these stressors.

#### **2.2 Public service motivation and work-related stress**

Public service motivation is a need or internal call to service that attracts individuals to opportunities to contribute to the well-being of their communities [62, 63]. Scholars have found that PSM is related to a range of attitudes and behaviors in organizations, which includes job satisfaction [9, 14, 64, 65] and turnover [8, 11, 14, 65–70]. Consistent with the theory, some have hypothesized that PSM is a resource that helps public employees cope with stress and strain [14–16, 71]. For example, according to Bakker [13], "*Those who are prepared to make sacrifice for the good of society will be better able to deal with organizational stressors because they know that dealing with those stressors serves the higher goal of helping others. They will not be upset by daily hassles because they find their work important and meaningful.*" Hence, if this is the case, high levels of PSM should reduce the effects of stress on employees in public sector workplaces.

Regrettably, empirical research has not confirmed the Bakker [13] hypothesis. Three studies found that PSM was associated with higher job stress among government employees in Egyptian and the French-speaking region of Switzerland [14–16]. A study by Gould-Williams et al. [14] suggested that the beneficial effects of PSM on stress were seen indirectly through the person-organizational fit. The direct relationship that PSM had to stress was argued to indicate the dark side of PSM, which undermines employee well-being by raising performance expectations. However, Liu et al. [16] study presented a more nuanced explanation of the relationship between PSM, stress, and well-being. Using a sample of Chinese police officers, these scholars found that officers with high levels of PSM reported greater mental well-being in high-stress situations but reported lower physical well-being in low-stress situations. The authors reasoned that these findings were driven by the fact that PSM attracts individuals to stressful public service work that may satisfy their internal needs while contributing to elevated levels of physical fatigue. Findings by Liu et al. [16] highlight the fact that the association that PSM has to stress will depend on the type of stress under investigation and will not automatically lead to detrimental work outcomes. Hence, PSM's association with the job, organizational, and environmental-level stressors and their impact on work outcomes are likely to vary.

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

#### **2.3 Work-related stress, job satisfaction, and turnover**

Public service can be a stressful work environment given the complexity of the problems it addresses, the bureaucratic nature of its organizations, and the scrutiny it receives from its external environment. One question that deserves consideration is the extent to which the stress associated with the demands of public service work produces detrimental work outcomes. The general field has provided some answers. Job stress is associated with lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions [72–75]. However, Cavanaugh et al. [76] demonstrated that not all work-related stress produces detrimental consequences. According to the authors, challengerelated stress is associated with work-related demands that provide positive feeling and achievement, which may be stressful but offer potential gains for individuals. However, hindrance-related stress is associated with work-related demands that tend to constrain or interfere with an individual's work achievement and are not associated with potential gains. Unlike hindrance-stress, challenge-stress would produce positive work outcomes, because it does not hinder or interfere with employee work efforts or achievement needs, but instead promotes personal growth and triggers positive emotions [77]. So again, the relationship that work stress has to the attitudes and behavior of employees will depend on the type of stress in question. If this is the case, the job, organizational, and environmental stressors investigated in this study produced hindrance-related stresses and thus will be associated with high levels of PSM, lower job satisfaction, and higher turnover intentions.

For the sake of analysis, how are job, organizational, and environmental stresses related? While job, organizational, and environmental stressors produce distinct impacts on the work outcomes, these stressors are interrelated. One of the most important relationships represents the association between the organizational and environmental stressors. The stresses that employees experience in their work are inherently linked to the formal roles and demands of their jobs. Using this logic, the stresses that stem from the organizational and environment levels of analysis will magnify the stresses already present at the job level of analysis. Below are the hypotheses that were tested in this study.

Hypothesis 1: PSM will be positively related to job, organizational, and environmental stressors.

Hypothesis 2: Job-, organizational-, and environmental-level stressors will be interrelated. Namely, organizational and environmental stress will be positively related to job-level stress.

Hypothesis 3: Job, organizational, and environmental stressors will be associated with lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions.
