Organizational Stress and Well-being In Public Service Executives: The Role of Stewardship
Creators: name: Simpkins, Leah
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2018
Subjects: stewardship
stress
public service
executives

description: Over the past few decades, we have observed a transformation of the economy and a shift to more knowledge-based and fast paced work. Against the backdrop of complex organizational issues and multifaceted job demands, research has evolved to better integrate the social context into models of organizational stress and well-being. Stewardship has been proposed as an organizational approach that emphasizes a sense of purpose towards the common good through the sharing of power, resources and information across networks to work through complex issues. The main objective of this thesis is to develop and empirically test an analytical framework examining the role of stewardship in the relationship between organizational stress and well-being. A central premise of this research is that contextual factors of the work environment can play a key role in the mitigation of work stress. More specifically, stewardship is viewed as an organizational approach that helps executives to navigate their complex demands and be more resilient to organizational stress. The predictive power of this conceptual model was evaluated through the examination of senior executives from the public service of Canada. Using a mixed-methods approach this thesis is organized around three scientific articles. Using a large sample of public service executives (N = 2314), the first study developed and tested a questionnaire measure of organizational stewardship and used this measure to investigate the relationship between this construct and established measures of organizational stressors, work resources, perceived stress and well-being. Findings supported the validity of the instrument. In addition, results indicated that stewardship was negatively associated with work stressors and perceived stress and positively associated with traditional organizational resources and indicators of individual and organizational well-being. The second study furthered the conceptualization of organizational stewardship through a qualitative approach using interviews among senior executives (N = 15). Findings revealed that organizational stewardship was conceptualized with four key elements: i) service over self-interest, ii) sustainability of the public service beyond one’s career, iii) working with a collective orientation and iv) mission-focused management of resources. In addition, the barriers and facilitators of stewardship were centred on organizational processes and practices within the public service context. In the third study (N = 1996), a multi-level analysis of survey data demonstrated that organizational stewardship played a moderating role in the relationship between role ambiguity and distress among senior executives: departmental stewardship acted as a buffer against job stressors. Overall, the findings from this thesis support stewardship as an organizational resource in the relationship between organizational stress and well-being and emphasize the need to increase our current understanding of this concept as it relates to organizational health.