Abstract
Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study examines the detrimental effect of hindrance stressors on self-rated health among a sample of Chinese public sector employees. Analysis of survey data based on 404 MPA students from a leading Chinese university who are working in various public organizations across China suggested that hindrance stressors were negatively related to both physical and mental health (β = −0.11, p < 0.01 and β = −0.38, p < 0.001, respectively), and emotional exhaustion mediated those relationships (95% bias-corrected confidence intervals for the indirect effects on physical and mental health based on 5000 bootstrapped samples were −1.64 to −0.35 and −3.51 to −1.81, respectively, excluding 0). Furthermore, perceived organizational support moderated the effect of hindrance stressors on emotional exhaustion (β = −0.10, p < 0.05), and moderated the indirect effects of hindrance stressors on physical and mental health via emotional exhaustion (index of moderated mediation was 0.116 with bootstrapped confidence interval of 0.018–0.296 for physical health, and 0.317 with bootstrapped confidence interval of 0.008–0.663 for mental health). The effects of hindrance stressors were weaker when perceived organizational support was high, suggesting a moderating effect. Our findings not only provide important theoretical contributions to the literature on public employees’ work-related stress and associated health outcomes, but also offer practical implications to those who are interested in stress intervention to improve the wellbeing of public employees and general society.
Highlights
Public sector employees work in highly stressful institutional and organizational environments which have profound impacts on their wellbeing and health-related outcomes [1]
A series of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed to test the convergent and discriminant validity of study variables, including hindrance stressors, emotional exhaustion, and perceived organizational support (POS)
The means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients among variables are reported in Emotional exhaustion was negatively related to POS (r = −0.29, p < 0.01), physical health (r = −0.18, p < 0.01), and mental health (r = −0.50, p < 0.01)
Summary
Public sector employees work in highly stressful institutional and organizational environments which have profound impacts on their wellbeing and health-related outcomes [1]. With a healthy and effective public workforce is it possible to have a prosperous society Recognizing this important theoretical and practical issue, the current study examines the stress–strain relationship among a sample of Chinese public sector employees. The stress research in public service contexts is very localized in that it focuses on specific work stressors related to the nature of public institutions, organizations, or jobs. By relating hindrance stressors with both physical and mental health among Chinese public sector employees, this study extends the nomological network of stress in the public service context, and provides new empirical evidence on the relationships between work stressors and health-related outcomes from Eastern cultures [19]. Theory [8] and examines whether public sector employees’ POS would moderate the relationship between hindrance stressors and emotional exhaustion and moderate the indirect effects of hindrance stressors on physical and mental health via emotional exhaustion
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