Stressed versus motivated public employees: A systematic review of the motivation and stress literatures through a contextualized job demands-resources model

Abstract

Within public administration, a growing number of studies over the past few decades have been devoted to the questions of what causes job stress and what motivates public employees. Recent interest in the interrelationship between job stress and (public service) motivation is the result of the increasingly popular Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. The JD-R theory bridges well-known motivating models, including the two-factor theory and the job characteristics model, and stress models, including the demand-control model and the effort-reward imbalance model. This chapter will systematically review studies from top public management and HRM journals to present a structured and integrative overview of the JD-R theory and its contextualized version in the public sector. The chapter ends with a conclusion and a discussion including the relevance of this overview for theory and practice as well as future research directions.