Management Control Systems and Perceived

Stress in a Public Service Organization

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY
Department of Business Studies
Master Thesis
Spring Semester 2012

Author: Claes Palm
Supervisor: Lars Frimanson
Date of submission: 2012-05-25
Management Control Systems and Perceived Stress in a Public Service Organization
Claes Palm











Keywords: Perceived Stress, Management Control, Employee Control, Feedback, Coping

Organizational stress research has demonstrated the role of employee control in buffering the
impact of work demands, such as time pressure, on stress (Huser, Mojzisch, Niesel
& Schulz-Hardt, 2010; van der Doef & Maes, 1999). Public service organizations have
increased their management control (Diefenbach, 2009; Hood, 1991). It has further been
suggested that some types of management control come at the expense of employee control
(Karasek & Theorell, 1990). In the context of a public service organization, this study
examines how management control and employee control relate to stress.
Stress is the single most common cause of long term sick leave in Sweden, resulting in high
expenses for the Swedish society (Sverigesradio.se, 2012). Stress is related to, for example,
job dissatisfaction, accidents and absenteeism which lead to high costs for organizations (e.g.,
Cooper & Cartwright, 1984; Ongori & Agolla, 2008).
In the last two-three decades, public organizations have gone through transformations to be
more transparent, installing more auditing, accounting and visualizing technologies.
Employees are more explicitly evaluated for their performance and effectiveness. In other
A popular notion is that an employee that experiences low control
together with high demand is more likely to perceive stress.
Management control has been intensified in public service
organizations after New Public Management reforms, which is
presumed to come at the expense of employee control. This study
examined how management control systems, as a package and as
specific components, are related to perceived stress. 130 subordinates
in a Swedish public service organization completed self-report
measures. A multiple regression analysis gave support for the
hypotheses that work demand is positively and feedback from
superior is negatively related to stress. No support was found for the
hypotheses that employee control, feedback from the information
system and formality by performance evaluation should be negatively
related to stress. It is suggested that management control systems can
serve as support for the employees efforts of coping with the
demands.

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words, management control has been intensified in public organizations. These trends have
been called the New Public Management (NPM) (Blomgren, 2007; Hood, 1991; Shore &
Wright, 1999).
Management control can be exercised through a range of various devices and systems,
summarized as management control systems (MCS), which purpose is to ensure that the
employees behave and take decisions in line with the objectives and the overall strategy, or
rather that the deviations from these are kept as low as possible (Anderson & O`Reilley, 1981;
Green & Welsh, 1984; Malmi & Brown, 2008). It has been suggested that the components of
a MCS should be studied as a package, and not in isolation, when examining the relation to
employee behavior. The reason is that the components are interconnected, their effect tend to
depend on one another (Malmi & Brown, 2008; Otley, 1980). But there are certain aspects
which are central in MCSs, such as the focus on continuous feedback and performance
evaluation (Hood, 1991; Malmi & Brown, 2008).
Increased stress due to NPM reforms has mainly been explained as a result of cost reductions
and organizational change (Hrenstam, Bejerot, Leijon, Scheele & Waldenstrom, 2004). The
purpose of this study is to extend the research by examining how increased management
control in a public service organization relates to stress. MCS are studied as a package
considered to be related to employee control and perceived stress. Furthermore, three specific
MCS components and their relation to perceived stress is examined; feedback from superior,
feedback from the information system and formality of performance evaluation.

Literature review
There are many definitions of stress (Cox, 1993; Hobfoll, 1989), implying that one has to be
clear of what position one adhere to. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) made a review of
contemporary stress research. They mean that many of the definitions can be categorized as
either stimulus or response definitions, which in turn have caused semantic difficulties.
Stimulus definitions focus on external events that are seen as normatively stressful, as for
example, natural disasters or the death of a close relative. The problem with the stimulus
definitions is that there are large variations in personal reaction to those events that are not
extreme. These definitions would therefore limit stress to extreme events and, for the purpose
of this paper, would be useless as stress here is studied in relation to MCS (i.e. everyday life
events) in organizations.
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Lazarus and Folkman (1984) mean that the other types of definitions, response definitions,
often are used in biology and medicine research. These focus on an internal state of stress or
behavior, for example that the individual is reacting with stress or being distressed. Such
a definition makes it difficult to identify in advance if an event is a stressor or not, as one has
to wait for the persons reaction to make a judgment. Another problem is that responses can
faulty be considered to be states of stress when they are not. Furthermore, both stimulus and
response definitions tend to depend on one another with circular reasoning. For an event to be
a stressor, it has to result in a stress response, and for something to be a stress response it has
to be preceded by a stressor.
Making an analogy with disease and illness in contemporary epidemiological research,
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) suggest another definition. People do not become ill or die
merely from virus and bacteria, but by being vulnerable to them. Thus, when defining stress
one also has to take into account the characteristics of the person, her or his vulnerability.
This person-environment relationship is mediated by the processes of cognitive appraisal.
Cognitive appraisal is here the conscious or unconscious process of evaluating the
environment with regard to his or her resources. Lazarus and Folkmans (1984) definition of
stress can be summarized as a particular 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 (p. 19). This definition is used in the present study.
This definition suggests an operationalization that assesses the individuals perceived stress
with self-report measurements. How unpredictable, uncontrollable and to what extent the
person perceive that they do not have sufficient resources in relation to the demands are
common experiences of stress (Bandura, 1989; Cohen & Williamson, 1988; Cox, 1993;
Hobfoll, 1989). The relationship between the environment and the person is therefore
appraised by the subject himself or herself only people themselves can answer if they
perceive that they, for example, do not have the resources to meet the demands (Cohen,
Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983).
The cognitive appraisal process can be divided into primary and secondary appraisal. What
the person is evaluating is how demanding or threatening an event is (primary appraisal) and
how well one can handle or cope with this event (secondary appraisal). In the secondary
appraisal, coping can mean to alter the event itself, the situation, his or her own behavior or
emotions and cognitions. For example, if a situation at work would be appraised as
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demanding, with several projects that suddenly have become shorter deadlines, coping
behaviors can range from being external such as prioritizing tasks, to be internally directed
such as altering cognitions or to meditate (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). To perceive that one
has the freedom to act, to have control, is necessary for the former (Karasek, 1979; Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984).
Employee control and stress
An influential model that has been used in the last decades in organizational stress research is
Karaseks (1979) Job Demand and Control model (the JDC-model) (for review see Huser et
al., 2010; van der Doef & Maes, 1999). The model predicts when an employee is likely to
experience strain, a mental and physical result of stress. Job demand is conceptualized as the
pace of work and the time to complete tasks. Job control is conceptualized by two
components, decision authority and skill discretion. The former is the freedom to decide over
ones own work tasks and the latter concerns the possibility to use a variety of skills, to learn
new skills in relation to the work and the possibility to show creativity. Strain is predicted to
occur when the demands are high and the job control is low. Job control is supposed to reduce
the effect of these stressors because it implies the possibility to cope with them. For example,
the employee can take a break whenever he or she wants or has the freedom to decide how to
organize the tasks.
In this study, a more specific definition of control is used which does not include skill
discretion as in Karaseks model (1979). Here, control is considered as the freedom, the
decision authority, one has to decide how the work should be done and what tasks that should
be done in relation to the goals. This more focused conceptualization of control fits the
purpose of this paper. It is easier to visualize how employee control, in this more focused
sense, can be decreased if management control increases.
In laboratory studies, this type of control has been shown to have strong stress-buffering
effects (for review see Miller, 1978). In the second cognitive appraisal (Lazarus, 1991), mere
beliefs of this type of control can have effect on stress (Miller, 1978). In Millers (1978)
review of studies of control and stress, participants in laboratory studies who had in advance
been given the freedom to decide if or when to stop an aversive event, experienced less
arousal than those who had not been given this decision authority. They experienced less
arousal even if they did not make use of their granted freedom to stop. Miller explained these
observations with his minimax hypothesis. The participant know that his or her instrumental
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control minimizes the maximum duration, intensity and/or frequency of the aversive event
(p. 295), and attributes the relief to an internal source instead of an external source which
would be less stable.
In this way, employee control differs from skill discretion. Skill discretion can be argued not
to be job control per se (Wall et al., 1996). van der Doef, Maes and Diekstra (2000) measured
separately the effect of this focused type of control as a buffer on the stressor demand (time
pressure) and skill discretion, and also as an aggregate of them both (as in Karaseks (1979)
original model) and found buffering effect on stressors in all conditions. This suggests that the
narrow focus of control, leaving out skill discretion, can adequately be considered when
studying stress in organizations.
Karasek and Theorell (1990) meant that increased management control implies decreased
employee control (although their definition included skill discretion). Management control in
this study is considered as all those behaviors, procedures and technologies that are used to
control the employee (Malmi & Brown, 2008; Simons, 1987). The combined practices of the
MCS package could be considered to decrease the type of employee control as defined in this
study. For example, all those administrative controls (Simons, 1987) that follow from
increased accountability (Blomgren, 2007; Hood, 1991) could be considered to interfere with
the employee control of how to execute the tasks. When demands are heightened, as in
increasing time pressure, this restricted situation entails less space for coping (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984).
Some studies have not found support for that employee control is related to stress (for review
see Huser et al., 2010). Warr (1994) argued that the relationship between employee control
and well-being is non-linear with an inverted U-shape. Control has only positive effects on
mental health up to a certain level, too high control is negative for the employees mental
health as it means higher responsibility, uncertainty and more difficult decision making. In a
similar vein, Eriksson (1991) meant that high control can be stressful for employees who in
their role and position at work often need to take decisions and reconsider decisions. This
decision stress is more likely to be experienced by officers than by workers. Still, to the
authors knowledge, only partial or weak support has been found for Warrs (1994) notion
that the relationship between employee control and mental health should be curvilinear (e.g.,
Jeurissen & Nyklicek, 2001). Further, in the present study, the organization in focus has
implemented tighter MCS after NPM reforms (Hood, 1991), which could mean that the
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employees autonomy is restricted to the degree that it seldom reaches the level argued in by
Eriksson (1991).
How the employees perceives their own control varies with their own cognitive appraisals
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The totality, or the package, of all the management controls is
reflected in the subjective conceptualization of employee control. It captures the total effect,
including eventual interactions of all the intensified MCS on the employees own subjective
control. This is in line with Malmi and Browns (2008) reasoning that MCS should be studied
as a package if one wants to understand its effects on behavior and cognitions. To the extent
that employee control is decreased or increased, partly as a function of increased management
control, perceived stress is affected. From this reasoning, and together with the well replicated
notion that work demand is related to stress (Huser et al., 2010; van der Doef & Maes, 1999),
two hypotheses can be deducted;
Hypothesis 1: Work demand is positively related to stress.
Hypothesis 2: Employee control is negatively related to stress.
Feedback and stress
This paper also examines the relation between stress and some specific components of MCS
two types of feedback and performance evaluation. First, the relation between feedback and
stress will be examined.
The research regarding how the MCS component feedback is related to stress is scarce and
inconclusive. In the later version of Karaseks JDC-model, support was added as an additional
variable and considered a stress buffer (Karasek & Theorell, 1991). This variable is
operationalized by items concerning support from co-workers, and also feedback from
superiors (Huser et al., 2010). As support is measured as an aggregate of them both, the pure
effect of feedback from superior is difficult to outline. However, the relation between
feedback and stress is in this paper understood from separate studies that when combined can
be argued to suggest a mediating role of goal clarity, coping and employee control, between
feedback and stress.
To give feedback is a crucial part of management control. It is a corrective action by
management to ensure that the employees are performing in the direction of the goals
(Anderson & O`Reilley, 1981; Green & Welsh, 1984). Goals that are specific and clear are
related to higher task performance than informal goals, or do your best-goals (Locke &
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Latham, 2002; Verbeeten, 2008). It has also been suggested that feedback is necessary in
conjunction with specific goals to increase performance (Hirst & Lowy, 1990).
Elovainio and Kivimkis (1996) study on stress among nurses demonstrated that goal clarity,
as in clear awareness of the goals of ones own work tasks, the work units goals and the
organizational goals, was related to lower stress levels. Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and
Rosenthal (1964) defined role ambiguity partly as what the employee experiences when he or
she has a lack of clarity over his or her duties, responsibilities and rights, and means-end
knowledge (knowledge of how to reach the goals). They found that role ambiguity was related
to job tension, lower satisfaction and lower self-confidence.
Sawyer (1992) studied the antecedents of clarity regarding goals and processes. Task
feedback from superior was positively related to process clarity, and recognition (for work
performed well) was positively related to goal clarity. In addition, recognition was also
positively related to job satisfaction. This suggests that feedback from the superior concerning
how to perform the task and recognition for when work has been done well is negatively
related to stress.
Elovainio and Kivimki (1996) reasoned that goal clarity has a stress buffering effect because
it means that the employee understands the underlying causal links of increasing or decreasing
demands. How this understanding of the causal links behind the demands relates to stress can
also be understood from the cognitive appraisal phases and coping. As the MCS components
of feedback are tightly connected to what has to be done in the organization (Malmi & Brown,
2008) and thus the demands, one can assume that these have effect on each phase of the
employees cognitive appraisal process.
As feedback is a corrective action (Anderson & O`Reilley, 1981; Green & Welsh, 1984) and
as specific goals lead to more efficient behavior (Locke & Latham, 2002), the demands that
the employee is evaluating in the primary appraisal (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) may be lower
than if the goals had been unclear. The employee would spend less time and resources on
tasks that are irrelevant in relation to the goals, his or her efficiency would be increased which
avoids that work tasks pile up, causing unnecessary time-pressure to deadlines.
In the second appraisal (though occurring at the same time as the first), the person interprets
his or her own resources and to what extent he or she is able to cope with the demands
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The skills one has in relation to the tasks are important in
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relation to stress (Karasek & Theorell, 1979). Bandura (1989) demonstrated that just the mere
belief of problem-solving skills, that one can cope with the demands, means less stress. He
termed this belief as self-efficacy. As feedback is bringing clarity to the goals (Sawyer,
1992) and how to reach them (Kahn et al., 1964), one can assume that this could make it
easier for the employee to structure, plan and schedule the tasks, thus increasing the self-
efficacy. In this way feedback could be assumed to facilitate coping.
As mentioned, the totality of the MCS components that has been intensified after NPM
reforms (Hood, 1991; Malmi & Brown, 2008) has been argued to lower the employees control
(Karasek, 1991). As the MCS component feedback is a corrective action (Anderson &
O`Reilley, 1981; Green & Welsh, 1984), it means that an employee that is working on a task
might be interfered. Thus, the freedom of how and what tasks that should be done could be
decreased. Still, from the positive effects of management control as feedback, this decrease in
freedom should not be that large that it takes away the positive effects of goal clarity and
coping. This leads to the third hypothesis;
Hypothesis 3: Feedback from superior is negatively related to stress.
Feedback from information systems
Given these theories that feedback increases goal clarity and coping, which in turn is
negatively related to stress, one can infer that feedback should be negatively related to stress.
Should there be any differences in terms of the relation with stress if the feedback comes from
another source; directly from the computerized information system? To the authors
knowledge, also research for this MCS component and its relation to stress is scarce.
Key performance indicators (KPI) purpose is to direct attention to critical success factors and
to hold employees accountable for performance in some specific areas (Malmi & Brown,
2008; Ittner & Larcker, 1998; Sanchez & Robert, 2010). One study that relates KPIs to stress
was found, a study by Eriksson and Fernholm (2011). They suggested that KPIs can be
perceived as increasing work demand, thus suggesting a positive relation to stress. However,
this was only the case for those employees that were new in the organization.
Studies suggest that KPIs should be adequate in relation to the objectives and overall goals.
They have to be updated when situations change to be kept relevant. If not, their effect in
directing employee behavior will not be adequate (Adler, 1999; Beatham, Anumba, Thorpe,
& Hedges, 2004). As it is clarity over the particular means-end knowledge and the overall
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goals that are negatively related to stress (Elovainio & Kivimki, 1996; Kahn et al., 1964),
this study measures this type of feedback concerning its relevance, hence how the employee
perceives that the feedback helps her or him in relation to the goals and tasks.
Are employees making active use of the feedback from the information system? Wilson
(1997) means that people can differ in information-seeking behavior in regards to stress.
Krohne (1989) made a distinction between two classes of coping strategies; vigilance and
cognitive avoidance. It is postulated that people can be habitually distinguished according to
how frequently they employ strategies of either one or the other class in situations of threat.
That is, they tend to differ in the frequent use of vigilant strategies on the one hand, with
frequent use of cognitive avoidant strategies on the other hand. Vigilance can be explained as
intolerance of uncertainty or negative surprise, which make them inclined to extensive
monitoring, and cognitive avoidance as intolerance of emotional arousal, which means that
they try to avoid situational cues that could trigger their stress in the first place (p. 236-238).
This implies that some employees avoid the feedback from the information system; hence for
these employees this feedback will not increase the goal clarity or facilitate adequate coping
behaviors. Still, if the employee find the feedback relevant, and believe that the information
helps her or him, they would be more inclined to use the system, not to avoid it. In terms of
behaviorism, those actions that are followed by positive consequences are reinforcing the
person is more likely to conduct the same actions again (Passer & Smith, 2004; Skinner,
1953). Therefore, this study measures to what extent the employee perceives that the
information system feedback helps him or her. This leads to the fourth hypothesis;
Hypothesis 4: Feedback from the information system is negatively related to stress.
Formality of performance evaluation
The third specific MCS component and its relation to perceived stress is formality of
performance evaluation. To be evaluated on formal measures, rather than informal, reflects
the tendency of public organizations to use objective measures when dispersing accountability
(Blomgren, 1997; Hood, 1991). In the particular organization in focus, the employee is
evaluated in a meeting with a superior each 6 weeks. The employee is evaluated on the goals
that were set in a meeting 6 weeks earlier. Also for this MCS component, the research is
scarce on its relation to stress.
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Formal goals have the advantage over informal (do your best) goals as they are more
specific. As mentioned, specific goals lead to better performance and are negatively related to
stress as they increase goal clarity (Elovainio & Kivimki, 1996; Hartmann & Slapniar,
2009; Locke & Latham, 2002). In this way, formality of performance evaluation can be
argued to be negatively related to stress.
Another question concerns how the evaluation is related to stress. Would there be a difference
to be evaluated with formal rather than informal measures? A study by Hartmann and
Slapniar (2009) demonstrated that employees that were evaluated more on formal terms
perceived the evaluation procedure as more fair and had greater trust in their superiors.
Another study by Elovainio, Kivimki and Helkama (2001) suggested that perceptions of
procedural justice and fairness have a moderating effect of employee control on stress. Thus,
formality of performance evaluation, if combined with employee control, could be assumed to
be negatively related to stress. This leads to the fourth hypothesis;
Hypothesis 4: Formality of performance evaluation is negatively related to stress.
In sum, in a public service organization MCS are argued to lower the employees perception
of control, in terms of freedom to decide what task and how these tasks should be performed.
Still, specific MCS components, namely feedback from superior, feedback from the
information system and formality of performance evaluation are argued to increase goal
clarity, which facilitates the employees effort to cope with the demands. Hence, the
hypotheses were that work demand should be positively related to stress. Further, employee
control, feedback from supervisor, feedback from information system and formality of
performance evaluation should be negatively related to perceived stress.

Method
Case selection and participants
The data had been collected as part of the research project Fr Hlsa (~For Health) at
Uppsala University in 2011. A public service organization was chosen after
Ekonomistyrningsverket (the Swedish National Financial Management Authority) had been
asked to list public organizations that were tightly controlled. The second organization on this
list was selected after the first declined participation. Two offices in Stockholm belonging to
this organization chose to participate with the incentive to gain insights on how to improve
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work conditions and productivity. The two offices were identical in regard to work procedures
and objectives.
A total of 160 employees from ten departments completed questionnaires, of which 30
employees were excluded from the analysis based on the criteria that they were either
supervisors or administrative personel. A free health examination was offered as
compensation for participating. The remaining 130 subordinates (104 women, 20 men and 6
of unknown gender due to missing values) had almost similar roles and objectives and
reported to a total of 10 supervisors. The age distribution had been collected with a 5-point
Likert scale (M = 2.4, SD = 1.0); 1 = 18-34 years (20.8%), 2 = 35-44 years (34.6%), 3 = 45-54
years (29.2%), 4 = 55-64 years (14.6%) and 5 = > 64 years (0.8%). The mean tenure was 11.9
years (SD = 11.2).
Data collection and instruments
Data had been collected during a total of six days at the two offices. The participants
completed a test battery containing 96 Likert-type questions, which took about 30 minutes to
complete. As this study is part of a larger study, not all the instruments will be discussed. Four
instruments were used in this study;
Perceived stress.
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was developed by Cohen et al. (1983) to measure the
degree to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful. The PSS items were
designed to tap the degree to which respondents found their lives unpredictable,
uncontrollable, and overloading (p. 387). A global measure of perceived stress was chosen
because this study examines the global impact of MCS as a package in relation to perceived
stress, and because the employees spend a large proportion of their days at work exposed to
these MCS. The PSS does not tie appraisal to particular situations; it is sensitive to the
nonoccurence of events as well as to ongoing life circumstances, to stress resulting from
events occurring in the lives of friends and relatives, and to expectations concerning future
events (Cohen & Williamson, 1988, p. 34).
The 10-item version of the PSS (PSS-10) (Cohen & Williamson, 1988) was used. The
participant answered on a 5-point Likert scale: 1 (never), 2 (almost never), 3 (sometimes), 4
(fairly often) and 5 (very often), on questions such as In the last month, how often have you
been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?. The instrument has shown
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predictive validity to the occurrence of psychological and physiological symptoms and
visiting of health services. Further, it has shown discriminant validity to scales measuring
psychological disorders and distress. That is, people ranking high on PSS-10 do not
necessarily score high on distress scales (Cohen & Williamson, 1988).
Work demand, employee control and feedback from superior.
The Quality Work Competence (QWC) questionnaire was designed by Anderzn and Arnetz
(2005) to assess organisational and employee well-being. This instrument consists of 11
subscales, of which three are in focus in this study. These were renamed Work Demand,
Employee Control, and Feedback from Superior (for the original names, see Appendix). The
participant answered on a 4-point Likert-scale: 1 (Never), 2 (Seldom), 3 (Sometimes) and 4
(Often) on questions adressing, for example, if the employee perceives that he or she has
sufficient time to execute tasks (Work Demand), decision latitude for deciding how work
should be done (Employee Control) and if he or she receive feedback from supervisor when
tasks have been done well (Feedback from Superior).
Feedback from the information system.
The Information System Feedback scale was originaly developed by Simon, Guetzkow,
Kozmetsky and Tyndall (1954), and has been modified to fit this study by adding one
question. The scale addresses to what extent the employee finds that the information system
gives useful feedback. And also, to what extent the employee perceives that the information
system directs his or her attention to important matters in the work procedures. The
participant answered on a 4-point Likert scale: 1 (Strongly agree), 2 (Agree), 3 (Some what
disagree) and 4 (Strongly disagree).
Formality of performance evaluation.
The Formality of Performance Measurement scale (in this study renamed Formality of
Performance Evaluation scale) was designed by Hartmann and Slapniar (2009) to assess the
employees perception of to what extent his or her performance is evaluated by the manager
in informal and formal terms. This scale was adjusted to reflect the work characteristics of the
case organization. That is, the participant is first asked to distribute a total of 100 points to
four different performance areas that he or she perceives that the manager finds important
when evaluating him or her; efficiency (e.g., case throughflow, results), customer contacts
(e.g., customer treatment, progress meetings with customers personal cases), external
cooperation (e.g., with public employment services, caregivers) and quality (e.g., judgements,
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improvement of processes). The answers on the other items (see below) are then weighted
with this point distribution over each individual participant. To weight after several different
performance areas is in line with Malmi and Browns (2008) notion that MCS should be
studied as packages in their effect on behavior and cognition.
The items come in two groups of four items each. A mean score with weighting of these four
items are then calculated. In addition, these two values are then combined as a mean of them
both, which is the variable Formality of Performance Evaluation. For example, the first item
addresses How do you perceive that your immediate superiors evaluate your performance,
personal (Informal) / objective (Formal) evaluation, for efficiency? Mark more to the left (less
formal) or right (more formal) on the scale. The participant answered on a 5-point Likert-
scale from 1 = Less formal (When judging my performance, my superior uses his (her)
personal judgment of my performance) to 5 = More formal (When judging my
performance, my superior relies on objective information from the information system), for
the performance areas efficiency, customer contacts, external cooperation and quality.
Factor analysis
As this study uses variables with items from different instruments, some variables items were
similar to the items of one another, meaning that there was lack of discriminant validity
between the constructs. For example, the PSS-10 scale (Cohen et al., 1988) includes items
that address how uncontrollabe the participant find situations in his or her life, which makes it
vulnerable to be intertwined with the construct Employee Control from the QWC
questionnaire (Anderzn & Arnetz, 2005). To solve this and to achieve discriminant validity,
exploratory factor analysis was performed in SPSS. The dataset was first scrutinized for
potential outliers; two were excluded due to error in coding. All the items from the five a
priori constructs were then added to the exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation.
Concerning the items from the Formality of Performance Evaluation scale, these were added
after weighting (see above).
As expected, some items from the a priori separate constructs loaded on the same factors.
These items were deleted completely from the analysis. Further, items that were loading under
0.32 were excluded from their constructs (as proposed by Tabachnik and Fidell, 2001).
Furthermore, factors with eigenvalues greater than one were retained, and only the first six
factors which corresponded to the variables that the items were presumed to measure (as
proposed by Kaiser, 1960). New constructs were then manually computed and are presented
14

in Table 1 together with the retained items. All items, including those that were excluded from
the factor analysis, are presented in the appendix. The reliability estimates (Cronbachs
Alpha) ranged from 0.65 to 0.84.
The eventual problem of common method variance, that can imply biases in behavioural
research that uses self-reports (see Podsakoff and Organ, 1986), was addressed by the factor
analysis. According to Podsakoff and Organ (1986), "if a substantial amount of common
method variance is present, either (a) a single factor will emerge from the factor analysis, or
(b) one "general" factor will account for the majority of the covariance in the independent and
criterion variables" (p. 536). See Table 1, none of the factors are constituting more than 50%
of the total variance. Thus, eventual common method variance was considered to be of no
concern in the data.
Inferential data analysis
To test the hypotheses 1 to 5, a multiple regression analysis was conducted with Perceived
Stress as the dependent variable and Work Demand, Employee Control, Feedback from
Superior, Information System Feedback and Formality of Performance Evaluation as
independent variables. Since studies have shown that age (e.g., Cohen & Williamson, 1988)
and tenure (e.g., Bradley, 2007) are related to stress, these where controlled for by adding
them to the first step of the multiple regression analysis. The independent variables were
added in the second step. An alpha level of 0.05 was used. Missing values, if any, were
handled by excluding cases list-wise.
The hypotheses are reflected in the following regression equation:
Perceived Stress =
0
+
1
Word Demand -
2
Employee Control -
3
Feedback from Superior -

3
Feedback from Information System -
3
Formality of performance Evaluation +





15

Table 1. Factor analysis with eigenvalues (E) and % of variance (V) for each factor and factor
loadings and communalities for the retained items.
Factor and item

Factor
loading
Communality
Factor 1: Perceived Stress (E = 4.08, V = 22.67 %)

In the last month, how often have you been upset because of
something that happened unexpectedly?
0.57 0.50

In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your
ability to handle your personal problems?
0.52 0.40

In the last month, how often have you felt that things were
going your way?
0.74 0.55

In the last month, how often have you found that you could not
cope with all the things that you had to do?
0.65 0.50

In the last month, how often have you been able to control
irritations in your life?
0.77 0.64

In the last month, how often have you felt that you have had
control over things?
0.81 0.71

Factor 2: Information System Feedback (E = 2.72, Variance = 15.13 %)
From the information system I can understand if I do a good
job
0.80 0.74
From the information system I can understand if I do a bad job 0.79 0.73
The information system directs my attention to relevant task
related problems
0.83 0.76

The information from the systems helps me to analyze how
task related problems should be addressed
0.84 0.77

Factor 3: Formality of Performance Evaluation (E = 1.89, Variance = 10.47 %)

Formality of Performance Evaluation 1*

0.89 0.81
Formality of Performance Evaluation 2*

0.80 0.76
Factor 4: Work Demand (E = 1.43, Variance = 7.96 %)

Do you have time to plan you work tasks in advance?
0.81 0.72
Do you have enough time to complete your work tasks?
0.77 0.74
Factor 5: Feedback from Superior (E = 1.11, Variance = 6.18 %)

Do you get clear word directives from immediate supervisor? 0.85 0.76
Do you get feedback from your immediate supervisor when
tasks have been done well?
0.80 0.77

Factor 6: Employee Control (E = 1.09, Variance = 6.07 %)

Do you have decision latitude for deciding how your work
should be done?
0.79 0.75

Do you have decision latitude for deciding what tasks should
be done?
0.90 0.78

* Weighted group of items - see heading Formality of performance evaluation p.12-13.






16

Results
Means, standard deviations and skewness estimates of the variables are presented in Table 2.
The mean value of Feedback from Superior is high, 3.39 (maximum possible value 4), which
indicates that the employees in general perceive that they often get feedback from their
superior. This also means that the score distribution for that variable is negatively skewd.
Further, the variable Formality of Performance Evaluation is relatively high, 3.59 (maximum
possible value 5), indicating that the employees perceive that they are evaluated by their
superior more on formal than informal terms.
Bivariate correlations are presented in Table 3. Work Demand is positively related to
Perceived Stress, and Employee Control and Feedback from Superior are negatively related to
Perceived Stress. Further, the results indicate that Feedback from Superior is positively and
Formality of Performance Evaluation is negatively related to Employee Control. Furthermore,
Information System Feedback is indicated to be positively, but weakly related to Feedback
from Superior.
Table 2. Means (standard deviation) and skewness (standard error) for all variables.
Variable Mean (SD) Skewness (SE)
Perceived Stress 2.44 (0.65) 0.13 (0.21)
Work Demand 1.93 (0.74) 0.64 (0.21)
Employee Control 2.79 (0.79) -0.31 (0.21)
Feedback from Superior 3.38 (0.64) -1.20 (0.21)
Information System Feedback 2.22 (0.67) -0.16 (0.21)
Formality of Performance Evaluation 3.59 (0.77) -0.31 (0.21)

Table 3. Bivariate correlations between all variables.
1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Perceived Stress

1

2. Work Demand


0.38** 1

3. Employee Control

-0.19* -0.29** 1

4. Feedback from Superior

-0.28** -0.28** 0.23** 1

5. Information System Feedback -0.09 -0.17* 0.09 0.19** 1

6. Formality of Performance Evaluation 0.16 0.11 -0.29** -0.09 0.11 1
* p 0.05, ** p 0.01
Before interpreting the results from the multiple regression analysis, it was first examined if
multicollinearity had to be taken into consideration. According to Hair et al. (1998), tolerance
values of 0.1 or below and variance of inflation factor (VIF) values of 10 or above indicate
17

high multicollinearity. The tolerance values ranged from 0.44 to 0.89 and the VIF values
ranged from 1.16 to 2.28. Thus, when interpreting the results, multicollinearity does not need
to be considered.
As can be seen in Table 4, the variable Work Demand is positively related to Perceived
Stress, and Feedback from Superior is negatively related to Perceived Stress. None of the
other variables are significantly related to stress. Thus, support is only found for Hypothesis 1
and Hypothesis 3. The standardized regression equation is summarized as:
Perceived Stress = (0.29 Word Demand) + (- 0.21

Feedback from Superior) +

Table 4. Summary of multiple regression for variables predicting Perceived Stress (n = 127).
Independent variables B SE B T R Adj. R F
Step 1

0.03 -0.01 0.16
(Constant)

2.41 0.16

14.83**

Demographic variables

Age

0.03 0.09 0.01 0.04

Tenure

0.03 0.01 0.05 0.37

Step 2

0.2 0.15 4.15**
(Constant)

1.23 0.38

3.20**

Demographic variables (Controls)

Age

-0.02 0.08 -0.03 -0.22

Tenure

0.01 0.01 0.12 1.02

Independent variables

Work Demand

0.25 0.08 0.29 3.1**

Employee Control

-0.05 0.08 -0.06 -0.6

Feedback from Superior

-0.21 0.1 -0.21 -2.25*

Information System Feedback -0.003 0.08 -0.003 -0.04

Formality of Performance Evaluation 0.07 0.07 0.08 0.93
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between MCS as a package and stress
in a public service organization. It was hypothesized that work demand should be positively
related to stress and employee control negatively related to stress. Further, it was
hypothesized that the specific MCS components feedback from superior, feedback from
information system and formality of performance evaluation should be negatively related to
18

stress. The results gave only support for that work demand is positively and feedback from
superior is negatively related to stress.
That work demand was positively related to stress is in line with numerous of studies that
have replicated this finding. Increasing time pressure often goes hand in hand with perceived
stress (Huser et al., 2010; van der Doef & Maes, 1999), also in this public service
organization.
The result that employee control was not related to stress was unexpected. Eriksson (1991)
and Warr (1994) meant that too high control, implying high responsibility and decision stress,
leads to perceived stress. If that was the case, this could have obscured the results. A
suggestion for future studies is to include measures of decision stress and other negative
effects of very high control to examine if such aspects should be accounted for when studying
control and stress in public service organizations.
As predicted, feedback from superior was negatively related to stress. Studies have previously
shown that the support dimension that was added in the later versions of Karaseks JDC-
model is negatively related to stress. This support dimension was an aggregate of both
different kinds of support, such as emotional support from colleagues, and of feedback from
superior. This study extends the research by showing that also feedback as a standalone
construct is negatively related to stress. That feedback should be related to stress was inferred
from separate studies showing that feedback is positively related to goal clarity (Sawyer,
1992), and other studies showing that goal clarity is negatively related to stress (Elovainio &
Kivimki, 1996). The present study extended the research by showing that feedback from
superior is directly related to stress.
As feedback is a corrective action (Anderson & O`Reilley, 1981; Green & Welsh, 1984),
increasing feedback means higher management control. Karasek and Theorell (1990) meant
that employee control should decrease with management control. And with decreased
employee control, in combination with high demands, would mean higher stress. The result of
this study does not fully support this notion. Feedback from superior was negatively related to
stress. Further, the results from the bivariate correlations suggest that employee control
increases when feedback from superior increases. A suggestion for future studies is to
examine how specific MCS components are related to employee control.
19

It was also argued that feedback could facilitate for the employees to cope with the demands.
As the goals get clearer, the employees get more efficient and as such they might perceive a
higher self-efficacy, which is negatively related to stress (Bandura, 1989). This suggests a
distinction between job control in terms of freedom for deciding how and what tasks that
should be done, and employee control as the belief of being able to perform efficiently, handle
problems and so forth.
That feedback from a different source, from the information system, was not related to stress
was unexpected. As with feedback from superior, the negative relation to stress was deducted
from the reasoning that it should increase goal clarity and facilitate coping. The reason for the
non-significant result may stem from that employees have different information seeking
behaviors, some avoid the information and some seek it to facilitate coping (Krohne, 1989;
Wilson, 1997). Still, the present study measured not only how relevant they found the
feedback, but also if it helped them to solve procedural problems. For those that found it
useful for solving problems, thus facilitating coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), it should
serve as a positive reinforcer increasing the likelihood that the behavior is repeated (Skinner,
1953; Passer & Smith, 2004). Hence, eventual differences in information seeking behavior
could be assumed to have been accounted for in the method of this study. That is, those
employees that scored high on the items that addressed the positive problem solving usage of
the feedback should likely be the same who actively use the system. However, a suggestion
for future studies is to measure the information seeking behavior of the employees to outline
its effects.
That formality of performance evaluation was not related to stress was also unexpected. The
hypothesis was derived from the notion that specific goals lead to higher efficiency (Locke &
Latham, 2002) and goal clarity, which should facilitate coping (Elovainio & Kivimki, 1996;
Bandura, 1989). An explanation for why it was not related to stress can be to compare it with
feedback from superior. Both these hypotheses were partly derived from the concept of goal
clarity. Feedback from superior is a feedback that is given continuously during the daily work
processes; the goals that get clear are more particular, addressing the everyday work processes
(Kahn et al., 1964). The performance evaluation meetings took only place each 6 weeks
which suggests that the goals cannot be as specific concerning the work processes as feedback
which is given continuously. This suggests that the frequency of feedback, how often it is
given and when, matters in its relation to stress. Future research could address this by
longitudinal studies where the frequency of performance evaluation meetings is manipulated.
20

In addition, it would be interesting to examine if goal clarity mediates the role between
formality of performance evaluation and perceived stress.
In sum, this study extended the research of management control, employee control and the
relation to stress. Management control through the MCS component feedback from superior is
negatively related to stress. This suggests that interventions of increasing feedback from
superiors can have positive effects on reducing stress in organizations. The notions that
management control increases at the expense of employee control, and that this would
increase stress, is partly questioned. When management control is meant as feedback from
superior, management control is negatively related to perceived stress.

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24

Appendix
Table 5. PSS-10 (Cohen et al., 1983). All items.
1. In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened
unexpectedly?
2. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important
things in your life?
3. In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and stressed?
4a. In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your
personal problems?
5a. In the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way?
6. In the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things
that you had to do?
7. In the last month, how often have you been able to control irritations in your life?
8a. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?
9. In the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that happened
that were outside of your control?
10. In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you
could not overcome them?

a. Scored in the reverse direction.

Table 6. The Quality Work Competence (QWC) questionnaire (Anderzn & Arnetz, 2005).
Summary of all the items for the variables used in this study. Original QWC variable names
in parentheses.
Work Demand (Work Tempo)

1. Time for planning work duties in advance

2. Sufficient time to execute tasks

3. Time to consider how tasks have been carried out

4. Time to consider how work processes could be improved in your department
Employee Control (Participatory Management)

1. Latitude for deciding how work should be done

2. Latitude for deciding what tasks should be done

3. Sufficient influence in relationship to responsibilities

4. Opportunity to influence workplace decisions

5. Opportunity to comment on the information received from immediate supervisor
Feedback from Superior (Feedback)

1. Clear work directives from immediate supervisor

2. Feedback from supervisor when tasks have been done well

3. Feedback from supervisor when tasks have been done poorly




25

Table 7. Information System Feedback (Simon et al., 1954). All items including one
additional item that was added in this study.
1. From the information system I can understand if I do a good job

2. From the information system I can understand if I do a bad job

3. The information system directs my attention to relevant task related problems
4.

The information from the systems helps me to analyze how task related problems should
be addressed
Table 8. The Formality of Performance Evaluation Scale. Original name: The Formality of
Performance Measurement Scale (Hartmann & Slapniar, 2009).
Performance area weights

1. Efficiency (e.g., *)

2. Contacts with clients (e.g., *)

3. External collaboration (e.g., *)

4. Quality (e.g., *)




Level of agreement with the following statements:



Less formal Scale Formal


1 2 3 4 5
1. When judging my
performance, my
superior uses
his/her personal
judgment of my
performance


When judging my
performance, my
superior relies on
objective information
from the information
system















2. When judging my
performance, my
superior discusses
my performance in
qualitative terms

When judging my
performance, my
superior expresses my
performance in
quantitative terms
(rates my performance
on quantitative rating)






* Examples cannot be given due to confidentiality.