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ANTECEDENTS TO MANAGERIAL MORAL STRESS: A MIXED METHOD STUDY

Ames, Justin B
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6750-7920
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1521118306726279

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management.
Research highlights “moral stress” exercising powerful influence on individual’s well-being and his or her turnover intentions beyond the effects of general stress. Recently there have been calls for theoretical and empirical research into “the largely unexplored” moral aspects of stress also in organizations. As a result, scholars have proposed the construct of moral stress and explored its discriminant validity amongst job stressors, validated a moral stress scale, and tested its predictive validity on individual worker’s fatigue, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Despite these significant results these studies fail to explain the “what” or “how” behind moral stress, and proclaim “other types of positions and environments need to be tested” in understanding the role of moral stress in organizational settings. In particular, individual level antecedents of moral stress have not been theorized and analyzed among executives. In response to this void this mixed method sequence of studies investigates the role and impact of moral stress in individual executive ethical decision-making processes, and its antecedents. Due to lack of explicit theory and earlier empirical research on the topic the first study qualitatively explores how moral stress manifests in manager’s experience and how it influences senior manager’s behaviors who are involved in high-pressure, group decision-making processes where the manager experiences conflict between his or her personal values and guiding values of the organizational setting. I draw upon semi-structured interviews with 30 senior executives and find that among morally aware executives moral dissonance and moral stress act as motivating mechanisms to engage in an ethical decision-making process. This is, however, moderated by overall decision-making process quality, the relational climate of the setting, and manager’s job embeddedness. The second study investigates the specific impact of role identity saliency (total and variance) as an individual level antecedent to moral stress and validates turnover intent as a valid criterion variable of moral stress, as well as examines the conditional effect of moral attentiveness as a moderator on moral stress. I collect data from 264 high-level strategic decision-makers using a survey and conduct a SEM analysis. My analysis supports over all the proposed moderated model, such that individuals exhibiting a higher level of moral attentiveness demonstrated a stronger positive relationship between role identity saliency variance/moral stress. I also detect a significant positive relationship between moral stress/turnover intent. Surprisingly, total role identity saliency has a significant negative relationship with moral stress. The results remain significant while controlling for the effect of general stress. The third study utilizes longitudinal survey data collected from 130 managers. It examines the mediating effect of moral dissonance between moral attentiveness and moral stress. SEM modeling results indicate that moral dissonance fully mediates the relationship between the two. This suggests that moral dissonance reduction can be a viable pathway in avoiding moral stress among managers. Overall, this mixed method dissertation posits that moral stress remains a legitimate and significant threat to executive well-being and retention beyond general stress. This applies especially to those managers who are highly attentive to moral stimuli. The proposed novel operationalization of the moral dissonance mediator situates also the managerial moral stress as a significant influencer towards corporate ethical decision-making.
Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Chair)
Brad Owens (Committee Member)
Shannon French (Committee Member)
James Gaskin (Committee Member)
178 p.
Ethics; Management; Sustainability
managerial moral stress; moral dissonance; moral awareness; moral attentiveness; ethical decision making; role identity salience; stakeholder salience; moral disengagement; turnover intent; general stress

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ames, J. B. (2018). ANTECEDENTS TO MANAGERIAL MORAL STRESS: A MIXED METHOD STUDY [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1521118306726279

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ames, Justin. ANTECEDENTS TO MANAGERIAL MORAL STRESS: A MIXED METHOD STUDY . 2018. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1521118306726279.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ames, Justin. "ANTECEDENTS TO MANAGERIAL MORAL STRESS: A MIXED METHOD STUDY ." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1521118306726279

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1521118306726279
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This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.