Case manager job strain in public child welfare agencies: Job demands and job control's additive effects, and instrumental feedback's mediating role

Mark S. Preston

Children and Youth Services Review, 2015, vol. 54, issue C, 30-40

Abstract: Public child welfare agencies are universally acknowledged as highly stressful work environments. Organizational and occupational health scholars assert that reducing employee strain perceptions in challenging and strenuous workplace settings necessitates control over one's job. Consistent with this idea, the job demands–control (JD–C) model's additive hypothesis states that perceived job demands and perceived job control jointly impact perceptions of job strain. Over three decades of empirical testing, however, has yielded inconsistent findings. This study sought to clarify mixed research results using a sample of 349 public child welfare case managers. Specifically, self-report instrumental feedback was introduced as a possible mediator of the association between perceived job control and perceived job strain. In line with the literatures on indeterminate human service technologies and dynamic complex environments, two types of mediational (structural equation modeling and bootstrapping) analyses confirmed the construct's role as an intervening variable when job demands were perceived as challenging. Data are the first to uncover this mediated relationship within a JD–C framework. More importantly, data call into question the predictive validity and practice utility of the model's seminal additive hypothesis in public child welfare agencies. Practice implications for public child welfare case managers and ideas for advancing JD–C research are also presented.

Keywords: Child welfare; Human services; Instrumental feedback; Job strain; Job demands–control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019074091500136X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:54:y:2015:i:c:p:30-40

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.04.010

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().