A Mixed-Methods and Multi-Level Investigation of the Effects of a Crew Chief Intervention on Job Attitudes, Occupational Stress, and Organizational Commitment

Abstract

Chief Intervention on Job Attitudes, Occupational Stress, and Organizational CommitmentHigh-profile instances o f workplace violence and increased pressure from competitors have threatened the viability o f one o f the nation's largest employers, the United States Postal Service (USPS). As a result, the USPS began a massive change effort in the early 1990's. One o f the initiatives implemented to improve labormanagement relations was a derivative o f the self-managed work team known as the crew chief program. This study provides a mixed-methods and multi-level approach to understand the impact this unique program had on organizational attitudes.The first aim o f this study was to investigate whether the crew chief program reduced employees' stress and strain and improved job and supervisory satisfaction and company and union commitment, while controlling for the nesting o f employees within sites and employee demographic characteristics. The second aim was to replicate and extend the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) model o f stress and to determine whether employee perceptions o f crew chief support moderated the relationships between stressors, strain, and outcomes. Additionally, I found role ambiguity to have direct relationships with other organizational outcomes beyond the indirect effects via strain and that crew chief support was strongly related to stressors and outcomes.These findings reinforce the notion that employing both quantitative and qualitative methods can dramatically improve the quality o f organizational research.Based on these findings, I describe several suggestions for improvements to this specific program and for improving future initiatives aimed at enhancing labormanagement relations. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS