Comparison between Public and Private Sector Executives on Key Psychological Aspects

Abstract

Although much of the debate is centered on structural differences of business sectors due to the emergence of liberalization and globalization policies in almost all spheres of business fields, hardly any research studies have been reported on existence of significant difference between public sector and private sector on psychological aspects. The present study is aimed at investigating whether any significant difference exists between the public sector and private sector executives on various psychological aspects such as occupational stress, job involvement, hardiness and burnout. Data obtained from 60 (public and private sector) executives on the four key psychological aspects revealed that significant difference exists between the private and public sector executives. Private sector executives are more likely to have higher levels of occupational stress particularly in terms of role conflict, unreasonable group conflict and responsibility for persons. Further, the private sector executives tend to have higher levels of job involvement and hardiness personality and, lesser levels of emotional exhaustion (burn-out) than the public sector executives. Implications in terms of policy making, stress management program, hardiness training and ways to avert burnout are discussed. Key Words: Public and Private Sector Executives, Occupational Stress, Burnout, Job Involvement, Hardiness

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