Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of job stress and social support on the organizational effectiveness of hospital employees and to examine the role of social support in the experience of job stress among the employees. Previous studies have yielded mixed results regarding the role of social support. Some studies provide supporting evidence for the buffering effect of social support, while others do not. Still others report findings about reverse buffering effects. These inconsistent findings are, in part, accounted for by methodological problems such as poor measurement, small sample size, and the existence of high multicollinearity. To examine more rigorously the role of social support in relation to the negative effects of job stress, this study was carefully designed to overcome methodolgical shortcomings found in the past research. In addition, unlike the previous studies, which were concerned mostly with health-related variables as consequences of job stress, in this study, three work-related variables (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to stay) which had close relationships with organizational effectiveness were examined as output variables. The sample used in this study consisted of 353 employees from a university hospital in the suburbs of seoul. Data were collected with self-administered questionnaires and analyzed using canonical analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. The results of this study indicate that; (l) job stress has negative main effects on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to stay; (2) social support has positive main effects on the same three output variables, (3) social support does not moderate the harmful effects of job stress on the three outcome variables, and (4) the three-way interaction effects of (social support * job stress * gender) and of (social support * job stress * education) are not supported The implications of these findings for the management of human resources are discussed.

• Keywords: Job stressSocial supportInteraction effectsOrganizational effectiveness