An Investigation on the Relationship between Sources of Job Stress for Social Workers on Contextual Performance Focused on Social Workers at Non-Profit Organizations in Korea

Background: The impact of stress in the workplace on employees’ well-being and effectiveness has been increasingly recognized in recent years. Recent studies have examined the relationships between job stress and organizational effectiveness (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover). The purpose of this study is to verify the differences between types of organizations in relation to sources of job stress and contextual performance. Particularly, the aim is to examine non-profit organizations in Korea, the effect of stress sources from social welfare environment changes, dysfunctional customer behavior, abusive supervision, and job insecurity on social workers’ contextual performance.

 

Methods: Research data were collected from 371 social workers from non-profit organizations and 276 social workers from the Department of Human Services in Gwangju, South Korea. The research questions are: 1) Do sources of job stress affect social workers’ contextual performance? 2) If so, do these effects differ by organization type?

Level of contextual performance was measured with the 7 items adapted from Ven Scotter and Motowidlo (1996) and Lee (2014) focused on job dedication and relationship enhancement (α= .855). The independent variables – social welfare environment changes, dysfunctional customer behavior, abusive supervision, and job insecurity among employees – were each assessed on a scale. In the main analysis, a comparison model was tested using a t-test to assess the hypothesized differences between the two groups’ sources of job stress on contextual performance. The effect of sources of job stress on contextual performance was tested using multiple regression. The analyses were conducted using SPSS 22.

Results: The result shows that social workers at non-profit organizations have positive relationships with contextual performance. Also, social workers at non-profit organizations had fewer positive relationships with social welfare environment changes, dysfunctional customer behavior, abusive supervision, and job insecurity of employees. There were significant relationships between social welfare environment changes (β=.25, p<.001), dysfunctional customer behavior (β=-.16, p<.01), and contextual performance. In addition, there were significant relationships between social welfare environment changes (β=.20, p<.05), abusive supervision (β=-.16, p<.5), and job insecurity of employees (β=-.14, p<.5) on contextual performance.

Implication: The findings suggest that to make efforts to establish institutional support to manage and mitigate these sources of stress for the social workers. Such results are expected to suggest practical and political implications and to verify the effects of differences of sources of job stress in order to enhance suggestions on finding ways to relieve the job stress of social workers. Future studies could examine not only the social worker in public organization but also take into account social workers’ cultural characteristics.