The purpose of this study was to examine what determined the job stress of flight attendants and how their job stressors were tied into their organizational effectiveness. After a research model was built by reviewing a lot of discussions and the find...
The purpose of this study was to examine what determined the job stress of flight attendants and how their job stressors were tied into their organizational effectiveness. After a research model was built by reviewing a lot of discussions and the findings of experimental studies in different fields, four hypotheses were formulated in relation to the moderating and mediating effects of job stress.
The subjects in this study were flight attendants who worked at two domestic airlines and three foreign airlines that were all in service in the Incheon Airport. A survey was conducted for about 37 days from July 15 through August 12, 2005, and the answer sheets from 1,132 flight attendants were analyzed. For data handling, SPSSWIN Version 10.0 and AMOS Version 4.0 programs were utilized.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, flight attendant job stressors were classified into three categories that were respectively rooted in job characteristics, organizational characteristics and non-organizational characteristics. According to earlier studies and the experimental analysis of this study, working conditions, irregular shift, inequality, multiple roles, role conflicts, quality of conversation, supplementary education and cabin culture were identified as job stressors that were attributed to job characteristics and had a firsthand or secondhand impact on job stress and organizational effectiveness. The future prospects, career development, evaluation, pay and welfare were selected as job stressors that were related to organizational characteristics and had a firsthand or secondhand impact on job stress and organizational effectiveness. And social evaluation was identified as a job stressor that was associated with non-organizational characteristics and exercised a firsthand or secondhand influence on organizational effectiveness.
Second, to what extent job stress produced moderating and mediating effects was examined in association with the relationship of the job stressors to organizational effectiveness, and it's found that job stress played a role in mediating the relationship of the job stressors to job satisfaction, but that didn't play any roles in moderating relations between the job stressors and organizational commitment.
Third, the flight attendants took a different view of the job stressors, which referred to job characteristics, organizational characteristics and non-organizational characteristics, according to their demographic features including gender, position, length of service and their airlines. This finding indicated that in order to boost the competitiveness of airlines, it's required to manage flight attendants, who are one of crucial human resources, in consideration of their demographic characteristics.
Fourth, they perceived their job stress in a different way according to their demographic characteristics, and their job stress consequently exerted a different influence on their organizational effectiveness.
Fifth, whether or not the demographic characteristics and job stress level of the flight attendants made any differences to all the relevant variables was additionally investigated. As a result, the flight attendants had a different opinion according to their gender, position, length of service and airlines.
But this study has some limitations, and there are some suggestions about future research efforts. First, the subjects in this study were confined to some airlines from just a small number of nations, which resulted in posing a question about sampling, and the findings of the study might not be generalizable. Second, theories of job stressors and organizational effectiveness were reviewed to build the solid theoretical groundwork for the study, and the survey was conducted with questionnaires that were prepared after having an interview with experts to consider the specific situations of flight attendants. But some might raise a question about the standardization of the questionnaire items. Third, just some job stressors were examined in this study, and only job satisfaction and organizational commitment, which were part of organizational effectiveness, were investigated. Fourth, only the types of variables that could be applicable to both of the two research models of the study were selected to make a comparative analysis of the roles of job stress. As this study focused on the position of job stress in association with the relationship of the job stressors of flight attendants to their organizational effectiveness, future research should make an attempt to deal with more relevant variables by using a model of structural equation type and to present more extensive models of different paths about job stress and organizational effectiveness.