Mediating effect of online social support on the relationship between stress and mental well-being

Purpose - Workplace stress is on the rise and progressive organizations devise their own mechanisms to mitigate it and enhance mental wellbeing (MWB). Of late, the workforce is increasingly dependent on social networking sites (SNS) for social exchanges and debate is well documented if SNS could be used to mediate the relationship between stress and MWB. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this relationship. Design/methodology/approach - This study is based on a survey of 269 employees, on the following constructs: stress, online social support (OSS) and MWB. The authors' proposed framework was investigated using structural equation modeling. Findings - Results indicated that stress has a significant negative effect on MWB and subsequently, OSS partially mediates the relationship between stress and MWB. The results suggest that organizations allow the use of social networking site in a controlled setting so that employees could use this as a mechanism to control stress and enhance MWB. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study on OSS role in mediating the relationship between stress and MWB.