Title:
EFFECT OF SOCIAL DISTANCE ON RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT AND JOB SATISFACTION IN SAUDI EDUCATION SECTOR

Authors:
Tarig Khidir Eltayeb and Maha Murisn Alhajri, Saudi Arabia

Abstract:

The existence of psychological social distance between employees in organizations may be seen to have positive or negative consequences in organizations. Although many studies were conducted, there is little agreement on the consequences of social distance. Moreover, there is lack of research in the area in Saudi Arabia.  Such conflicting effects and shortage suggest that we should learn more about how social distance affects organizational outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of social distance on both relationship conflict and job satisfaction. The data was obtained from 413 officials in the education sector in Saudi Arabia. Results suggest that social distance has significant effects on both relationship conflict and job satisfaction. High social distance was found to has significant positive effect on relationship conflict and significant negative effect on job satisfaction. These results suggest that high social distance is a negative phenomenon that should be reduced in organizations. The implications of these results were discussed.