ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: In this study, state-owned medical institutes, industrial accident hospitals, veteran hospitals, and private medical clinics including 16 university medical institutes in the Seoul metropolitan area were selected to examine the causality of ethical management, positive psychological capital, and organizational effectiveness. METHODS: The study analyzed 1,056 valid questionnaires to which a total of 1,325 nurses, medical technicians, doctors, and administrative staff in 34 healthcare organizations answered over two months from June to August 2015. The study also utilized a ‘structural equation model,’ and a ‘hierarchical linear model’ to conduct the analysis. RESULTS: It was first found that ethical leadership, ethical management systems, and organizational ethics values, which are the three factors of ethical management, had significant influence on organizational commitment, and behavior. These are the three factors of employee organizational effectiveness. Second, ethical management, ethical leadership, ethical management systems, and organizational ethics values had significant influence on positive psychological capital. Third, positive psychological capital had significant influence on organizational commitment, turnover intention, and organizational citizenship behavior. Positive psychological capital presented an indirect effect on the relationship between the ethical management and organizational effectiveness of employees. The effect of positive psychological capital consisting of self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism was confirmed in the healthcare organizations. Fourth, in relations among ethical management variables, ethical leadership showed a significant impact on ethical management systems, which had significant impacts on organizational ethics values, which had significant impacts on ethical leadership.