Psychological capital, organizational justice and health. The mediating role of work engagement
| Pages | 87-103 |
| Date | 07 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-08-2018-0292 |
| Published date | 07 November 2019 |
| Author | Daria Lupsa,Loreni Baciu,Delia Virga |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Psychological capital,
organizational justice and health
The mediating role of work engagement
Daria Lupsa
Department of Psychology, Facultatea de Sociologie si Psihologie,
Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania
Loreni Baciu
Department of Social Work, Facultatea de Sociologie si Psihologie,
Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania, and
Delia Virga
Department of Psychology,
Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania
Abstract
Purpose –This study is based on job demands-resources model and the conservation of resources theory
explores the roleof psychological capital (PsyCap), as a personal resource, and organizational justice
(distributive and procedural), as a contextual resource, in enhancing health through work engagement. The
paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach –A sample of 193 Romanian social workers (87.60 percent women) from
the national network was used to test two structural models.
Findings –Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that work engagement partially mediates the
relationship between PsyCap and health, and work engagement totally mediates the relationship between
organizational justice and health.
Research limitations/implications –The results emphasize the role of resources, PsyCap and
organizational justice, in protecting the social workers’health.
Practical implications –These findings support the necessity of combined evidence-based programs to
develop social worker’s PsyCap and to maintain the optimum level of perceived organizational justice. These
intervention programs can, in turn, enhance the work engagement and protect the health of employees in the
workplace.
Originality/value –This study indicates a novel conceptual model that has two simultaneous predictors of
work engagement and health. It provides insights into how contextual resources (organizational justice)
potentiate the effect of personal resources (PsyCap) in enhancing health.
Keywords Quantitative, Work engagement, Advanced statistical, Structural equation modelling (SEM),
Organizational justice
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In a stressful environment, employees need to gain various resources to cope with high
work demands and to achieve well-being, especially in emotionally demanding
professions such as social work. Ever since the beginning of the formalization of
the social work profession, the social workers were urged to assess and integrate the
positive aspects of their clients’situations (their “strengths”) in the intervention process.
However, the research conducted on the work itself of these professionals has not followed
the same path. Topics like the negative aspects the social workers have to endure at work
(i.e. stress) or the negative consequences of this specific work (i.e. burnout) are
predominant. Comparatively, little attention was dedicated to positive aspects of the
workplace such as personal and job resources or desirable outcomes in a social
work context.
Personnel Review
Vol. 49 No. 1, 2020
pp. 87-103
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-08-2018-0292
Received 6 August 2018
Revised 2 January 2019
Accepted 19 May 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
87
Mediating role
of work
engagement
One type of resources that could help employees to overcome stress is personal
resources. This type of resources represents positive self-evaluations that are associated
with resilience and help an individual influence his or her environment (Hobfoll et al., 2003).
Psychological capital (PsyCap), as a personal resource, is a construct formed by four
personal capacities: self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism (Luthans et al., 2007). First,
self-efficacy is considered the conviction of a person to have the capacity to stimulate
motivational, cognitive resources and change the courses of action to fulfill specific tasks
(Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998). Second, hope consists in the will to accomplish an objective
and the capacity to recognize and proceed the way to success (Snyder, 2000). Next, resilience
is the “positive psychological capacity to rebound, to ‘bounce back’from adversity,
uncertainty, conflict, failure, or even positive change, progress and increased responsibility”
(Luthans, 2002, p. 702). Finally, optimism is defined as the general anticipation of a desirable
result (Carver and Scheier, 2002) or as an optimistic explanatory style (Seligman, 1998).
Moreover, employees that have high-level personal resources, such as PsyCap, tend to be
more engaged and healthier (Luthans et al., 2013; Simons and Buitendach, 2013).
According to the job demands-resources ( JD-R) model (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007),
employees with high job and personal resources are more likely to manage high job
demands and have a high level of well-being. Job and personal resources are equally strong
predictors of engagement (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009). Contextual resources may also
enhance the role of personal resources in relation to work engagement (Moliner et al., 2008;
Saks, 2006). Organizational justice is one of the contextual resources that was studied little
inside the JD-R model and represents the perception of how fairly employees feel that they
were treated at the workplace (Colquitt and Shaw, 2005). The most studied components of
this concept are distributive justice and procedural justice. Distributive justice represents
the fairness of decision outcomes (Leventhal, 1976) and the procedural justice represents the
degree to which decision-making procedures are fairly applied (e.g. consistently, without
bias, accurate, ethical and representative of all interests; Cropanzano et al., 2001). Only in few
studies, organizational justice has been shown to predict positive outcomes, such as
engagement (Moliner et al., 2008) and health indicators (Elovainio et al., 2010). Moreover,
little is known about the impact of organizational justice on work engagement and health, in
the context of social workers.
The conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 2011) suggests that people who
have a wide variety of resources are more likely to gain additional resources. Thus, the
positive resource gain spiral will help employees to feel more engaged and healthier and will
be able to invest additional resources (Wright and Hobfoll, 2004). Contextual resources, like
organizational justice, could add value to the valorization of personal resources in relation to
engagement and health. However, it was found that most employees all over the world are
not entirely engaged in their work (Harter et al., 2002). Social workers also follow this
pattern, as their level of engagement is one of the lowest compared to other professions such
as educators, managers and police officers (Schaufeli et al., 2006). Based on positive
psychology paradigm, recently, some studies have assessed aspects which may promote
social worker’s engagement and work-related health (Tesi et al., 2018). Work engagement is
considered “as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor,
dedication, and absorption”(Schaufeli et al., 2002, p. 74). Vigor refers to a high level of
vitality, cognitive resilience during the working hours and when faced with problems and
the motivation to accomplish the work. Dedication is characterized by inspiration, pride and
the perception of the significance of someone’s work, passion and challenge. Absorption
implies being joyful, entirely focused and preoccupied with the work, and having difficulties
to disconnect from work when finishing the tasks (Schaufeli et al., 2006). Moreover, health is
a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity (WHO, 2001).
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