Psychological capital and employee job attitudes: the critical significance of work-life balance

PurposeThe major goal of this research is to examine the work-life balance as a mediating factor in the association between psychological capital and employee attitudes including job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors gathered data from prestigious healthcare institutes in North Indian states to test the suggested study model. Data were gathered from 613 personnel employed in public and private healthcare organizations via an online Google form. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied for analyzing the data.FindingsThe findings validated the expected relations, demonstrating that the association between psychological capital and employee job attitudes is completely mediated by work-life balance.Research limitations/implicationsThis research study used cross-sectional data, which fall short of meeting the requirement for proving causation.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study will help organizations and practitioners, particularly healthcare administrators and policymakers, better recognize the value of psychological capital and work-life balance, and how they impact job attitudes.Originality/valueThis research study added to the existing self-determination theory (SDT) model developed by Deci et al. (2017) by incorporating psychological capital and work-life balance as autonomous intrinsic and workplace context factors, respectively, into the SDT model to study work behaviors in terms of job outcomes. In addition, the study added to the existing body of knowledge in organizational behavior literature about the role of mediating variables in understanding the indirect effect of personal resources on job attitudes.