Psychological capital and work engagement : an investigation into the mediating effect of mindfulness

Abstract

The importance of employee work engagement in modern organisations is evident in the global interest in human capital development. Positive outcomes associated with work engagement, such as job satisfaction and job performance, have been linked to constructs such as psychological capital. Mindfulness is a fairly new construct that has not been widely applied to work settings. Deriving from this lack of application of mindfulness to the work setting, this study sought to expand on the relationship between psychological capital and work engagement through the introduction of mindfulness as a mediator variable. A descriptive cross-sectional study of white-collar workers was conducted in South Africa and Zimbabwe. A survey was distributed to a sample of 203 participants, of which 52% were female and 47% were male. Consistent with previous research, the current study found that psychological capital was a predictor of work engagement, indicating a positive relationship between the constructs. Unique to this study was the result that psychological capital and work engagement both had positive relationships with mindfulness, and that mindfulness partially mediated the relationship between psychological capital and work engagement. This study also found that there were differences in the perceptions of psychological capital between South African and Zimbabwean employees in this sample. The findings of this study indicated the positive benefits that organisations can derive from developing psychological capital and mindfulness in their employees, such as improved work engagement, job satisfaction and organisational success. This study also provided unique contributions that can be investigated in future research.