DOES MANAGER GENDER MODERATE HOW PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING PREDICTS SUSTAINABLE QUALITY PERCEPTIONS?

Abstract

1. LITERATURE

This study is of particular importance in terms of revealing the extent to which human resources support the sustainability efforts of the business today and in the future. This study questions how sustainable quality perception can be explained in terms of the psychological well-being of male and female managers. Organizational sustainability is defined as activities to make social growth sustainable while trying to achieve corporate growth and profitability (van Marrewijk & Werre, 2003). Issues such as economic and social developments, protection of resources, globalization, health, and regional initiatives are useful in the development of sustainability (Çankır, Fındık & Koçak, 2012). In this context, organizational sustainability includes agendas such as economic development, ensuring social justice, and protecting natural resources and the environment (Hahn, Pinkse, Preuss & Figge, 2015).

Sustainable quality perception includes the extent to which employees attach importance to the sustainability activities of their businesses; and how much they include them in these activities while expressing the degree to which the organization meets the requirements of total quality management (Çankır & Eti, 2017; Çankır & Şahin, 2018; Arıkan & Çankır, 2019). For example, the extent to which managers and employees collaborate to increase success in the enterprise shows the perceived quality dimension of the sustainable quality perception (Çankır & Eti, 2017). In another example, taking into account the environmental impact in a business can reveal the perception of organizational sustainability. In the current study, the authors proposed that the perceptions of especially those at the management level regarding sustainability and quality activities may be affected by their positive and negative subjective psychological experiences and satisfaction.

1. DESIGN AND METHOD

• PARTICIPANTS

Three hundred eighty-eight employees working in the information technology and electronics sectors participated in this study. An online questionnaire was sent to employees in these sectors in Istanbul in 2017 using the convenience sampling method. Data were collected from those who volunteered to participate in the study.

• DATA COLLECTION METHOD

Employees' perception of sustainable quality was evaluated with a 13-item scale developed by Çankır and Eti (2017) in the academy sector. Psychological Well-Being Scale, which was developed by Diener et al. (2009) and consisted of eight items, was used to evaluate the well-being levels of employees. The scale was adapted to Turkish by Telef (2013). Employees' job satisfaction was measured with a five-item scale developed by Brayfield and Rothe (1951) and translated into Turkish by Bilgin (1995).       

• QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Data analysis was performed with Mplus 7.11 (Muthen & Muthen, 1998-2013) program. Relationships between variables were analyzed using the Pearson correlation method. For hypothesis testing, the structural equation model (SEM) analysis with multiple group regulatory variables was performed with maximum likelihood estimation. The manager and employee groups were entered into the model as multiple groups, and the gender variable was entered into the model as a regulatory variable.             

1. FINDINGS

The means (standard deviations) of the research variables and the relationships between variables are shown in Table 2. According to Pearson's correlation analysis, the sustainable quality perception has a significant positive correlation with psychological well-being and job satisfaction. It did not show a significant relationship with gender and position. A multi-group SEM analysis was conducted to test the research model. The fit of the research model and the data is at an acceptable level, χ2 = 474.39, df = 207, TLI = 0.92, CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.08 (90% confidence interval 0.07-0.09). Coefficients and standard errors are shown in Table 3 and Figure 1. As seen in Figure 1, the psychological well-being of both managers (B = 0.85, p <.001) and employees (B = 0.52, p <.001) predicts sustainable quality perception significantly and positively. Only in the management group, job satisfaction significantly predicts sustainable quality perception (B = 0.20, p <.01). The gender of the participants did not significantly predict the sustainable quality perception in both groups. In the relationship between psychological well-being and sustainable quality perception, the regulatory effect of gender is significant for the executive group (B = -0.41, p <.05) and no regulatory effect was observed for the employee group. Figure 2 presents the relationship between psychological well-being and sustainable quality perception according to male and female managers.

1. CONCLUSION

In this study, whether sustainable quality perception can be predicted according to the psychological well-being of male and female managers was tested. Multi-group structural equation modelling was performed for managers and employee groups. When job satisfaction levels of both manager and employee group were controlled, psychological well-being predicted high-quality perception.

With the research, results were obtained by the previous studies in the literature (Çankır & Şahin, 2018; Arıkan & Çankır, 2019). The most important difference from these studies is that psychological well-being does not determine the sustainable quality perception of employees in every position. While there was no significant regulatory effect of gender between psychological well-being and quality perception in the employee group, this regulatory effect was found to be significant in the manager group. Being male or female managers differentiates the effect of psychological well-being on quality perceptions. Accordingly, when there is low psychological well-being, male and female managers have a similar low-quality perception. When they experience high well-being, the quality perception of female managers is higher than that of male managers. Female managers can attribute higher sustainable quality when their psychological well-being is high.