Abstract:
The study examined the effect of psychological capital on work engagement and
employees’ affective organizational commitment of employees in the weaving centres
of the Handloom sector in Sri Lanka. Further, it attempts to find out the mediator role
of work engagement in the relationship between psychological capital and affective
organizational commitment. The study expands the literature on relevance by
contextualizing it in one of Sri Lanka's indigenous sectors of the Handloom industry
based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory and the Job Demand-
Resources (JD-R) Theory. Data was collected from 361 employees in the Handloom
industry in Sri Lanka. The quantitative analytical technique was employed in this
study through Smart Partial Least Square - Structural Equation Modelling. The study
revealed that psychological capital has positively related to affective organizational
commitment and work engagement, the association between psychological capital and
affective organizational commitment was mediated by work engagement. This
research makes a novel contribution that work engagement mediates the association
between employees’ affective organizational commitment and psychological capital
dimensions of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism. The study contributes to the
body of knowledge on both the JD-R theory and COR theory by expanding the
theoretical understanding of the mediation effect of work engagement in the
relationship between psychological capital and affective organizational commitment.
