Psychological capital, organizational commitment and employee engagement among employees of business and technical institutions in Jinja City

Abstract

Employ engagement remains an attended to issue in different organizations. There is a gap in literature on employee engagement in the Ugandan context. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the link between psychological capital, organizational commitment and employee engagement. A sample of instructors of both Business and Technical institutions of Jinja City were selected using stratified simple sampling technique. Of the 340 instructors was chosen but only 181 instructors’ responses were fit for analysis. This study adopted a quantitative study approach which took a cross-sectional and correlational survey design. Self-administered questionnaires were used in the data collection. Collected data were further coded and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS Version 23) for tables and figures presentation. Pearson correlation coefficient was also used to examine the link between the study variables. Results indicated that the relationship between psychological capital and organizational commitment was a low positive and statistically significant one (r=.425**, p=.000<0.01), whereas that of organizational commitment and employee engagement was a moderately positive and statistically significant one (r=.512**, p=.000<0.01). The findings also indicated that there was a moderate positive statistically significant relationship between psychological capital and employee engagement (r=.589**, p=.000<0.01). It was discovered that organizational commitment mediates the relationship between psychological capital and employee engagement (β= .324, t =p < .05). Basing on the above findings, it was recommended that employees psychological capital should be enhanced, this may aid in enhancing organizational commitment and employee engagement. This is employees who are psychologically well are able to execute their duties and tasks as expected.