I Am a Leader, I Am a Mother, I Can Do This! The Moderated Mediation of Psychological Capital, Work–Family Conflict, and Having Children on Well-Being of Women Leaders

Abstract

Gender equality is one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Management is one of the jobs that more clearly needs a gender perspective. Women leaders have found a way around the labyrinth to get to the top, which might have developed their personal resources such as psychological capital. Women leaders experience an inter-role conflict when work and family demands are mutually incompatible, affecting negatively their well-being. This study aims to analyze the mediation role that work–family and family–work conflict plays between psychological capital and well-being (engagement and burnout) when moderated by the number of children. In total, 202 Spanish women leaders participated in the study. Results of the mediated moderation model using Model 14 of the macro PROCESS for SPSS software show that psychological capital buffers the negative effects that experiencing work–family conflict has on well-being when having children. The well-being of women leaders is not affected when dealing with family interfering work conflict and having children. As such, women leaders who have children rely on their psychological capital to successfully manage the family demands affecting their work and to reduce the negative effect of work–family conflict on their well-being. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed from the psychology of a sustainability perspective.

The Association Between Resilience and Performance: the Mediating Role of Workers’ Well-being

“…The authors consider employee burnout as a response to chronic occupational stress while work engagement is categorized as a positive work-related state of mind. In the same vein, several studies have already used burnout and work engagement for understanding well-being at work (e.g., Babic, Gillis, & Hansez, 2020;Carvalho & Chambel, 2017;Lopes & Chambel, 2017;Machín-Rincón et al, 2020).…”

“…The study of the above-mentioned relationships has several contributions to the literature and Human Resource management. First, previous studies on the Occupational Health Psychology mainly focus on which job characteristics (e.g., job autonomy, job demands, supervisor support) might affect individuals' well-being at work (Machín-Rincón, Cifre, Domínguez-Castillo, & Segovia-Pérez, 2020). As such, the present study innovates by focusing on a crucial personal resourcei.e., resilienceand their contribution to boost desirable outcomesi.e., work engagement and performanceand buffer an undesirable outcomei.e.…”

“…This needs to be provided.» Authors' answer: In line with the reviewer' comment we added the following: Page 11: «Additionally, as noted by Bakker (2009), there are four reasons why engaged employees perform better than non-engaged employees, namely: (1) they experience positive emotions more often, including happiness, joy, and enthusiasm (2) they possess better psychological and physical health, (3) they create their job and personal resources; and (4) they transfer their engagement to others.» «5-The language of the draft needs improvement and the uniqueness of the study needs to be brought out more clearly.» Authors' answer: The language of the draft was improved and to highlight the uniqueness of the study we added the following: Page 2-3: « The study of the above-mentioned relationships has several contributions to the literature and Human Resource management. First, previous studies on the Occupational Health Psychology mainly focus on which job characteristics (e.g., job autonomy, job demands, supervisor support) might affect individuals' well-being at work (Machín-Rincón, Cifre, Domínguez-Castillo, & Segovia-Pérez, 2020). As such, the present study innovates by focusing on a crucial personal resourcei.e., resilienceand their contribution to boost desirable outcomesi.e., work engagement and performanceand buffer an undesirable outcomei.e.…”

I Can’t Go to Work Tomorrow! Work-Family Policies, Well-Being and Absenteeism

“…Among the main causes of work absenteeism are emotional problems (lack of emotional well-being), health problems (lack of physical well-being), or inadequate work-family policies (WFP) [11][12][13][14]. The latter, in turn, can influence the well-being of workers [15][16][17][18], hence, WFP would also indirectly affect absenteeism. Therefore, we must consider that the well-being generated by these WFP has a mediating role in the WFP-absenteeism relationship.…”

Mediaciones transversales en la construcción social de las mujeres ejecutivas

“…Las mujeres de alta gerencia se autorrepresentan mediante recursos de capital psicológico para la consecución de metas (Machín-Rincón et al, 2020) (Gherardi, 1995;Parsons, 1955).…”