JUGGLING DEMANDS: THE IMPACT OF MIDDLE MANAGER ROLES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL

This purpose of this study is to assess the impact of middle managers’ activity, role conflict, and psychological capital on their job performance and turnover intentions. Because middle managers occupy organizational positions between strategic managers at the upper levels and operational managers and employees at the lower levels of the organization, I hypothesize that they will experience role conflict that will be connected to lower job performance and higher turnover intentions. Additionally, I suggest that the negative performance impacts of role conflict are mitigated by an individual’s psychological capital.

To test this moderated mediation model, this study uses a survey-based quantitative design. Using multivariate regression, I test each of the hypotheses with data gathered from 244 individuals across a variety of organizations and industries. The results indicate that middle manager activity is positively related to role conflict, which mediates the relationship between middle manager activity and two outcomes: turnover intentions and self-assessed job performance. The results of this study also indicate that an individual’s psychological capital is negatively related to turnover intentions and positively related to self-assessed job performance. Additionally, although psychological capital did not moderate the relationship between role conflict and turnover intentions, it did moderate the relationship between role conflict and self-assessed job performance. None of the study hypotheses were supported in regards to managerially-assessed job performance. The study concludes with a discussion of the results generated by this test and a presentation of their theoretical and practical implications.