The Impact of Psychological Capital and Organizational Justice on Flight attendants’ Performance: The Mediating Role of Mental Health

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This paper proposes a research model in which mental health mediates the impacts of psychological capital (PsyCap) and organizational justice on flight attendant job performance based on the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory.

Background

Flight attendants in the airline industry have a differentiated work environment in stressful and demanding situations. The literature has highlighted the prevalence of mental health disorders among flight attendants.

Methods

Non-experimental, quantitative research findings from a sample of 384 flight attendants from five airlines in Iran, based on structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, provide support for the hypotheses.

Results

The SEM findings revealed that both PsyCap and organizational justice can enhance flight attendant mental health. As expected, mental health improved job performance. Consistent with the study’s predictions, mental health mediated the effects of PsyCap and organizational justice on job performance.

Conclusions

This study empirically linked PsyCap and organizational justice to flight attendant perceptions of mental health and job performance. The research findings support the notion that strengthening flight attendant PsyCap and enhancing perceptions of organizational justice can improve performance by improving mental health. These findings have theoretical and practical implications. This research contributes to the extant literature by empirically validating the mediating effect of mental health and clarifying the role of two types of individual psychological job resources on flight attendant performance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).