The role of relationships at work and happiness: A moderated moderated mediation study of New Zealand managers

Abstract

Interpersonal relationships at work are important especially for the well-being of employees. The present study tests Positive Relational Management (PRM) and its influence on employee happiness, and we include two firm-level moderators and an individual-level mediator to better understand the potential complexity of effects. Importantly, we test this in the context of New Zealand, which has been under-represented in employee studies of happiness and is important due to a growing national interest in wellbeing. We test whether positive relationships at work shape greater meaningful work (MFW) and this then influences happiness and mediates the effects of PRM. We also include Human Capital (the quality of people inside the firm) and firm size as moderators and combine these all to test a moderated moderated mediation model in PROCESS. We test this on a sample of 302 New Zealand managers with time-separated data. We confirm the dimensionality and reliability of the PRM scale and find it is positively related to MFW and happiness, while MFW fully mediates the direct effect of PRM. We find interaction effects including a moderated moderated mediation effect, with the indirect effect of PRM differing depending on firm size and the strength of human capital. The implications for understanding the importance of relationships on employee happiness is discussed.