The mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between work-family conflict and turnover intention and moderated mediating role of supervisor support during global pandemic

Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between work-family conflict and turnover intention and whether work engagement has a mediating effect and supervisor support has a moderated mediation effect in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The sample of the study is composed of public hospital employees in Erzincan province. After removing the missing and incorrect ones from the questionnaires distributed to 1,044 employees of the hospital, 350 were evaluated. The data of the survey were analyzed and interpreted with statistical package programs. Regression analysis is used to investigate the association between the variables. Findings This paper finds significant negative associations of work-family conflict with work engagement and work engagement with turnover intention. A significant positive association is found between work-family conflict and turnover intention. In the meantime work engagement has a partial mediating effect on this relationship. Another important result of the research is that supervisor support has a moderator role between work-family conflict and work engagement and has a moderated mediation role at the model in which work-family conflict is independent, turnover intention is dependent and work engagement is a mediator variable. Research limitations/implications The research was conducted only in Erzincan province with a limited number of participants, and only health sector employees were examined. It is possible to obtain distinct results in future research studies conducted on different sector employees. Moreover, only the work-family conflict variable was examined in the research. It is possible to expand the scope by also including the family-work conflict variable in future studies. Originality/value This research is the first study examining the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between work-family conflict and turnover intention on healthcare employees in Turkey. Also, this paper is the first attempt to investigate moderated mediation model with the specified variables (work-family conflict, turnover intention, work engagement and supervisor support) in the model by using the frameworks of leader-member exchange and social exchange theories. This research answers research calls to study the moderating function of supervisor support during mediating role of work engagement, since the moderation impact clarifies the circumstances under which supervisor support is connected with the favorable results. This study also revealed how effective the supervisor support is on employees experiencing work-family conflict and their attitudes like work engagement and turnover intention. The consequences of such studies influence the way organizations handle and solve the problems in their organizations today. It takes into account moderated mediation modeling with the management subject in hospital employees.