A Matter of Psychological Safety: Commitment and Mental Health in Turkish Immigrant Employees in Germany

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Immigration entails the risk of feeling disconnected in the receiving society, in both everyday life and the workplace. This may affect the way immigrant employees relate to their job and their workplace. In this article, we investigate the affective commitment of Turkish immigrant employees in Germany (TG) and their subsequent work engagement, mental health, and turnover intention. Specifically, we compared TG (n = 201) to both German employees in Germany (GG; n = 1,406) and Turkish employees in Turkey (TT; n = 362). Our results show that the effect of immigration background on mental health, work engagement, and turnover through affective commitment depends on the level of perceived psychological safety at the workplace, specifically in terms of an open and inclusive work climate. The results suggest that psychological safety is particularly helpful in enhancing immigrant employees’ positive attitudes toward the workplace. Our study provides new insights on the well-being of immigrant employees, specifically TG, and the different needs of diverse workforces. Given our findings, future studies should explore more deeply the positive influences that psychological safety has on minority groups and their workplace attitudes.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
Volume47
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)626-645
Number of pages20
ISSN0022-0221
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 05.2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016.

    Research areas

  • immigration, psychological safety, affective commitment, mental health, turnover intention

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Human Performance Managment
  2. Organisierte Kreativität
  3. A critical review of policies and legislation protecting Tanzanian wetlands
  4. Performanznahe und videobasierte Messung von DaZ-Kompetenz bei Lehrkräften: Skalierung und dimensionale Struktur des Testinstruments
  5. Weiterbildung im Bereich AAL – Vom Handwerksmeister zum AAL-Berater in 360 Stunden
  6. Das Auf und Ab der Tankstellenpreise
  7. Teachers in bullying situations (Tibs)
  8. Soziologie des Schwangerschaftsverlusts
  9. Somewhere over the rainbow
  10. Crowdfunding for Responsible Entrepreneurship
  11. Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse
  12. Lesekompetenz als Schlüsselqualifikation in der Mediengesellschaft
  13. Psychological training for entrepreneurs to take action
  14. "JHWH ... erschafft Unheil"
  15. Strategisches Unternehmensverhalten aus normativer und deskriptiver Sicht
  16. In terms of desire: Mary Parker Follett und der Diskurs der Organisationstheorie
  17. Pseudowissenschaft: Konzeptionen von Nichtwissenschaftlichkeit in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte
  18. Stranger Things II (2017)
  19. What are the ingredients for food systems change towards sustainability? - Insights from the literature
  20. Das Schülerexperiment im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht
  21. Lernaufgaben im Chemieunterricht
  22. Employer Branding
  23. Die Familie: eine unverzichtbare Lebensform in der Dauerkrise
  24. Der Embryo – eine öffentliche Sache?
  25. Editorial: Die intime Stadt – Kulturen queerer Verbindung
  26. Does it Pay to Be Eco-Efficient in the European Electricity Supply Industry?
  27. A Psychiatric Clinic, a Monastery, a City and a River
  28. Tropical cyclone losses in the USA and the impact of climate change
  29. Systemic risk governance for pharmaceutical residues in drinking water
  30. Die Behandlung kollektivvertraglicher Normenkollisionen nach Verschmelzung und Spaltung von Unternehmen
  31. Kopplungsprobleme wissensorientierter Kommunikation