Mediatory Role of Mental Health in the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Commitment to Ethical Principles, and Organizational Spirituality

Abstract
Nowadays, the occurrence of issues, such as irresponsibility, the lack of moral beliefs, and disloyalty to the organization have led to elevated attention to ethical management, organizational spirituality, and effective factors, namely mental health. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the mediatory role of mental health in the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI), commitment to ethical principles, and organizational spirituality.
This descriptive correlational study with applied approach was performed on the statistical population of the staff of Fars provincial government, Iran. A total of 316 study samples were selected through random sampling method using Morgan table. The data were collected utilizing a questionnaire filled out by the participants. Structural equation modeling and partial least squares method were applied with the SmartPLS software to assess the accuracy of the main model and test the hypotheses.
The findings of this study demonstrated that EI and commitment to ethical principles had a significant direct impact on the mental health of the investigated staff. Moreover, the direct effect of commitment to ethical principles and mental health on organizational spirituality was significant. On the other hand, EI was not shown to exert a significant direct influence on organizational spirituality. The analysis of the indirect effects of various factors indicated that mental health might play a mediatory role in the relationship between EI, commitment to ethical principles, and organizational spirituality.
Organizational spirituality is beneficial in organizations and society regarding the improvement of efficiency, innovation, occupational satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors. On the other hand, addressing EI uniquely is not sufficient for rising organizational spirituality in organizations. Consequently, the influential factors, such as mental health and commitment to ethical principles are required to be taken into consideration.