The Strategic Role of Emotional Commitment in the Relationship between Psychological Capital and HR Retention of Employees of Ministry of Sport in Iraq

The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of emotional commitment in the relationship between psychological capital and retention in employees of Sport Ministry of Iraq. This study was of a correlation nature. The population included all employees of Sport Ministry in 2018. 300 subjects were randomly selected as the sample from 1286 employees according to Krejcie and Morgan table. For data collection, psychological capital questionnaire of Luthans et al. (2007), emotional commitment questionnaire of Allen and Meyer (1991) and employee retention of Kyndt et al. (2009) were used. The validity (content, convergent and divergent) and reliability (load factor, composite reliability coefficient, Cronbach's alpha coefficient) of the questionnaires indicated that they had acceptable reliability and validity. The results of testing hypotheses by SMART-PLS software and t test and path coefficients (β) showed that psychological capital had a weak and significant effect on the employee retention and strong and strong effect on emotional commitment of employees in Sport Ministry in Iraq. Emotional commitment can play a mediating role in the relationship between psychological capital and employee retention. Finally, according to these results, it can be stated that Sport Ministry of Iraq needs to strengthen psychological capital of its managers and employees so that it can succeed in advancing the objectives and retaining the employees.