Effect of Mental Toughness and Employee Experience on Organizational Commitment Amongst Workers in Toka Tindung Gold Mine Project, North Sulawesi
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58344/jws.v5i2.1635Keywords:
Mental Toughness, Psychological Well-Being, Work Engagement, Employee Experience, Organizational CommitmentAbstract
In recent years, the increasing tendency of professional workers, particularly Generation Z, to change jobs has raised concerns regarding organizational commitment. This study aims to examine the effects of mental toughness and employee experience on organizational commitment, with psychological well-being and work engagement as mediating variables, among employees at the Toka Tindung Gold Mine Project in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. This research employs a quantitative approach using a cross-sectional survey design. Data were collected through structured questionnaires distributed to 118 employees and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that mental toughness is the most significant predictor of organizational commitment, demonstrating strong direct effects on psychological well-being, work engagement, and organizational commitment. In contrast, employee experience shows a significant effect only on work engagement but does not directly influence organizational commitment. Furthermore, psychological well-being and work engagement are not found to mediate the relationship between mental toughness or employee experience and organizational commitment. These findings highlight the dominant role of personal resilience over organizational factors in shaping employee commitment, particularly within high-risk industries such as mining. The study provides both theoretical and practical contributions by emphasizing the importance of strengthening employees’ mental toughness to enhance organizational commitment and suggesting that organizations should integrate psychological resilience development into human resource strategies.
References
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands–resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115
Clough, P., & Strycharczyk, D. (2012). Developing mental toughness: Improving performance, wellbeing and positive behaviour in others. Kogan Page.
Dan, S. H. I. (2024). Work engagement and organizational commitment relationship with career growth. Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(2), 69–77.
Duong, C. H., Do, T. P. T., Giang, T. T., & Hoang, K. T. T. (2025). The impact of nurses’ psychological well-being on organizational commitment: The mediating role of work engagement and the moderating role of perceived organizational support. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 54(7), 1504.
Gucciardi, D. F., Hanton, S., Gordon, S., Mallett, C. J., & Temby, P. (2015). The concept of mental toughness: Tests of dimensionality, nomological network, and traitness. Journal of Personality, 83(1), 26–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12079
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2019). A primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M., & Danks, N. P. (2021). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM): Using R. Springer.
Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135.
Kim, W., Kim, J., Woo, H., Park, J., Jo, J., et al. (2017). The relationship between work engagement and organizational commitment: Proposing research agendas through a review of empirical literature. Human Resource Development Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484317725967
Koroglu, ?., & Ozmen, O. (2022). The mediating effect of work engagement on innovative work behavior and the role of psychological well-being in the job demands–resources (JD-R) model. Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, 14(1), 124–144.
Lee, M., & Kim, B. (2023a). Effect of employee experience on organizational commitment: Case of South Korea. Behavioral Sciences, 13(7), 521.
Lee, M., & Kim, B. (2023b). Effect of the employees’ mental toughness on organizational commitment and job satisfaction: Mediating psychological well-being. Administrative Sciences, 13(5), 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci13050133
Lee, M., & Kim, B. (2023). Effect of the employees’ mental toughness on organizational commitment and job satisfaction: Mediating psychological well-being. Administrative Sciences, 13, 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci13050133
Raman, S. (2018). Managing employees perception on organizational practices: A contextual study on retention of Indian mining professionals. Sankalpa, 8(1), 85–93.
Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
Seteni, L. P. (2016). Employees’ perceptions of the effects of retrenchment on job stress and organisational commitment in a mining company [Thesis]. Vaal University of Technology.
Seteni, L. P., Joubert, P., & Dhurup, M. (2021). Employees’ perceptions of the effects of retrenchment on job stress and organisational commitment in a mining company. African Journal of Employee Relations, 45, 1–23.
Shu, K. (2022). Teachers’ commitment and self-efficacy as predictors of work engagement and well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 850204.
Simanjuntak, F. R., Emilisa, N., & Puspa, T. (2023). Pengaruh mental toughness dan employee experience terhadap organizational commitment dengan psychological well-being sebagai mediator pada karyawan generasi Z di Jakarta. Jurnal Ilmiah Ekonomi Global Masa Kini, 14(2).
Yogamalar, I., & Samuel, A. A. (2019). Job engagement, psychological well-being and organisational commitment: An empirical test of direct and indirect effects. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 20(3), 392–414.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Dyah Kusumawardhani, Oliandes Sondakh
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
