Predicting Work-Related Stressors Psychological Well-being and Turnover Intent among Caribbean Manufacturing Employees: A Regression Analysis

Working conditions within manufacturing industries continue to be a problem that creates work-related stressors resulting in employees experiencing emotional exhaustion, depression, tension, and anxiety which adversely affect their physical and psychological well-being. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the predictor variables, role ambiguity and role conflict, and the criterion variables psychological well-being, and turnover intent and to determine the extent to which the predictor variables are predictors of the criterion variables among employees in the manufacturing industry in the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. This quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional correlation study examined the relationship between the predictor and criterion variables within the framework of the Role Theory (RT). Pearson product-moment correlation (Pearson's r) and hierarchical multiple regression were used to conduct the analyses. Data were collected from 137 volunteered participants from three selected manufacturing companies to assess the variables. The results of the Pearson r revealed that role ambiguity correlates positively and significantly with psychological well-being, r = .273, p < .01; role conflict correlates positively and significantly with turnover intent, r = .289, p < .01; role conflict and role ambiguity correlate negatively but significantly with each other r = - .198, p < .05, but tolerance (.959) and variance inflation factor (1.043) indicated that collinearity was not present. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that role ambiguity was a strong predictor of psychological and role conflict was a strong predictor of turnover intent. With these findings management teams could develop and implement intervention programs to reduce or eliminate the levels of role conflict and role ambiguity in their respective companies since reduction in work-related stressors translates into improved employees' psychological well-being and minimizes their intention to leave the company. Future research should be conducted on other manufacturing companies in the Caribbean to make comparisons between studies conducted in individualistic and collectivistic societies.