Relationship between self construal and job related affective well being: A comparative exploratory study on public and private sector

When the concept of self is considered from a cultural point of view, it is referred as self-construal. Today's organizations are aware of the importance of their employees' positive feelings about the organization. Due to this fact, the well-being of employees is getting more and more important. In Turkey, public and private sectors have different values and organizational structures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the self-construal of employees and their job-related affective well-being in terms of working in public sector or private sector. The sample of the study consists of 202 employees working in public sector and private sector in Ankara and Eskişehir. The analyses showed that, in public sector, relational self-orientation differs in terms of gender, whereas individuational self-orientation does not differ. In private sector, self-construal does not differ in terms of gender. In public sector, job-related affective well-being differs depending on educational level but in private sector education level has no effect on well-being. Also, in both sectors, work experience has no effect on employees' well-being. Employees' working in public sector have higher well-being levels than employees' working in private sectors. Besides, there is positive correlation between relational self-orientation and job-related affective well-being and negative correlation between individuational self-orientation and job-related affective well-being. In private sector, the relationship between job-related affective well-being and both individuational and relational self-orientation is not statistically significant.