Happiness at work scale: A scale development study and the mediating role of work life balance in the effect of five factor personality traits on happiness at work

This thesis study has two main purposes. One of these purposes is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to measure the happiness of employees at work in Turkish culture. The other is to investigate whether work-life balance has a mediating role in the effect of five-factor personality traits on happiness at work. The development process of the happiness at work scale was carried out on the "Exploratory Sequential Mixed Design". In this direction, primarily, qualitative study was carried out and qualitative data were collected. As a result of the analysis of the collected data, an item pool was created and a draft scale was obtained. Quantitative analysis was applied to the data collected by this scale. Accordingly, first, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed with the data obtained from 392 participants working in the public or private sector, and the dimensions were determined. The scale obtained as a result of EFA was applied to 446 people working in the public or private sector and subjected to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). As a result of the analyzes made, the structure of the scale was confirmed and the "Happiness at Work Scale" consisting of 36 items and 4 dimensions was obtained. The reliabiliy coefficients of the scale are within acceptable limits. In addition, one-dimensional, 8-item "Happiness at Work Scale Short Form" is also included in the study. In this study, it was also investigated whether work-life balance has a mediating role in the effect of five-factor personality traits on happiness at work. The research was carried out on a total of 400 participants working in the public or private sector in Turkey. When the results obtained by analyzing the data are examined, it has been determined that there is no mediating role between the research variables. On the other hand, when the sub-dimensions of the variables are examined, it is concluded that the dimensions of the work interference with personal life and the work enhancement of personal life have a partial mediation role in the interaction between emotional stability and the manager and workplace-induced happiness.