International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology 2013 July, Volume 2 Number 3, 67-80 © The Author / Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND The mediating effect of quality of work life on the relationship between career development and psychological well-being Zulkarnain, Amin Department of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, University of Sumatera Utara, Indonesia (zul_psi@yahoo.com) Received: 31 October 2012 Revised: 28 January 2013 Accepted: 10 March 2013 Available Online: 12 April 2013 DOI: 10.5861/ijrsp.2013.259 ISSN: 2243-7681 Online ISSN: 2243-769X OPEN ACCESS Abstract This study investigated an integrative of psychological well-being of public service employee. This study tested a mediation model consisting of psychological well-being as the dependent variable, career development as the independent variable and quality of work life as the mediator. A total of 429 white-collar workers employed in a public service participated in this study. An analysis of the results found career development and quality of work life were related to psychological well-being. The multiple regression analyses indicated that quality of work life partially mediates the relationship between career development and psychological well-being. These findings appeared to confirm that career development and quality of work life enhanced employee psychological well-being. The implication of this study is that it does contribute to understanding of the ways by which the management can endeavor to increase employee well-being based on the needs of the employee and the needs of the organization. Keywords: psychological well-being; quality of work life; career development; public service employee; cross sectional