Measuring happiness at work in a Takaful organization
Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance
ISSN: 2051-6614
Article publication date: 4 June 2020
Issue publication date: 17 July 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Happiness at work (HAW) has been a hot item in both the academic and managerial literature, as HAW seems to have a positive effect on attractiveness of an organization on its current workforce and potential new employees. Many of the HAW models have been developed in a Western setting, while this research aims at evaluation of whether a previously validated HAW model in the Western context is also valid in a non-Western context; in this case at a Takaful insurance company in the United Arab Emirates.
Design/methodology/approach
Employees of the Takaful insurance company were asked to rate their organization on how high performance it was – using the validated high-performance organization (HPO) questionnaire – and how happy they were – using the previously validated HAW questionnaire. The collected data was subjected to confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling to arrive at a validated HAW model for this Takaful insurance company.
Findings
The study results show that if the Takaful insurance company transforms itself to an HPO, it will become more attractive to current and future employees, by raising the HAW of current employees. The results also show that HAW consists of three factors: work engagement, job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment.
Practical implications
The Takaful insurance company now has knowledge at its disposal about ways to promote happiness in its employees, thus raising its attractiveness to current and future employees. The developed HAW model for this company is potentially also useful for other Takaful insurance companies in the UAE.
Originality/value
This study was the first of its kind – using the HPO and HAW models developed in a Western context, to be validated for a Takaful insurance company – and as such, contributes to both the HPO and HAW literature.
Keywords
Citation
Mroueh, M. and de Waal, A. (2020), "Measuring happiness at work in a Takaful organization", Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 139-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOEPP-04-2020-0050
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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