Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between leader psychological capital and employee work engagement. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, the authors hypothesize that leader psychological capital is associated with employee work engagement through employee psychological capital. The authors further hypothesize that team collectivism moderates the relationship between leader psychological capital and employee psychological capital.

Multi-source data came from 44 team leaders and 307 employees in Mainland China.

The results suggest a trickle-down relationship between leader psychological capital and employee psychological capital, which in turn is linked to employee engagement. In addition, the relationship between leader psychological capital and employee psychological capital is stronger (weaker) when team collectivism is lower (higher).

By paying attention to the psychological capital of both employees and their leaders, organizations can increase employee engagement which is an important work outcome.

Work engagement is important in the workplace because it is related to a variety of employee work and life outcomes. Prior research has examined the antecedents of work engagement, but little is known about the role of leader psychological capital, a positive psychological state, in shaping employee work engagement. This research applied a resource conservation process model of leader positivity on employee engagement that is mediated by employee psychological capital. This study contributes to a better understanding of the theoretical foundation of leader psychological capital.

Recognising the value of positive organisational behaviour at the workplace, this paper aims to provide a major review of the current state of research on positivity, and subsequently proposes new pathways for more theory building relating to important constructs conceptually related to positivity. Following the integration of emerging but disparate research on workplace positivity and related concepts, the paper develops a conceptual framework depicting the relationships amongst authentic leader behaviours, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, thriving and job performance.

The paper offers a systematic critical review of published studies representing the literature addressing authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, thriving, psychological capital and job performance. The paper relied on computerised keyword searches in the main business source databases of Emerald, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost and SpringerLink.

This paper leads to a conceptual framework proposing direct relationships between authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and job performance. Further, authentic leadership is proposed to potentially nurture organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance, given the theoretical linkages between these conceptually relevant variables related to positivity. Additionally, organisational virtuousness and psychological capital are projected to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee thriving. Finally, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital and employee thriving are designated as mediators of the relationship between authentic leadership and job performance.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework focusing on one form of positive leader behaviour and also assumes specific causal pathways using a positivistic research approach to understanding the leadership–performance relationship. The paper did not examine all possible antecedents of positivity at the workplace.

The proposed conceptual framework should form the basis of many organisational interventions, especially in relation to boosting authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance. By suggesting the association between authentic leadership, psychological capital and organisational virtuousness, this paper highlights potential benefits from effective leaders’ commitment to enhancing psychological capital and organisational virtuousness and engendering thriving behaviour and job performance.

This novel paper has the potential to stimulate the empirical studies on workplace positivity through the association of authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and thriving.

This paper explores the “Western” concept of psychological capital in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and highlights critical areas of divergence and notable dimensions of similarity.

This is an empirical study conducted in a wide range of Chinese organisational forms, employing an inductive approach based on critical incident technique.

This research showed that the concept of psychological capital appears to have a degree of applicability and salience in China. A series of dimensions common in Western organisations were found in our research, including Optimism, Creativity, Resiliency, Self‐confidence, Forgiveness and Gratitude, Courage and Ambition (Hope). These were found to be common types of psychological capital both in China and in the West. However, the dimensions of Courtesy and Humility (Qian‐gong‐you‐li in Chinese), Self‐possession and Sincerity fell into the “different” category.

This paper is a first attempt to examine psychological capital in a range of organisational forms and industrial sectors in China using a grounded theory approach. It not only reports various dimensions of Chinese psychological capital, some unique to this research, but also compares and contrasts these dimensions between China and the West, highlighting further research opportunities.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of ethical leadership and psychological capital on knowledge sharing and knowledge creation in organizations. It also investigates the mediating effect of psychological capital and moderating effect of shared goals in the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge sharing and between ethical leadership and knowledge creation.

The study uses a quantitative research design wherein the survey questionnaire has been used to gather data from 700 respondents in public sector research organizations, information technology companies and central universities and colleges. Hypotheses of the study have been tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings unveil that ethical leadership and psychological capital have a positive impact on knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Psychological capital mediates and shared goals moderates the relationships of ethical leadership with knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Knowledge sharing mediates between ethical leadership and knowledge creation.

The study exploits quantitative research methodology, which may be supplemented by other research methodologies by future researchers.

This study offers new insights into the sharing and creating of knowledge by employees under the influences of ethical leadership and psychological capital. It will encourage future researchers and practitioners to further explore these dimensions for a more detailed investigation and explanation at work place. This study suggests that organizational leaders should behave in an ethical manner and should emphasise on various organizational interventions to increase psychological capital and shared goals to strengthen knowledge sharing and knowledge creation.

This study is among early attempts for investigating the linkage of ethical leadership and psychological capital with knowledge sharing and knowledge creation.

Since the term's introduction two decades ago, “psychological capital” has been described as an intangible strategic organizational resource. However, there remains a dearth of research regarding its application, especially in the macro-management fields. This paper addresses this gap by elevating the individual-level psychological capital (ILPC) concept to an equivalent organizational-level psychological capital (OLPC) model with appropriate methodological considerations.

The elevation of ILPC to OLPC is conducted using referent shift approach. Then, the proposed OLPC model is tested and validated using the partial least-squares structural equation modeling analysis technique.

Testing the OLPC model adequately validated the basic requirements of reliability, validity, multicollinearity and redundancy analysis. To ensure the practical use of the proposed model, a simulation study was also conducted, and the results confirmed the strength of ILPC being elevated to a model of OLPC.

The findings imply a better understanding of psychological capital from a multilevel perspective and present cross-level opportunities to enrich the scholarly corpus. The current paper also provides an insight into psychological capital management efficiency at all organizational levels so that the greatest benefits can be obtained.

This paper shows, for the first time, the possibility of borrowing ILPC concepts to help enact OLPC in organizations by means of a survey study. This paves the way for further investigation into the use of psychological capital at strategic and other macromanagement levels. Finally, future studies are encouraged to triangulate and strengthen the main arguments presented here.

This chapter provides valuable insights around the entrepreneurial landscapes of the twenty-first century, as well as the inherent stressors that may impact entrepreneurial well-being and performance. As the World Health Organization declares stress as the epidemic of the twenty-first century, entrepreneurs face increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous contexts, or what the Army War College refers to as “VUCA” environments. In these contexts, traditional models of leadership and stress management in entrepreneurship require tapping into new, sometimes previously untapped and underdeveloped resources. Resources such as Psychological Capital (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan, & Avolio, 2007), Algorithmic Leadership (Harms & Han, 2018), and wearable biometric technologies (Tsuji, Sato, Yano, Broad, & Luthans, 2019) that exploit big data analytics powered by artificial intelligence will be invaluable to entrepreneurs as they manage stress, and build and maintain their competitive edges.

The purpose of this paper was to contribute to a deeper understanding of the effects of transformational leadership on team performance, examining the role of team psychological capital (team PsyCap) and team learning behaviours as intervening mechanisms in that relationship.

A quantitative study with a cross-sectional design was conducted. The sample was composed of 82 teams from 57 Portuguese companies. Hypotheses were tested through structural equation modelling.

Results revealed that transformational leadership is positively related to team PsyCap, which, in turn, is positively related to team learning behaviours. Moreover, the study’s findings supported the indirect influence of transformational leadership on team performance, through the role played by team PsyCap and team learning behaviours.

This is the first study that considers the mediating role of team PsyCap and team learning behaviours in the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance. In this manner, the present research contributes to the body of research on leadership, highlighting the way through which leadership might translate into team performance. Moreover, it contributes also to the positive organisational behaviour literature, identifying both antecedents and consequents of team PsyCap. The study’s findings encourage organisations to develop ways of reinforcing transformational leadership behaviours and psychological capital among teams.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between team psychological capital (PsyCap) and team process improvement (TPI) by focusing on the mediating role of team self-managing behaviors (TSMBs) and the moderating effect of the team reward system.

Data were collected from 514 members and their immediate superiors nested in 135 action teams working for a Canadian public safety organization. Hypotheses were tested using a path analytic procedure.

Team PsyCap was positively related to TPI, and this relationship was mediated by TSMBs. In addition, the team reward system positively moderated the first stage of this relationship.

This study highlights the important role that motivational factors play in the effectiveness of action teams. Specifically, the present study reveals that the psychological resources of action teams interact with the level of recognition and reward they receive to predict members’ engagement in self-managing behaviors and in improvement processes.

Findings suggest that to promote the capacity for process improvement of actions teams, managers should focus on their positive psychological resources, their capacity to self-manage and on the level of recognition and reward they receive.

Considering the dynamic and complex environments within which action teams operate, the finding that team PsyCap promotes their optimal functioning is particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, this study clarifies why and when team PsyCap enhances TPI.

In today's dynamic business environment and crisis and pandemic like situations, psychological capital has become very significant for sustainable competitive advantage. Due to its importance in organizational context, researchers are investigating it from various perspectives, making it a burgeoning research area. Hence, this study aims to review the literature, provide identity in terms of various patterns and trends, and build the intellectual structure (academic structure) of psychological capital research by presenting a big picture. It further provides the theories, characteristics, context and methodologies (TCCM) analysis and potential avenues for possible future research to facilitate the growth of the field.

This study compiles, evaluates and synthesizes the extant literature of psychological capital, consisting of 954 journal articles collected from Web of Science (WOS) database, using bibliometric techniques, content analysis, and TCCM analysis.

The study identifies various patterns and trends of psychological capital research and unfolds four major themes, namely psychological capital theoretical concept development, psychological capital relationship building with organizational variables, psychological capital as an underlying mechanism for linkage between organizational variables and psychological capital interventions. It also identifies TCCM outcome and potential avenues for possible future research. The study reveals that psychological capital research area is progressing and has enormous potential to advance in the future.

This study is pivotal to past–future orientation wherein past is being investigated for developing new pathways of psychological capital research. It has used research articles published in the WOS database, and future studies may further enhance the understanding of psychological research using other databases.

In addition to advance a comprehensive understanding of psychological capital research, this study will be a quick reference and notable and profound resource for researchers venturing into this marked research area. Further, it will facilitate to leaders and managers to look into various possible avenues to enhance psychological capital of their subordinates for greater organizational good.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this is first study to advance a comprehensive and systematic understanding of psychological capital by integrating bibliometric, TCCM and content analysis.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between leadership styles, psychological capital and job engagement.

Data were collected among knowledge workers working no less than 1 year in three high-tech enterprises in Henan Province, China. The investigation was conducted with the cooperation from the human resource departments of the selected enterprises from August to October 2014. To minimize potential common method bias, the authors adopted a cross-lagged design with a time gap of four months. The statistical methods included descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrap analysis.

The results showed: leadership styles significantly influenced employees’ psychological capital and work engagement; specifically, transformational and transactional leadership positively predicted employees’ psychological capital and work engagement; compared with transactional leadership, transformational leadership had stronger predictive power to employees’ psychological capital and work engagement; employees’ psychological capital positively predicted their work engagement; and employees’ psychological capital acts as partial mediator between leadership styles and employees’ work engagement.

Although a body of studies have shown that leadership is an important factor influencing employees’ work attitude and outcomes, it is only in recent years that the effect mechanism of leadership becomes a hot subject in organizational behavior and management fields. As for leadership styles, in general, most research concerned transformational leadership, rather than transactional leadership and only a little of research compared the effects of transformational leadership and transactional leadership on employees’ work outcomes. In terms of outcomes of leadership, as noted earlier, the previous research mainly explored job performance, job satisfaction, innovation behavior, job burnout and so on. Regarding the effect of leadership styles on employees’ work engagement, in spite of more and more supportive evidence of the link between transformational leadership and work engagement, few studies examined the relationship between transactional leadership and work engagement. What’s more, to the best of our knowledge, till now, no empirical research has explored the internal mechanism of this effect from the perspective of psychological capital. Therefore, the present study is a breakthrough for the direct model of leadership styles and employees’ engagement, theoretically bridges the research gap and contributes to the existing literature by presenting a new picture of leadership behavior effect mechanism.