More evidence on the value of Chinese workers' psychological capital: A potentially unlimited competitive resource?
07 May 2008-International Journal of Human Resource Management (Taylor & Francis Group)-Vol. 19, Iss: 5, pp 818-827
TL;DR: In this article, a positive approach to Chinese HRM that recognizes, develops and manages the psychological capital (PsyCap) of workers is proposed, and the results of a follow-up study provide further evidence that the PsyCap of Chinese workers is related to their performance.
Abstract: As China continues its unprecedented economic growth and emergence as a world power, new solutions must be forthcoming to meet the accompanying challenges. We propose a positive approach to Chinese HRM that recognizes, develops and manages the psychological capital (PsyCap) of workers. After providing a brief overview of hope, efficacy, optimism, resilience and overall PsyCap in today's Chinese context, the results of a follow-up study provide further evidence that the PsyCap of Chinese workers is related to their performance. The implications that this evidence-based value of Chinese workers' psychological capital has for China now and into the future concludes this study.
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TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors investigated the changes in people's psychological capital state due to the COVID-19 pandemic and found that the mental health status and social support level of participants from 2019 to 2020 significantly and negatively predicted the level of employee psychological capital in 2020.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic is a major public health emergency and a significant stressor to most people. The objective of this study was to examine the mental health status and social support level of participants from 2019 to 2020. The study aimed to investigate the changes in people's psychological capital state due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A longitudinal study was performed to study the psychosocial predictors of mental health among a sample of 2,999 Chinese employees in 2019, and the follow-up survey was conducted one year later. Regression coefficients were visualized in a heatmap. Path analysis was performed base on the structural equation model (SEM) to measure the associations between study variables. The status of mental health, resilience, and optimism changed significantly during the pandemic (P < 0.05). The level of employee's social support in 2019 could significantly and positively predicted the level of employee's psychological capital in 2020, and the level of employee mental health in 2019 significantly and negatively predicted the level of employee psychological capital in 2020. The mental health of employees played an intermediary role between social support and psychological capital. These results highlight that the COVID-19 pandemic has a strong impact on the psychological capital of company employees. While demanding performance, corporations should ensure timely intervention in the mental health of their employees.
1 citations
28 Nov 2014
Abstract: Positive psychology interventions focussed on the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions (Gable & Haidt, 2005) are increasingly used in organizations as a complement to those controlling risks to psychological health (LaMontagne et al., 2014). Team/group and organizational level positive approaches are being developed, and may prove to yield greater benefits than individual-level approaches or to enhance their effects (LaMontagne et al., 2014). However, given growing emphasis on multilevel conceptualisation and measurement of the construct of employee wellbeing we note that assessing the impact of team interventions at the individual level is problematic (Martin, Karanika-Murray, Biron & Sanderson, 2014).
1 citations
20 Nov 2015
TL;DR: Choi et al. as discussed by the authors investigated the relationship between employee perception of autonomous work environment (AWE), positive psychological capital (PsyCap), and self-directed behavior (SDB) in large Korean manufacturing companies.
Abstract: Self-directed employees are often regarded as the key resource for making continual organizational success in business. In recent years, a few leading business organizations have introduced and implemented autonomy supporting human resource (HR) practices to encourage employees to present a high level of self-directed behavior. However, not all business organizations have been able to reap the benefits of autonomy supporting HR practices, and some fail in drawing positive outcomes. The purpose of this study is to identify and understand the role and impact of perceptions of autonomous work environments and positive psychological capital that affect self-directed behavior in a non-western cultural context with a multilevel approach. To achieve this purpose, this study investigates the relationships between employee perception of autonomous work environment (AWE), positive psychological capital (PsyCap), and self-directed behavior (SDB) in large Korean manufacturing companies. 331 surveys from 43 teams in six large Korean automotive part manufacturing companies were gathered and analyzed by using simple OLS regression and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses. Results revealed significant cross-level direct and indirect effects of supervisor’s perception of AWE and subordinate’s PsyCap on subordinates’ SDB. The combination of providing a high level of AWE for supervisors and developing the PsyCap of subordinates along with institutionalizing self-directed employee behavior as a performance appraisal is suggested as a strategic option for organizations to reap the benefits of autonomy supporting HR practices.
1 citations
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: This article examined the psychological components involved in the completion of a Ph.D. journey and found the presence of Grit, adequate support systems, balance, positive self-talk, and a moderately high level of PsyCap.
Abstract: This was a descriptive study which examined the psychological components involved in the completion of a Ph.D. journey. I used a phenomenological approach to investigate doctoral program experiences (n=23), seeking to identify strategies, skills, and experiences commonly shared by successful Ph.D. students through a lens of Transformational Learning, Psychological Capital (PsyCap), and Emotional Intelligence (EI). Assessment measures included interviews, questionnaires, and the administration of both the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal (EIA) and Psychological Capital Questionnaires (PCQ). Findings revealed the presence of Grit, adequate support systems, balance, positive self-talk, and a moderately high level of PsyCap. A correlational analysis indicated a moderately strong positive correlation (r = 0.62) between EI and PsyCap. Finally, suggestions were provided for graduate departments to help support doctoral success.
1 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the direct effects of psychological empowerment on psychological capital, employees' job attitudes and behaviors, whereas psychological contract types (relational and transactional contract) were moderators between psychological capital and employees attitude and behaviors.
Abstract: The purpose of the study was to examine the direct effects of psychological empowerment on psychological capital, employees’ job attitudes and behaviors and the direct effects of psychological capital and employees’ job attitudes and behaviors. This study further examined the mediating role of psychological capital between psychological empowerment and employees’ job attitudes and behaviors. In addition, the study also examined the moderating role of Core-self-evaluation on the relationship between psychological empowerment and psychological capital, whereas psychological contract types (relational and transactional contract) were moderators between psychological capital and employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Longitudinal research design was used in the current study and data were collected from employees working in different telecom sector organization. The data on psychological capital, psychological empowerment and psychological contract types (relational and transactional contract) were collected at time 1, after approximately two months data on CSE, employees’ attitudes and behaviors were collected at time 2 and whereas supervisory based employees performance data was also collected at time 2. The total sample size for analysis was 411. The findings revealed that psychological empowerment had a positive effect on psychological capital, employees’ attitudes, employees’ behavior and employees’ performance. However, psychological capital were also found to be positively related to employees attitudes, employees behaviors and employees performance. In addition, psychological capital mediated the relationship between psychological empowerment and employees satisfaction, employees commitment, employees turnover intension, counterwork productive behaviors, organization citizenship behavior and in-role performance. The result further shows that core-self-evaluation moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and psychological capital. The results revealed that psychological contract types (Relational Contract and Transactional Contract) moderated the relationship between psychological capital and turnover intension, counterproductive work behavior and commitment of employees, whereas their as non-significant relationship of interactive effect psychological contract types (Relational Contract and Transactional Contract) and psychological capital was found with OCB, employees’ satisfaction and in-role performance. Future direction and implication of the study are also discussed.
1 citations
Cites background from "More evidence on the value of Chine..."
...Using three different samples, the results show that psychological capital is in a positive relation with performance of the employee, commitment, satisfaction and a supportive environment relates with employee commitment and satisfaction (Luthans et al, 2008)....
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...(Luthans et al, 2008)....
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References
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Book•
01 Jan 1997TL;DR: SelfSelf-Efficacy (SE) as discussed by the authors is a well-known concept in human behavior, which is defined as "belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments".
Abstract: Albert Bandura and the Exercise of Self-Efficacy Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control Albert Bandura. New York: W. H. Freeman (www.whfreeman.com). 1997, 604 pp., $46.00 (hardcover). Enter the term "self-efficacy" in the on-line PSYCLIT database and you will find over 2500 articles, all of which stem from the seminal contributions of Albert Bandura. It is difficult to do justice to the immense importance of this research for our theories, our practice, and indeed for human welfare. Self-efficacy (SE) has proven to be a fruitful construct in spheres ranging from phobias (Bandura, Jeffery, & Gajdos, 1975) and depression (Holahan & Holahan, 1987) to career choice behavior (Betz & Hackett, 1986) and managerial functioning (Jenkins, 1994). Bandura's Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control is the best attempt so far at organizing, summarizing, and distilling meaning from this vast and diverse literature. Self-Efficacy may prove to be Bandura's magnum opus. Dr. Bandura has done an impressive job of summarizing over 1800 studies and papers, integrating these results into a coherent framework, and detailing implications for theory and practice. While incorporating prior works such as Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) and "Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency" (Bandura, 1982), Self-Efficacy extends these works by describing results of diverse new research, clarifying and extending social cognitive theory, and fleshing out implications of the theory for groups, organizations, political bodies, and societies. Along the way, Dr. Bandura masterfully contrasts social cognitive theory with many other theories of human behavior and helps chart a course for future research. Throughout, B andura' s clear, firm, and self-confident writing serves as the perfect vehicle for the theory he espouses. Self-Efficacy begins with the most detailed and clear explication of social cognitive theory that I have yet seen, and proceeds to delineate the nature and sources of SE, the well-known processes via which SE mediates human behavior, and the development of SE over the life span. After laying this theoretical groundwork, subsequent chapters delineate the relevance of SE to human endeavor in a variety of specific content areas including cognitive and intellectual functioning; health; clinical problems including anxiety, phobias, depression, eating disorders, alcohol problems, and drug abuse; athletics and exercise activity; organizations; politics; and societal change. In Bandura's words, "Perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (p. 3). People's SE beliefs have a greater effect on their motivation, emotions, and actions than what is objectively true (e.g., actual skill level). Therefore, SE beliefs are immensely important in choice of behaviors (including occupations, social relationships, and a host of day-to-day behaviors), effort expenditure, perseverance in pursuit of goals, resilience to setbacks and problems, stress level and affect, and indeed in our ways of thinking about ourselves and others. Bandura affirms many times that humans are proactive and free as well as determined: They are "at least partial architects of their own destinies" (p. 8). Because SE beliefs powerfully affect human behaviors, they are a key factor in human purposive activity or agency; that is, in human freedom. Because humans shape their environment even as they are shaped by it, SE beliefs are also pivotal in the construction of our social and physical environments. Bandura details over two decades of research confirming that SE is modifiable via mastery experiences, vicarious learning, verbal persuasion, and interpretation of physiological states, and that modified SE strongly and consistently predicts outcomes. SE beliefs, then, are central to human self-determination. STRENGTHS One major strength of Self-Efficacy is Bandura's ability to deftly dance from forest to trees and back again to forest, using specific, human examples and concrete situations to highlight his major theoretical premises, to which he then returns. …
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"More evidence on the value of Chine..." refers background in this paper
...However, there is now considerable evidence, both conceptually (e.g., Bandura 1997; Snyder 2000, 2002; Luthans et al. 2007b) and empirically (Magaletta and Oliver 1999; Carifio and Rhodes 2002; Bryant and Cvengros 2004), that they are independent constructs....
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...Self-efficacy is the positive belief or confidence in one’s ability to perform specific tasks (Bandura 1997)....
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TL;DR: The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in the authors' knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.
Abstract: A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless, The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses. The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss such issues as what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in our knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.
12,650 citations
"More evidence on the value of Chine..." refers background in this paper
...Positive psychology (e.g., see Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000; Synder and Lopez 2002), positive organizational behaviour (Luthans 2002; Luthans 2003; Wright 2003; Luthans and Youssef 2007; Nelson and Cooper 2007); positive organizational scholarship (Cameron, Dutton and Quinn 2003), and…...
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TL;DR: The authors investigated factors that affect translation quality and how equivalence between source and target versions can be evaluated through an analysis of variance design, and concluded that translation quality can be predicted, and that a functionally equivalent translation can be demonstrated when responses to the original and target translations are studied.
Abstract: Two aspects of translation were investigated: (1) factors that affect translation quality, and (2) how equivalence between source and target versions can be evaluated. The variables of language, content, and difficulty were studied through an analysis of variance design. Ninety-four bilinguals from the University of Guam, representing ten languages, translated or back-translated six essays incorporating three content areas and two levels of difficulty. The five criteria for equivalence were based on comparisons of meaning or predictions of similar responses to original or translated versions. The factors of content, difficulty, language and content-language interaction were significant, and the five equivalence criteria proved workable. Conclusions are that translation quality can be predicted, and that a functionally equivalent translation can be demonstrated when responses to the original and target versions are studied.
9,422 citations
"More evidence on the value of Chine..." refers methods in this paper
...All scales were translated into Mandarin Chinese using back translation methodology (Brislin 1970, 1980)....
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TL;DR: An examination of converging findings from variable-focused and person-focused investigations of resilience suggests that resilience is common and that it usually arises from the normative functions of human adaptational systems, with the greatest threats to human development being those that compromise these protective systems.
Abstract: The study of resilience in development has overturned many negative assumptions and deficit-focused models about children growing up under the threat of disadvantage and adversity. The most surprising conclusion emerging from studies of these children is the ordinariness of resilience. An examination of converging findings from variable-focused and person-focused investigations of these phenomena suggests that resilience is common and that it usually arises from the normative functions of human adaptational systems, with the greatest threats to human development being those that compromise these protective systems. The conclusion that resilience is made of ordinary rather than extraordinary processes offers a more positive outlook on human development and adaptation, as well as direction for policy and practice aimed at enhancing the development of children at risk for problems and psychopathology.
5,961 citations
"More evidence on the value of Chine..." refers background in this paper
...Resiliency is the capacity to bounce back from adverse or stressful situations (Masten, Best and Garmezy 1990; Masten 2001; Luthans 2002)....
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...At one time thought to be very rare and even ‘magical’, resiliency is now recognized to be a psychological capacity that all individuals possess (Masten 2001), but it needs to be developed and unleashed....
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TL;DR: A new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love, that serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought–action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources.
Abstract: This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broadenand-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed. Even though research on emotions has this new perspective are featured. My hope is flourished in recent years, investigations that that this article will unlock scientific curiosity expressly target positive emotions remain few and far between. Any review of the psychological literature on emotions will show that psychologists have typically favored negative emotions in theory building and hypothesis testing. In so doing, psychologists have inadvertently marginalized the emotions, such as joy, about positive emotions, not only to test the ideas presented here, but also to build other new models that might illuminate the nature and value of positive emotions. Psychology sorely needs more studies on positive emotions, not simply to level the uneven knowledge bases between negative and positive emotions, but interest, contentment, and love, that share a more critically, to guide applications and pleasant subjective feel. To date, then, psychology's knowledge base regarding positive emotions is so thin that satisfying answers to the question "What good are positive emotions?" have yet to be articulated. This is unfortunate. Experiences of positive emotion are central to human nature and contribute richly to the quality of people's lives (Diener & Larsen,
5,198 citations
"More evidence on the value of Chine..." refers background in this paper
...…Luthans and Youssef 2007; Nelson and Cooper 2007); positive organizational scholarship (Cameron, Dutton and Quinn 2003), and positive emotions (Fredrickson 1998, 2000) have all provided evidence that individuals flourish when the focus shifts from fixing what is wrong with people to…...
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