Abstract
Orientation: The development of psychological capital amongst call centre employees could have an impact on positive work-related attitudes and behaviour; such as work engagement and organisational commitment.Research purpose: The purpose of the research was to determine the relationship between psychological capital, work engagement and organisational commitment amongst call centre employees; and further, to determine whether psychological capital and work engagement hold predictive value for the organisational commitment of call centre employees.Motivation for the study: There is a gap in research in understanding and enabling positive resource capacities in highly stressful work contexts such as call centres.Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey design was used. A sample of 106 call centre employees from a South African organisation participated in the research. The measuring instruments included a demographic questionnaire, the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) and the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ).Main findings: Significant positive relationships were found between psychological capital, work engagement and organisational commitment. The results showed work engagement as being the only significant predictor of organisational commitment.Practical/managerial implications: Call centre employers need to develop and implement workplace interventions that would increase the psychological capital of call centre employees.Contribution/value-add: The research findings will benefit both call centre employees and management. The study highlighted the importance of the role of optimism as a subdimension of psychological capital in developing work engagement and organisational commitment amongst call centre employees.
Highlights
The call centre environment is one of the fastest-growing segments in the service sector, both in South Africa and internationally (Swart, 2006)
The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the research by identifying the relationships that may exist between Psychological capital (PsyCap), work engagement and organisational commitment amongst South African call centre employees
The findings reported above support the hypotheses of the present study: firstly, that PsyCap is related positively to work engagement; secondly, that PsyCap is related positively to organisational commitment; and thirdly, that work engagement is related positively to organisational commitment
Summary
The call centre environment is one of the fastest-growing segments in the service sector, both in South Africa and internationally (Swart, 2006). A review of the literature indicates that little has been done with regard to exploring the role of state-like characteristics and other personal resources in managing organisational demands or facilitating employee performance in call centres (Lombard, 2009; Zapf, Isic, Bechtoldt & Blau, 2003). In this regard, positive psychological resource capacities, such as psychological capital, have been shown to have an impact on desired work-related outcomes such as improved attitudes to work engagement and behaviours of organisational commitment in various work contexts (Youssef & Luthans, 2007). The current study investigates the relationship between Psychological capital (PsyCap), work engagement and organisational commitment and determines whether PsyCap and work engagement predict organisational commitment
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