The Influence of Positive Psychological Capital and Work Attitude on the Performance of Employees in ITES

Abstract

Although modem psychology started with the charge to not only help people withproblems but also identify and build strengths in people, through the years virtuallyall the attention has been devoted to mental illness what is wrong with people andhow to repair the damage. Years ago, it was well-knownResearch psychologist, Seligman, proactively started the positive psychology movement in his address to the APA (Seligman, 1998). He charged the field of psychology to use scientific methods to study and discover the strengths that allow individuals, groups, organizations, andcommu-nities to thrive and prosper (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Luthans (2002a, 2002b) extended his work in positive psychology to the work place and called it positive organizational behavior or POB. Initially, the theory-building for POB identified and supported confidence (or self efficacy), hope, optimism, subjective well-being (or happiness), resiliency, and emotional intelligence as meeting the POB criteria of being not only positive, but also unique to the organizational behaviour field, based on theory and research with valid measures, and state-like openness to development, change, and management for performance improvement (Luthans, 2002a, 2002b, 2003). Subsequent POB theory building, research, and applications have focused mostly on hope, resiliency, confidence, and optimism and their relationship to leadership (Avolio, Gardner, Walumba, Luthans, & May, 2004; Luthans & Avolio, 2003; Luthans, Luthans, Hodgetts & Luthans, 2002; Luthans, Van Wyk & Walumbwa, 2004; Peterson & Luthans, 2003). Considerable prior theory and research (e.g. Bryant & Cvengros, 2004; Luthans & Jensen, 2002; Magaletta & Oliver, 1999; Snyder, 2000; Snyder, Rand & Sigmon, 2002) have clearly demonstrated each of these positive psychological constructsto be conceptually independent with discriminately valid measures. Recent work by Luthans and colleagues (e.g., Luthans, Luthans & Luthans, 2004;Luthans & Youssef, 2004) combined or bundled POB states conceptually into the higher-order core construct of what they call 'positive psychological capital' or PsyCap. They proposed that psychological capital goes beyond the now widely recognized human capital (i.e. what you know) and social capital (i.e., who you know, and is basically 'who you (Luthans, Luthans & Luthans, 2004; Luthans & Avolio, 2003). At the individual level, psycholo-gical capital is psychological resource that may fuel growth and performance. At the organizational level, similar to human and social capital, psychological capital may provide leverage, return on investment, and competitive advantage through improved employee performance. Specifically, psychological capital is defined as a core psychological factor of positivityin general, and POB criteria meeting states in particular, that go beyond human and social capital to gain competitive advantage through investment/development of 'who you are' (Luthans, Luthans & Luthans, 2004; Luthans & Youssef, 2004). The key points of psychological capital are: (1) based on the positive psychology paradigm (i.e. the importance of positivity and human strengths); (2) includes psychological states based on positive organizational behaviour or POB criteria (i.e., unique, theory/research, valid measurement, and state-like); (3) goes beyond human capital (i.e., what you know) and social capital (i.e., who you know) to 'who you are'; and (4) involves investment and development (i.e., such as economic/financial capital) for return yielding performance improvement and resulting competitive advantage.PsyCap is defined as, an individual's positive psychological state of development and is characterized by: ( 1 ) having confidence (selfefficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success. …