PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AS A PREDICTOR OF SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AND CAREER COMMITMENT

Abstract

i ABSTRACT The field of psychology has seen a shift of focus from studying dysfunctional behavior to focusing on the positive capabilities of the employees and strengthening them. Positive organizational behavior has been given importance by researchers and professionals alike to give a boost to the researches in this area. By concentrating on the human capacities, it will directly impact the organizational productivity and employees’ well-being. Keeping in mind the role of positive emotions in the key organizational domains this research attempted to study the relationship between three positive psychological constructs i.e., psychological capital, subjective well-being and career commitment. Each construct’s dimensions were also studied for their relationships with other dimensions. The research was carried out with the view of serving two purposes. Firstly, the aim was to explore psychological capital as a predictor of subjective well-being and career commitment in the employees working in Indian manufacturing sector. Secondly, the intention was to probe the role of subjective well-being as a mediator in the relationship between psychological capital and career commitment. It was hypothesized that people high on psychological capital will experience higher levels of career commitment in part because they also tend to experience higher feelings of subjective well-being than do people low on psychological capital. Statistically, subjective well-being was expected to eliminate or significantly reduce the relationship between psychological capital and career commitment. A quantitative survey-based research design employing data from 314 employees in the National Capital Region (NCR) was used in the present research. To test the same, the respondents filled psychological capital (2007) questionnaire (Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman, 2007a), measure of life satisfaction (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985a), positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and a career commitment measure (Carson & Bedeian, 1994). The analysis was performed with the help of SPSS©21, AMOS©24 and PROCESS. Firstly, the data was checked for: missing values, normality through skewness and kurtosis, assessment of non-multicollinearity through variance inflation factors (VIF) and common method bias with the help of Harman’s single factor. Secondly, reliability using internal consistency coefficients, convergent and discriminant validity using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were calculated. Thereafter, descriptive analysis was undertaken. Lastly, testing of the hypotheses was performed using correlational analysis, multiple hierarchical regression and conditional process analysis ii The results demonstrated that psychological capital acted as a predictor of subjective well-being and career commitment. Further, mediation analysis stated that the relationship between psychological capital and career commitment was significantly reduced when subjective well-being was controlled statistically. Hence, subjective well-being acted as a partial mediator. This study suggests that in order for organizations to have a workforce committed to their career and hence, their profession, the supervisors will need to train the employees having a higher incidence of psychological capital with a view to further increase their subjective well-being. Consequently, the supervisors will in turn need to recruit employees already having the four dimensions of psychological capital i.e. hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism at the workplace in order for them to have a higher life satisfaction, positive affect, reduced negative affect (three components of subjective well-being) and increased career identity, career resilience and career planning (three components of career commitment). The present study advances the existing work on positive organizational behavior by exhibiting the noteworthy role of psychological capital in predicting subjective well-being and career commitment. Further, it helps in demonstrating the inevitable role of subjective well-being in partially mediating the relationship between psychological capital and career commitment.