Psychological capital: A review and synthesis

By Alexander Newman, Deniz Ucbasaran, Fei Zhu, Giles Hirst. 2014

779 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Summary The concept of psychological capital (PsyCap) has attracted a great deal of interest from both academics and practitioners and has been linked to employee attitudes, behavior and performance at different levels of analysis. Yet, the nature of the concept, its measurement, the factors that influence its development, and when and how it influences individual-level, team-level and organizational-level outcomes are the subject of continued debate in the literature. This article offers a detailed and focused review of the existing literature on PsyCap, with the aim of developing an agenda for future research. In particular, we call for researchers to pay greater attention to possible multi-level applications of PsyCap research, examine the underlying mechanisms by which PsyCap influences individual-level, team-level and organizational-level outcomes, and identify possible factors that may moderate the relationship between PsyCap and its outcomes. In doing this, we provide a roadmap for scholars to progress the development of the field. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1e3c810eb1d4a4fd7d7f042acb55d87fea58755d

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In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

The relationship between psychological capital, job satisfaction, and safety perceptions in the maritime industry (2015, background): “Over the last decade an accumulating body of research has suggested that this motivational state is linked to organizational effectiveness and desired work outcomes (Newman et al., 2014; Youssef and Luthans, 2012).”
Collective psychological capital: Linking shared leadership, organizational commitment, and creativity (2018, background): “Despite the research work regarding the topic, at the group or organization level, PsyCap represents an emerging topic of research and published studies are scarce (Newman et al., 2014).”
Test of a mediation model of psychological capital among hotel salespeople (2017, background): “The research void regarding the effects of the indicators of PsyCap simultaneously on these outcomes among salespeople is also evident in the relevant studies (Newman et al., 2014).”
Frontline hotel employees’ psychological capital, trust in organization, and their effects on nonattendance intentions, absenteeism, and creative performance (2018, background): “In fact, such void is apparent in the extant literature (Avey, Reichard, Luthans, & Mhatre, 2011; Bouzari & Karatepe, 2017; Karatepe & Karadas, 2014; Newman et al., 2014).”
How leader humility helps teams to be humbler, psychologically stronger, and more effective: a moderated mediation model (2017, background): “Even more modest are studies focusing on the antecedents of team PsyCap, as argued by Newman et al. (2014) and Heled et al. (2016).”
The influence of instructor support, family support and psychological capital on the well-being of postgraduate students: a moderated mediation model (2017, background): “As highlighted earlier, PsyCap represents an individual’s positive state of psychological development (Newman et al. 2014), and is conceptualized as a higher-order factor, made up of four dimensions; self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience (Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans 2004).”
The antecedents and consequences of positive organizational behavior: The role of psychological capital for promoting employee well-being in sport organizations (2019, background): “Newman et al. (2014) found that most psychological capital studies have been conducted at the individual level to test its antecedents and outcomes.”
Testing a dynamic model of the impact of psychological capital on work engagement and job performance (2018, background): “During the past decade new emphasis has been placed on investigating, clarifying, and ultimately, understanding the relationship between employee positive states (such as PsyCap and work engagement), and job performance (Luthans, 2002; Newman et al., 2014).”
Effects of tourism CSR on employee psychological capital in the COVID-19 crisis: from the perspective of conservation of resources theory (2020, background): “Evidence shows that psychological capital can significantly influence employee attitudes toward work, work behaviours and performance (Newman et al., 2014).”
Driving innovation: Public policy and human capital (2019, background): “In the last 20 years, the human capital concept has evolved significantly, and current conceptions of human capital include a wide range of human attributes that are relevant to job performance and productivity, ranging from personality traits, work attitudes and values (Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011”