The “point” of positive organizational behavior

By Fred Luthans, Bruce J. Avolio. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2009

332 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Perhaps the most important “Point” we would like to make in this “Point-Counterpoint” on positive organizational behavior is the role that research must play in this evolving area of study. We follow this point on the importance of research by drawing from recent findings that indicate in discussions such as this point and counterpoint, that taking a positive approach leads to more in-depth inquiry, whereas a negative perspective leads to advocacy and in our view less learning potential. Thus, the positive perspective we take in this “Point” piece is to identify and make a deep inquiry into the major issues and questions surrounding positive organizational behavior (POB). We consciously try to avoid taking an advocacy position. Specifically, after first setting the stage with the background and status of POB, we draw from the lessons that can be learned from positive psychology and then make an inquiry into “Why POB?” and exactly “What is POB?” The article concludes with further inquiry into the role the negative does and can play, and finally how POB relates to our recent work in authentic leadership development. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f0ef1a4745c48f4e16bfecf5ccc49f2c870a5143

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Citations in the corpus

Impact of authentic leadership on performance: Role of followers' positive psychological capital and relational processes (2014, background): “As originally depicted by Luthans and Avolio (2003), authentic leaders’ behaviors come from these positive psychological resources and in turn lead to the development of themselves and their followers (also see Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Yammarino, Dionne, Schriesheim, & Dansereau, 2008).”
The Emerging Significance of Values Based Leadership: A Literature Review (2014, unknown): “In quantifiable terms, May et al. (2003) argue that the deception and unethical behavior of key corporate leaders at that time “conservatively cost the U.”
Job Burnout and Employee Engagement (2012, background): “Interest in employee engagement has grown along with the mounting popularity of the “positive movement” in organizational behavior and its emphasis on promoting affirmative rather than merely preventing negative psychological states (Avey, Luthans, & Youssef, 2010; Luthans & Avolio, 2009).”
Do Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership Explain Variance Above and Beyond Transformational Leadership? A Meta-Analysis (2018, background): “Also, authentic leaders possess positive psychological capital in that they are confident, optimistic, hopeful, and resilient (Luthans & Avolio, 2009).”
Authentic leadership and leaders' mental well-being: An experience sampling study (2017, background): “…Streicher, Braun, & Frey, 2012), which has triggered an increasing focus on positive, more values-driven forms of leadership in the past decade of leadership research (Fehr, Yam, & Dang, 2015; Luthans & Avolio, 2009; Schaubroeck et al., 2012), such as authentic leadership (Gardner et al., 2011).”
A Tale of Two Paradigms: The Impact of Psychological Capital and Reinforcing Feedback on Problem Solving and Innovation (2011, unknown): “In addition to this established research from the OB Mod approach coming from the behavioral paradigm, in this study we also draw from the emerging research in positive organizational behavior (POB) mainly coming from a distinctively different social cognitive paradigm ( Luthans, 2002a , 2002b ; L”
Authentic Leadership and Follower Development (2011, background): “However, the second prediction, that authentic leaders enhance followers’ PsyCap, has not been empirically confirmed and, therefore, provides the motivation for this article (Luthans & Avolio, 2009; Luthans, Youssef, et al., 2007).”
Impact of positive psychological capital on employee well-being over time. (2010, background): “We propose that one important way of answering this challenge is to identify constructs such as positive PsyCap (e.g., see Luthans & Avolio, 2009; Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman, 2007; Luthans & Youssef, 2004; Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007) that may be amenable to intervention and related to…”
The Additive Value of Positive Psychological Capital in Predicting Work Attitudes and Behaviors (2010, background): “…2002a, 2002b; Wright, 2003) as a way to focus in on bringing positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) to the workplace (see Luthans & Avolio, 2009 and Luthans & Youssef, 2007 that respectively traces the development and meaning of POB and provides an overall comprehensive…”
Psychological Capital: An Evidence-Based Positive Approach (2017, background): “Also, relevant to the fields of management and organizational behavior, several streams of research and practice emerged, applying positive psychology to the workplace (for the origins of this approach, see Luthans 2016, Luthans & Avolio 2009).”
Two field studies examining the association between positive psychological capital and employee performance (2010, background): “Conceptually, it is important to recognize that researchers pursuing the limits of POB have been careful, in much the same vein as positive psychology advocates, to consistently note that the focus on positive psychological concepts does not imply that they are necessarily newly developed ( Luthans ”
Relationship between positive psychological capital and creative performance (2011, background): “The influence of positive psychology appears to be gaining attention in the organizational behavioral sciences (Luthans & Avolio, 2009).”