IMPACT OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL ON WORK ATTITUDES, INTENTIONS, AND BEHAVIORS AMONG UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

Abstract

The present research was conducted to develop and empirically test an integrated model of positive organizational behavior among university teachers of Pakistan. More specifically, this study sought to explore the impact of positive psychological capital and perceived authentic leadership on positive work behaviors (including in-role performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and job related affective wellbeing) as well as undesirable work outcomes (counterproductive work behaviors and burnout). Grounded in the theoretical framework of theory of planned behavior (Azjen, 1991), it also examined the mediational role of psychological ownership and work engagement between psychological capital and the aforementioned work behaviors and outcomes. Furthermore, it integrated Job- Demands Resources Model (JD-R Model; Bakker, Demerouti, De Boer, & Schaufeli, 2003) into the framework of positive organizational behavior and assessed the moderating role of job autonomy, social support (job resources) and quantitative overload (job demand) in the relationship of psychological capital with work engagement, psychological ownership, and various aforementioned work related behaviors. This research comprised of two studies. In study I, a series of focus group discussions were conducted to develop an in-depth understanding of psychological capital, work engagement, authentic leadership, and psychological ownership among university teachers of Pakistan. The findings of these focus group discussions revealed that the western operationalizations of these positive constructs accurately measured them in our indigenous occupational settings of university teachers. Salient job resources and job demands in profession of university teaching were identified through a second series of focus group discussions with university teachers of different universities of the Punjab province. The results suggested that job autonomy and social support were the most valued job resources whereas increasing quantitative overload was the most hazardous job demands for Pakistani university teachers. The measurement instruments of the present study were adapted to the occupational settings of university teaching through committee approach and expert opinion and a pilot study was conducted on a convenient sample of 100 university teachers to assess the psychometric properties of measurement protocol and an the identification of initial pattern of relationships among various constructs of the study. PsyCap Questionnaire (PCQ; Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman, 2006), Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ; Walumba, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008), Psychological Ownership Questionnaire (POQ; Avey, Avolio, Crossley, & Luthans, 2009), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003), In-Role Performance Scale (William & Anderson, 1991), Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale (William & Anderson, 1991), Organizational Deviance Scale (Bennett & Robinson, 2000), Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey (MBI-ES; Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), Job Related Affective Wellbeing Scale (JAWS; Katwyk, Fox, Spector, & Kelloway, 2000), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), Quantitative Overload Subscale of Role Overload Scale (Dekker & Barling, 1995), Job Autonomy, Supervisor Support, and Co-worker Support Subscales of Job Content Questionnaire (Karasek, 1985) were used to measure their corresponding constructs. The results revealed satisfactory indices of psychometric soundness in terms of reliability and factorial structure of measurement instruments and a pattern of relationships in the expected direction. Study II constituted the main study of this research through which the proposed model of this investigation was tested. A convenient sample of 500 university teachers from the provinces of Punjab and KPK and the capital area was recruited. A minimum job experience of 1 year at an HEC recognized university and 16 years of formal education was the inclusion criteria for the participants. Structured equation modeling was undertaken through AMOS-20 for testing the proposed model. Results revealed that psychological capital was positively related to perceived authentic leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, in-role performance, and job related affective wellbeing and negatively associated with counterproductive work behaviors and burnout. Psychological capital explained a unique variance in these work outcomes while personal dispositions of positive and negative affectivity were controlled. Psychological ownership and work engagement mediated the relationship of psychological capital with the aforementioned work related outcomes in a serial fashion. Preventative psychological ownership was positively related to burnout and this relationship was mediated by job demands whereas promotive psychological ownership was positively related to work engagement and job resources mediated this relationship. Quantitative overload moderated between psychological capital and psychological ownership; between psychological capital and job related affective wellbeing; between work engagement and in-role performance; and between authentic leadership and burnout. Job resources moderated the relationship work engagement and burnout; between psychological ownership and job related affective wellbeing; between work engagement and job related affective wellbeing; between authentic leadership and OCB; and between authentic leadership and work engagement. Multivariate analysis of variance of demographics of university teachers did not demonstrate significant main effects, however, certain 2-way and 3-way interactions were observed in relation to various constructs such as psychological capital, psychological ownership, job autonomy, OCB, and burnout. Implications of the study for university teachers of Pakistan and suggestion for future research have been discussed.