Emerging Positive Organizational Behavior

Fred Luthans University of Nebraska - Lincoln, fluthans@unl.edu

Carolyn M. Youssef Bellevue University, carolyn.youssef@bellevue.edu

Review

Luthans (2002b) defines Positive Organizational Behavior as “the study and application

of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed and effectively managed for performance improvement in today’s workplace”.

Authors in this article use integrated theoretical framework and use comprehensive

approach. They position emerging stream of positivity oriented theories and research as being complementary and an alternative perspective rather than as substitute or replacement to the existing positively oriented organizational body of knowledge. Methodologically author has conducted deductive study as they have supported previouly researched knowledge. He belongs to interpretivist paradigm as he has done qualitative research and esearchers in this paradigm try to observe "on-going processes"

to better understand individual behavior and the "spiritual nature of the world".

This article is basically to study the Positivity in Organizational Behavior and this review is to examine Positive Traits, Positive State like Psychological Resource Capacities, Positive Organization and Positive Behaviors. Authors study how positively oriented

human traits, states, organization and behavior have a substantial positive impact on performance and other desired outcomes beyond what material resources, business model and deficit oriented approaches any organization used.

Authors analyze the role of enduring Positive traits that how Positive traits enhancing

human performance in the workplace. Traditional literature supports the significant contribution of Positive traits in the human performance at work place. Here Authors focus on three more recently emerging research streams of Positive traits i.e Big Five Personality Traits, Core Self-Evaluation and Positive Psychological Traits. Personality has a direct impact in understanding the behaviors of employees at work.

Big Five Personality Traits model determined the broad five personality types (conscientiousness, emotional stability, extroversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience) which are very useful in predicting different kinds of work related attitudes and behaviors. Core Self-Evaluation comprises of four variables self-esteem, self-

efficacy, locus of control and emotional stability. These variables have significant positive predictors of goal setting, motivation, performance, job and life satisfaction and other desirable outcomes. Positive Psychological Traits are enduring character strengths and virtues and values that are held in highest regard in societies and cultures.

They are stable and develop over one’s lifespan. They are the foundation of how one behaves in particular culture towards specific situation.

The Positive State like Capacities (psychological capital) which is the third generation of human and social capitals is also a new concept introduced recently in positive

organizational behavior. Positive State like Capacities are more malleable and thus are open to change and development than are Trait like Personality and Self Evaluation. The characteristics of Positive Psychological Resource Capacities are particularly relevant to today’s workplace in which flexibilities and growth have to match the realities of fast -paced, unpredictable environment. Many scholars in the area of organization and management believe that psychological capital can be considered as a source of

sustainable competitive advantage for organizations in today’s challenging environment. Psychological capital is composed of three psychological variables including Hopefulness, Self Efficacy, Optimism, And Resilience.

These three psychological variables helps individual to engage himself in challenging

self-set goals, self-selection into difficult tasks, self-motivation, generous effort investment and mobilization toward task mastery and goal accomplishment, and perseverance when faced with obstacles Such self-directed initiatives reflect proactive discrepancy creation, rather than reactive discrepancy reduction. Individual took alternative pathways and create contingency plans to achieve goals and overcome obstacles. Recent empirical studies support a positive relationship between Psychological Capital variables, performance and work attitudes.

Further authors define Positive Organizational Scholarship as "POS is concerned with the study of especially positive outcomes, processes, and attributes of organizations and their members". They believe POS is important because POS promotes the study of enablers, motivations, and effects associated with positive phenomena, with the aim of

revealing positive states and processes that would otherwise be missed or obscured by traditional, "non-POS," perspectives.

Last domain of positive psychology that authors analyze is resultant Positive Behavior. Here two represented Positive Behavior i.e Organization Citizenship Behavior and

Courageous Principled Action which have important relation in enhancing the organization performance and effectiveness through the willingness of their employees to do extra effort to achieve the goals of organization. This is the discretionary behavior of employees, which is not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system.

Authors believe for competitiveness of today’s environment, it is essential for the impact of positive trait, states, organization and positive behavior on organization that they manifest themselves in a way that they can have direct performance impact and enhance organization effectiveness.

We see that in the past, organizations paid less attention to investment on human resources, while today attention to human capital has gained increasing importance because many organizations today compete in market by relying on their Human Capital. So to mange human Capital for the benefit of organization a new approach,

called Positively Oriented Psychology, has recently attracted the attention of many researchers in the area of organization and management, thereby giving rise to a new movement called Positive Organizational Behavior. Positive organizational behavior points to the need for more focus on theorizing, research, and effective application of positive states, characteristics, and behaviors of

personnel in the work. Over the years, empirical evidence has also supported that positive states (e.g., positive emotions) and state-like constructs (e.g., specific self-efficacy) have a relationship with and impact on organizational behaviors and outcomes. So to increase organizational performance and effectiveness POB approach is very helpful.

I must say that Positive Organizational Behavior is a more modern, promising, and practical approach to focus on people‘s strengths and psychological capabilities. POB emphasizing more on issues of employee happiness, health and betterment than just for their functional based aspect. According to this concept, all the issues focused to employee betterment ultimately ends in to organizational prosperity. Constructs of POB like resilience, optimism, hope and emotional intelligence are highly influenced by two main factors, dispositional and organizational that work together to shape the

attitudes and behaviors at work place. Thus Positive organizational behavior is closely interlinked with individual‘s psychological and social standing in the organization (OBSE) and in general (Global self-esteem). I believe that identifiable Positivity domains (POB, PsyCap, POS and POC) in the workplace provide the balanced approach to both management scholars and

practitioners who want balanced approach that takes into consideration of both positve and negative, to building their strengths and to fix weaknesses (negative perspectives) of organization like what is wrong with managers and employees and concentrating on weaknesses and thus increasing the output of organization. For example psychological capital has effect on the organizational performance and variables such as job satisfaction and sense of belonging to organization. Some

researchers believe that the organizational performance can be increased by at least 10% by enhancing psychological capital.

Concluding my remarks,I believe not only does Positive Organizational Behavior have to be associated with the concept, but it must also be relatively unique to the OB field,

have valid measures, be adaptable to leader/management and human resource through formal training and development and also with informal approaches such as mentoring or coaching, visual aids, etc. In this way efficiency of organizations relates to psychological issues which lead to the qualitative and quantitative efficiency of the organizations is increased in different ways, e.g. improving relations, identifying personnel’s mentality, individuals’

personality and habits, as well as provisions for preventing deficiencies, waste of workforce, distresses, and disorder. So, it will help organization in contributing to performance improvement in today's workplace.