Positive Organization Behaviour and Hope

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ABSTRACT

Although the value of positivity has been assumed over the years, only recently has it become a major focus area for theory building, research, and application in psychology and now organizational behavior. In today’s competitive world, positive organization behavior plays a vita role. To study the importance of positive organization behavior and hope of employees for an organization, six people of varied backgrounds have been chosen and have been interviewed. The results have been recorded and the findings show that hope and positive organization behavior are directly related to the performance of employees and hence has a positive meaningful relation with organizational function. Often, hope has been used as means to strengthening the organizations.  

LITERATURE REVIEW:

The paper “Can Positive Employees Help Positive Organizational Change?

Impact of Psychological Capital and Emotions on Relevant Attitudes and Behaviors” tells us why positive organization behavior is important when an organization undergoes a change.

 The attitude and behavior of employees in an organization is driven by their positive emotions and is related to their psychological capital. The components of psychological capital are efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience. Psychological capital and the attitude (engagement and cynicism) and behaviors (organizational citizenship and deviance) are mediated by positive emotions. Change is a common phenomenon that occurs in every organization to reduce the gap between goals and results.  Employees of the organization are expected to adapt to the change and align their strategies to attain the changed goals. In addition to having the confidence of being able to adapt to the change they must also possess resilience to overcome their setbacks that they face owing to the change. If the employees lack motivation and hope, it would be difficult for them to adapt to the change and would not be optimistic when things go wrong or when obstacles are encountered. In such situations it is very important to have a positive outlook for future. It has been observed that employees with positive psychological capital and positive emotions show positive attitudes and behavior resulting in an effective and positive Organizational Change. Hope is defined as “positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed energy) and pathways (planning to meet goals)”. People with high levels of hope have an ability to think of many alternative pathways to achieve their goals. Basically people with high hope are self-motivated. It is not sufficient if one has hope during regular times, but sustaining the hope during crises and problems is very crucial.

The paper “Pathways For Positive Identity Construction At Work: Four Types Of Positive Identity And The Building Of Social Resources” talks about how cultivation of social resources generates positive identities and hence strengthens individuals. Organizations can influence the positive identity construction of an individual that adds value to them. Researchers at the micro level believe that individuals adjusting to organizations are a process that is motivated by desire to construct an identity. While, at the macro level, the researchers explained that positive work related identity construction is a core mechanism for bringing about change in an organization.  It is believed that individuals do not work on positive identity construction on their own, but they develop it is response to the negative identity threats they face at work. Different kinds of positive identities are often linked with favorable outcomes. Positive identities help an individual deal with work related stress and adversity, improves creativity and to develop knowledge on different domains. It enables employees to learn from different cultural experiences and help them adapt to new environments. Positive work identities encourage employees to work and take steps that lead to positive outcomes in organizations.

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