Understanding Psychological Capital:Research Perspectives

The aim of this review article is to highlight on the perspective, theories, research, importance and application of Psychological Capital (Psycap) for gaining competitive advantage for individuals, teams and organizations. Psycap is one of the core, pivotal constructs in the area of Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) and Psychology. This is considered as critical for the development and management of talent in an organization. Providing a more targeted and updated review especially on “HERO” the components of Psycap like Hope, Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism and linking Psycap to other organizational “intangible resources” such as team work, authentic leadership and work engagement has been quite a challenging task. As a higher order core construct, Psycap turns out to be synergistic. Psycap as a whole, is greater than the sum of its parts. The basic underlying theoretical mechanism connecting all the four components is a positive appraisal of circumstances, and probability for success based on motivated effort as well as perseverance. In more analytical terms, it is through the discriminant validity across the four individual Psycap capacities that each adds unique variance and becomes additive to overall Psycap. Furthermore, both conceptual developments and empirical evidence support the convergent validity of the four components of Psycap that meet POB criteria.