The effect of positive psychological capital on organizational commitment: A research on bank employees

The concepts of positive psychological capital and its sub-dimensions of optimism, hope, self-efficacy and resilience have been frequently examined in organizational behavior studies in recent years. Studies have shown that positive psychological capital is positively associated with desirable attitudes and behaviors in organizations such as job engagement, organizational citizenship behaviors, and job satisfaction. One of the positive results of positive psychological capital in organizations is organizational commitment. It can be said that organizational commitment is one of the prerequisites for the correct evaluation of human capital, which is accepted as an important resource for organizations to maintain their competitiveness and for the growth of national economies. Employees with high organizational commitment have a strong desire to share the goals and values of their organizations and to make sacrifices for their organizations. It can be thought that one of the instruments that can be effective in creating this strong desire in the majority of employees is the positive psychological capital of the employees. The study aimed to investigate the effects of resilience, optimism, self-efficacy and hope levels, which are positive psychological capital sub-dimensions, on affective, continuance and normative commitment, which are sub-dimensions of organizational commitment. For this purpose, some statistical analyzes were made on the data obtained by using the survey technique from a sample of 226 people working in a private bank. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the optimism sub-dimension of positive psychological capital had a positive and significant effect on all dimensions of organizational commitment. In other words, it has been observed that the increase in the optimistic attitudes of the employees increases their emotional, continuity and normative commitment to their organizations. While the increase in the self-efficacy levels of the participants increased their emotional and continuance commitment, it was seen that the increase in the psychological resilience levels had a decreasing effect on the normative commitment. On the other hand, it was determined that the hope sub-dimension did not have a significant effect on any sub-dimension of organizational commitment.