Psychological capital: The moderating effect of authentic leadership on psychological capital and job performance relationship

Positive organizational behavior was developed evolving from positive psychology while focusing on employee's psychological capacities and developable positive strengths in organization. Psychological capital concept that means synergic signification of individuals' positive strengths has been widely inquired, and it has been the most important research subject in positive organizational behavior field in the last years. Employees, who reflect positive states in organizations, can affect positive organizational outputs better than others. The literature reveals important positive relationships between psychological capital and job performance that is one of the important organizational outputs. However it can be observed that there are not enough clarifications about what effect do moderating variables have on the linear relationship. It is predicted that the level of perception of authentic leadership has an important moderating effect of employee psychological capital on performance. The most important aim of this study is to inquire the moderating effect of perceived authentic leadership on the relationship between positive psychological capital and job performance by studying the psychological capital. For that purpose, a survey was held with a textile holding with 338 personnel. To test the theoretical model of the research SPSS and the hierarchical regression analysis were used. The results of the survey support vii that authentic leadership has a partially moderating effect on the relationship of psychological capital and work performance. The results show that employee's psychological capital has powerful impact on job performance and that effect is higher levels when the employees perceive authentic leadership more positively. The results indicate that in terms of achieving organizational outputs, organizations need employing workers with higher psychological capital and also they need to have authentic leaders who can support the workers positively. Keywords: Positive Psychology, Positive Organizational Behavior, Psychological Capital, Job Performance, Authentic Leadership