Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2009
Abstract
Organizations and their members at all levels are increasingly expected to perform, adapt, and to do 'more with less'. Positive psychology and appreciative inquiry inform us that as organizations strive to become more productive, innovative, and agile their interests and objectives are well-served by understanding that they have at-hand greater capacity for performance and learning than perhaps they had realized. Positive psychology emphasizes the role of character strengths and virtues suggesting that individual characteristics, whether dispositional or acquired, differentiate between those who are better able to contribute to organizational performance and learning and those who are less so. Appreciative inquiry emphasizes relational characteristics as key distinctions. These characteristics are generative in nature; they are pragmatic and theoretical, positive and normative. This study examines the effects of selected individual and relational characteristics on organization member psychological engagement in work performance and self-development, and offers some insights to intervention design. Analysis of data captured from a not-for-profit healthcare organization suggests that: (1) individual characteristics have limited and negative effects on psychological engagement, (2) relational characteristics have positive effects on psychological engagement, and (3) women and men use distinctly different mechanisms to translate individual and relational characteristics into psychological engagement. This paper addresses these relationships in one organization at one point in time and therefore readers should be cautious in generalizing the results.
Keywords
positive psychology, engagement, shared values, peer trust, leadership, gratitude, generative.
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Carlson, Thomas H., "Generative Characteristics as Antecedents of Engagement" (2009). Student Scholarship. 225.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/225