this critical review on what i believe after reading this article.

1. Emerging Positive Organizational Behavior
Fred Luthans
University of Nebraska - Lincoln, fluthans@unl.edu
Carolyn M. Youssef
Bellevue University,carolyn.youssef@bellevue.edu
Review
Luthans (2002b) defines Positive Organizational Behavior as “the study and application
of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can
be measured, developed and effectively managed for performance improvement in
today’s workplace”.
Authors in this article use integrated theoretical framework and use comprehensive
approach. They position emerging stream of positivity oriented theories and research as
being complementary and an alternative perspective rather than as substitute or
replacement to the existing positively oriented organizational body of knowledge.
Methodologically author has conducted deductive study as they have supported
previouly researched knowledge. He belongs to interpretivist paradigm as he has done
qualitative research and esearchers in this paradigm try to observe "on-going processes"
to better understand individual behavior and the "spiritual nature of the world".
This article is basically to study the Positivity in Organizational Behavior and this review
is to examine Positive Traits, Positive State like Psychological Resource Capacities,
Positive Organization and Positive Behaviors. Authors study how positively oriented
human traits, states, organization and behavior have a substantial positive impact on
performance and other desired outcomes beyond what material resources, business
model and deficit oriented approaches any organization used.
Authors analyze the role of enduring Positive traits that how Positive traits enhancing
human performance in the workplace. Traditional literature supports the significant
contribution of Positive traits in the human performance at work place. Here Authors
focus on three more recently emerging research streams of Positive traits i.e Big Five
Personality Traits, Core Self-Evaluation and Positive Psychological Traits. Personality
has a direct impact in understanding the behaviors of employees at work.
Big Five Personality Traits model determined the broad five personality types
(conscientiousness, emotional stability, extroversion, agreeableness, and openness to
experience) which are very useful in predicting different kinds of work related attitudes
and behaviors. Core Self-Evaluation comprises of four variables self-esteem, self-

2. efficacy, locus of control and emotional stability. These variables have significant
positive predictors of goal setting, motivation, performance, job and life satisfaction and
other desirable outcomes. Positive Psychological Traits are enduring character
strengths and virtues and values that are held in highest regard in societies and cultures.
They are stable and develop over one’s lifespan. They are the foundation of how one
behaves in particular culture towards specific situation.
The Positive State like Capacities (psychological capital) which is the third generation of
human and social capitals is also a new concept introduced recently in positive
organizational behavior. Positive State like Capacities are more malleable and thus are
open to change and development than are Trait like Personality and Self Evaluation. The
characteristics of Positive Psychological Resource Capacities are particularly relevant to
today’s workplace in which flexibilities and growth have to match the realities of fast-
paced, unpredictable environment. Many scholars in the area of organization and
management believe that psychological capital can be considered as a source of
sustainable competitive advantage for organizations in today’s challenging environment.
Psychological capital is composed of three psychological variables including
Hopefulness, Self Efficacy, Optimism, And Resilience.
These three psychological variables helps individual to engage himself in challenging
self-set goals, self-selection into difficult tasks, self-motivation, generous effort
investment and mobilization toward task mastery and goal accomplishment, and
perseverance when faced with obstacles Such self-directed initiatives reflect proactive
discrepancy creation, rather than reactive discrepancy reduction. Individual took
alternative pathways and create contingency plans to achieve goals and overcome
obstacles. Recent empirical studies support a positive relationship between
Psychological Capital variables, performance and work attitudes.
Further authors define Positive Organizational Scholarship as "POS is concerned with
the study of especially positive outcomes, processes, and attributes of organizations and
their members". They believe POS is important because POS promotes the study of
enablers, motivations, and effects associated with positive phenomena, with the aim of
revealing positive states and processes that would otherwise be missed or obscured by
traditional, "non-POS," perspectives.
Last domain of positive psychology that authors analyze is resultant Positive Behavior.
Here two represented Positive Behavior i.e Organization Citizenship Behavior and
Courageous Principled Action which have important relation in enhancing the
organization performance and effectiveness through the willingness of their employees
to do extra effort to achieve the goals of organization. This is the discretionary behavior
of employees, which is not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system.

3. Authors believe for competitiveness of today’s environment, it is essential for the
impact of positive trait, states, organization and positive behavior on organization that
they manifest themselves in a way that they can have direct performance impact and
enhance organization effectiveness.
We see that in the past, organizations paid less attention to investment on human
resources, while today attention to human capital has gained increasing importance
because many organizations today compete in market by relying on their Human
Capital. So to mange human Capital for the benefit of organization a new approach,
called Positively Oriented Psychology, has recently attracted the attention of many
researchers in the area of organization and management, thereby giving rise to a new
movement called Positive Organizational Behavior.
Positive organizational behavior points to the need for more focus on theorizing,
research, and effective application of positive states, characteristics, and behaviors of
personnel in the work. Over the years, empirical evidence has also supported that
positive states (e.g., positive emotions) and state-like constructs (e.g., specific self-
efficacy) have a relationship with and impact on organizational behaviors and outcomes.
So to increase organizational performance and effectiveness POB approach is very
helpful.
I must say that Positive Organizational Behavior is a more modern, promising, and
practical approach to focus on people‘s strengths and psychological capabilities. POB
emphasizing more on issues of employee happiness, health and betterment than just for
their functional based aspect. According to this concept, all the issues focused
to employee betterment ultimately ends in to organizational prosperity. Constructs of
POB like resilience, optimism, hope and emotional intelligence are highly influenced by
two main factors, dispositional and organizational that work together to shape the
attitudes and behaviors at work place. Thus Positive organizational behavior is closely
interlinked with individual‘s psychological and social standing in the organization (OBSE)
and in general (Global self-esteem).
I believe that identifiable Positivity domains (POB, PsyCap, POS and POC) in the
workplace provide the balanced approach to both management scholars and
practitioners who want balanced approach that takes into consideration of both
positve and negative, to building their strengths and to fix weaknesses (negative
perspectives) of organization like what is wrong with managers and employees and
concentrating on weaknesses and thus increasing the output of organization. For
example psychological capital has effect on the organizational performance and
variables such as job satisfaction and sense of belonging to organization. Some

4. researchers believe that the organizational performance can be increased by at least
10% by enhancing psychological capital.
Concluding my remarks,I believe not only does Positive Organizational Behavior have
to be associated with the concept, but it must also be relatively unique to the OB field,
have valid measures, be adaptable to leader/management and human resource through
formal training and development and also with informal approaches such as mentoring
or coaching, visual aids, etc. In this way efficiency of organizations relates to
psychological issues which
lead to the qualitative and quantitative efficiency of the organizations is increased in
different ways, e.g. improving relations, identifying personnel’s mentality, individuals’
personality and habits, as well as provisions for preventing deficiencies, waste of
workforce, distresses, and disorder. So, it will help organization in contributing to
performance improvement in today's workplace.