Personnel Review

Psychological capital as a personal resource in the JD-R model

Steven L. Grover, Stephen T.T. Teo, David Pick, Maree Roche, Cameron J. Newton,
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"Psychological capital as a personal resource in the JD-R model", Personnel Review, https://
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Psychological
Psychological capital as a capital
personal resource in the
JD-R model
Steven L. Grover
Department of Management, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Received 23 August 2016
Stephen T.T. Teo Revised 11 April 2017
27 August 2017
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia 30 November 2017
David Pick Accepted 10 February 2018

School of Management, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Maree Roche
University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, and
Cameron J. Newton
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School of Management, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demystify the role of the personal resource of psychological capital
(PsyCap) in the job demands-resources model. The theory suggests that personal resources directly influence
perceptions of job demands, job resources, and outcomes. Alternatively, personal resources may moderate the
impact of job demands and job resources on outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 401 nurses working in the Australian healthcare
sector explores the relations among PsyCap, job demands and resources, and psychological well-being and
work engagement.
Findings – The results suggest that PsyCap directly influences perceptions of job demands and resources
and that it directly influences the outcomes of well-being and engagement. Furthermore, job demands and job
resources mediate the relation of PsyCap with well-being and engagement, respectively.
Research limitations/implications – The moderation effect of PsyCap was not supported, which
suggests that PsyCap relates to perceptions as opposed to being a coping mechanism. This finding therefore
narrows the scope of personal resources in this important model.
Originality/value – The importance of this study lies in its exploration of various ways that personal
resources can influence this dominant model and in analyzing the global construct of PsyCap as opposed to
some of its constituent parts.
Keywords Quantitative, Nurses, Psychological capital, JD-R model, Engagement, Personal resources
Paper type Research paper

The job demands-resources ( JD-R) model robustly predicts how job demands deplete
individuals through an impairment process that results in stress and burnout and how job
resources bolster engagement through a motivational process (Bakker and Demerouti, 2016;
Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli and Taris, 2014). JD-R traditionally focuses on characteristics
of the job as demands and resources. However, recent research moves toward considering the
role of the individual as a “job crafter” (Bakker et al., 2012; Hakanen et al., 2017; Petrou et al.,
2017) because individuals bring personal resources to bear on the work situation
(Bakker et al., 2012; Grover et al., 2017; Huang et al., 2016; Xanthopoulou et al., 2011). “Personal
resources are aspects of the self that are generally linked to resilience and refer to
individuals’ sense of their ability to control and impact upon their environment successfully”
(Xanthopoulou et al., 2007, pp. 123-124). Hence, such personal resources inure an ability Personnel Review
in individuals to influence the job and therefore the demands, resources, and outcomes © Emerald Publishing Limited
0048-3486
to the job. DOI 10.1108/PR-08-2016-0213
 PR Despite recent research interest in personal resources, the understanding of their
connection to job demands and resources is still not clear. Research shows that personal
resources may behave as other job resources in JD-R (Mayerl et al., 2016), affect perceptions
of job demands (Boudrias et al., 2011), moderate the influence of demands on outcomes
(Grover et al., 2017), or act as mediators (Huang et al., 2016; Xanthopoulou et al., 2011).
The present article contributes to conceptual clarity about personal resources within
the JD-R model by focusing on one particular personal resource – psychological capital
(PsyCap).
PsyCap is a global personal resource representing a person’s “positive appraisal of
circumstances and probability for success based on motivated effort and perseverance”
(Luthans, Avolio, Avey and Norman, 2007, p. 550). As such, this construct captures the
essence of future motivation and feelings of capability that drive how individual workers
interact with the constraints and opportunities of their jobs. Previous studies of
personal resources in the JD-R measure various aspects of PsyCap, such as optimism,
hope, and self-efficacy (Xanthopoulou et al., 2011), and ignored the fourth component of
PsyCap – resilience. This omission is surprising, first, because personal resources refers to
individual sate resiliency, and second, at least 66 published studies include PsyCap as a
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four-dimensional construct in other domains (Newman et al., 2014). The present study
explores how PsyCap as a four-component construct connects to positive outcomes
predicted by the JD-R model.
This study makes two major contributions. The first is that it assesses various ways that
PsyCap affects perceptions and outcomes in the JD-R model. We compare the direct effect of
PsyCap on perceptions of job demands, job resources, and outcome variables, and compare
it to the moderating, or buffering, impact of PsyCap. The second contribution of this study is
to measure global PsyCap by invoking its four components. This global construct extends
the notion of personal resources and captures both the positive attitude and the propensity
to be motivated to use that positive attitude, and such measurement has not, to our
knowledge, occurred in JD-R research.

Theoretical foundation and hypothesis development

Job demands: impairment
Job demands and lack of job resources lead to strain and health impairment, such as stress,
and mental and physical ill-being (Schaufeli and Taris, 2014). Job demands are “aspects of
the job that require sustained physical and/or psychological (cognitive and emotional)
effort and are therefore associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs”
(Bakker et al., 2004, p. 86). They occur in the form of work pressure, role overload, and poor
environmental conditions, and operate through an impairment process to affect
psychological and physical health (Bakker et al., 2004). High and prolonged levels of job
demands impair health by drawing on resources beyond individual capabilities. High job
demands and low job resources reduce well-being due to the disparity between the
“characteristics of a specific role and what is actually being achieved by the individual
currently performing the specific role” (Chang and Hancock, 2003, p. 156; Chen et al., 2007;
Garrosa et al., 2008; Örtqvist and Wincent, 2006).

Job resources: motivational

Job resources operate through a motivational process by helping people to bolster core
self-concept and to fulfill their work roles and achieve goals (Bakker and Demerouti, 2016).
The corollary of this is that limited job resources such as reduced control create difficulty for
employees to fulfill their roles, resulting in greater role stress and lower levels of work
engagement (Barbier et al., 2013; Garrosa et al., 2011).
 Psychological well-being Psychological
These relations are captured in the JD-R model, which connects job demands and job resources capital
to work outcomes such as employee health and engagement in their work. The present study
focuses on the influence of job resources and job demands on psychological well-being and
work engagement. Well-being is a broad term that incorporates both physical and mental
health (Witte, 1999), and the present study focuses on psychological well-being, which is both
the absence of symptoms of mental ill health and the presence of positive affective and
cognitive experiences. Work situations with high job demands are connected to lower levels of
employee psychological well-being (Bakker, 2011; Bakker and Demerouti, 2014). Work
engagement, on the other hand, is a measure of the levels of vigor, dedication and absorption
in work among employees (Bakker, 2011) and it associates with employee engagement and
performance (Knight et al., 2017). Based in positive psychology, the two elements of work
engagement – vigor and dedication – are considered the opposite of exhaustion and cynicism
(symptoms of burnout), and the third element – absorption – captures the state of being fully
engrossed in work (Bakker et al., 2008; Knight et al., 2017).
Research suggests that job demands are strongly connected to well-being while job
resources are markedly more connected to work engagement ( for a review, see Bakker and
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Demerouti, 2016). This finding supports the original JD-R model as developed by Demerouti
et al. (2001), which postulates that an absence of job resources strongly correlates with
disengagement and job demands strongly correlates with exhaustion. However, other
studies suggest that work engagement is associated with positive aspects of work in general
and employee well-being in particular (Schaufeli et al., 2006), and depends on the balance
between resources and demands (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007).
The present study explores how PsyCap influences job demand-resource relationships
and then job outcomes. To do this, we test a model (Figure 1) that proposes a number of
relationships between PsyCap and job demands and resources, and then the strength of
these relationships to work outcomes of psychological well-being and work engagement.
PsyCap. PsyCap refers to “an individual’s positive psychological state of development,”
characterized by: “(1) having confidence (efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort
to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about
succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary,
redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and
adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success”
(Luthans, Youssef and Avolio, 2007, p. 3). These psychological attributes positively

Job H3a– Psych

Demands Well-being

H1a+
H2b–
H6+
H5a

H1b+
PsyCap Work
H5b Engagement
H4a+
H2a+
Job Figure 1.
Resources Theoretical model
 PR contribute to job satisfaction, commitment, and intention to stay (Luthans, Youssef and
Avolio, 2007). PsyCap is a personal resource concerning the degree to which people believe
they can influence their jobs.
Recent research examining the impact of PsyCap on a variety of organizational
phenomena suggests that it has significant and enduring influence on how individuals are
affected by and affect their work environments. Empirical research shows that PsyCap
moderates the impact of authentic leadership such that the influence of authentic leadership
on individual performance is less for people high in PsyCap (Wang et al., 2014). PsyCap also
contributes directly to improvements in role performance and job satisfaction (Abbas et al.,
2014) as well as mental health and work satisfaction (Laschinger and Fida, 2014).
Furthermore, research evidence supports the contention that PsyCap plays a general role in
improving the work environment because people who possess higher levels of PsyCap relate
to one another in a more considerate manner and are able to focus better on work tasks
(Paterson et al., 2014).
The present study investigates the interaction between personal resources and job
demands and resources. The contribution of the paper is to consider PsyCap as a personal
resource and, as such, an individual characteristic. Previous PsyCap work shows that it
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empowers people to have positive attitudes about their environment, specifically their work
environment (Laschinger and Fida, 2014; Paterson et al., 2014). At the same time, PsyCap
acts as a buffering mechanism in which people high in PsyCap are better able to cope with
environmental demands, thereby lessening the impact of the environment, whether those
environmental variables are captured by leadership or demands and resources of the job
(Avey, Luthans, Smith and Palmer, 2010; Bakker and Demerouti, 2016; Cheung et al., 2011;
Laschinger and Fida, 2014). In their recent review, Schaufeli and Taris (2014) theorize that
personal resources such as PsyCap may directly influence perceptions of job demands and
resources, directly influence outcomes such as well-being and engagement, and moderate
the influence of job demands and resources on the outcomes. Advancing knowledge of how
personal resources affect job attitudes and well-being demands investigating the various
roles they potentially play. The present paper examines these roles of PsyCap in the JD-R
model in order to more fully understand the role of PsyCap as a complete construct in JD-R.

Direct effect of PsyCap on outcomes

Theory and research suggest that PsyCap directly influences desirable attitudes and
performance, the psychological well-being of employees (Avey, Luthans, Smith and Palmer,
2010), and levels of cynicism and anxiety (Avey et al., 2009). Employees with PsyCap are
more satisfied in their jobs and perform better (Avey et al., 2011), demonstrate more support
and openness to organizational change (Avey et al., 2008), have higher organizational
commitment and less absenteeism (Avey et al., 2006), and experience lower levels of
stress (Roche et al., 2014). PsyCap has positive influence because the characteristics
of PsyCap – hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resiliency – allow people to flourish because
they approach situations in a positive fashion that supports this self-determination and
hence self-worth (Paterson et al., 2014):
H1. PsyCap positively relates to psychological well-being (a) and work engagement (b).
Direct effect of PsyCap on JD-R perceptions. People with positive self-concept captured by
PsyCap tend to view their work environment, such as the level of demands and resources
available to them, in a more positive manner (Avey et al., 2011; Luthans, Youssef and Avolio,
2007) because core self-evaluation influences how people judge their environments
( Judge and Bono, 2001; Judge et al., 2000). Higher PsyCap facilitates a more positive outlook
on life in general that carries over to views of their work environments. In the JD-R model,
 this positive evaluation of job demands and job resources leads to more positive outcomes. Psychological
Since extant research has not yet tested all four dimensions of PsyCap as a personal capital
resource within the JD-R model, we examine the extent to which PsyCap positively relates to
JD-R perceptions:
H2. PsyCap relates positively to perceptions of job resources (a) and negatively to
perceptions of job demands (b).
One of the main elements of the JD-R model is that job demands influence psychological
well-being and that job resources influence work engagement (Bakker and Demerouti, 2016;
Demerouti et al., 2001). JD-R research and theory establishes the link between job demands
and well-being and between job resources and work engagement through the impairment
and motivation processes. Job demands connect to well-being negatively through an
impairment process, and job resources connect positively to engagement through a
motivational process (Bakker and Demerouti, 2016; Demerouti et al., 2001):
H3a. Job demands negatively relate to psychological well-being.
H4a. Job resources relate positively to work engagement.
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Placing these established JD-R relations together with the predictions of H1 and H2, we
additionally predict that job demands and resources mediate the relation of PsyCap to
well-being and engagement as illustrated in Figure 1. The positive outlook properties of
PsyCap influence perceptions of job characteristics (H2). This positive view of the demands
placed on the individual worker, in turn, translates into a greater psychological well-being.
People higher in PsyCap perceive fewer job demands and therefore experience greater
psychological well-being due to less impairment.
Similarly, the positive, optimistic, resilient characteristics of PsyCap lead people to
experience more job resources. People high in PsyCap perceive the same situation as having
greater resources to get the job done, and therefore they experience more of the motivational
process that keeps them engaged in their work. In essence, the mediation processes that we
propose explain how PsyCap operates in the workplace, and it is encapsulated in the
following two hypotheses:
H3b. Job demands mediate the impact of PsyCap on psychological well-being.
H4b. Job resources mediate the impact of PsyCap on work engagement.

Moderation effect by PsyCap

As PsyCap increases, people might be able to develop greater ability to cope with increased
job demands. Higher job demands are associated with increased levels of stress, and research
suggests that employees who possess PsyCap in the form of resiliency, optimism, self-efficacy,
and hope are potentially more able to cope with these demands (Avey et al., 2011;
Luthans, Youssef and Avolio, 2007). In other words, personal resources moderate the impact
of stress-inducing working conditions on employee well-being (Mäkikangas and Kinnunen,
2003; Pierce and Gardner, 2004; Van Yperen and Snijders, 2000). People with higher levels of
PsyCap tend to take initiatives that will assist them in meeting the demanding job situations.
The resiliency of PsyCap facilitates positive immediate reactions to the impairment effect of
job demands because they have the positive mental resources to cope with the demands.
PsyCap allows employees to cope better with increased job demands, thus supporting the
contention that PsyCap moderates the relation of job demands on stress.
PsyCap can thus be seen as a personal resource that aids in the search for additional job
resources (Avey et al., 2008). Previous research suggests that employees with high levels of
PsyCap have greater mastery that helps them to use resources in their environment and to
 PR deal more effectively with work conditions (Bakker et al., 2005). This is a logical extension of
previous research which shows that PsyCap moderates the relationship between emotional
labor and burnout (Cheung et al., 2011), and the impact of subjective task complexity on
employee performance (Avey et al., 2011). In addition, Siu et al. (2007) find that general
self-efficacy protects against stressful environments, Boudrias et al. (2011) find that two
sub-scales of PsyCap (resilience and optimism) moderate the effects of job demands on
distress, and Van den Broeck et al. (2008) find that basic need satisfaction moderates job
demands on burnout. We test and extend these research findings by including all elements
of PsyCap and testing for the moderation effects of PsyCap:
H5. PsyCap moderates the impact of job demands on well-being (a) and the impact of job
resources on engagement (b) such that their effects are weaker as PsyCap increases.
Our proposed model (Figure 1) positions psychological well-being and work engagement as
outcomes of the influence PsyCap has on job demands and job resources. Psychological
well-being facilitates positive affect and motivation at work by helping people generate the
emotional energy required to experience work in a positive and vigorous way. Previous
research supports the association between employee well-being and job outcomes such
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as job satisfaction and engagement (Brunetto et al., 2012; Judge and Watanabe, 1993;
Wright and Cropanzano, 2000):
H6. Psychological well-being relates positively to work engagement.
Lastly, the job demands and job resources as depicted in Figure 1 might be either negatively
or positively related to one another. As Bakker and Demerouti (2016) point out, “Although
both categories of working conditions covary with the work context, whether these are
positively or negatively related is basically an empirical question” (p. 5). In the context of our
study, the work environment of the sample of nurses we survey is one in which workloads
have increased over the past few years as structural changes continue to occur in the health
system (Department of Health, 2014). The nature of the JD-JR relation in our study could be
negative because the job resources available to nurses might not be able to keep pace with
workload increases.
We contribute to the theory by disentangling the position of PsyCap in the JD-R model.
To achieve this, we robustly test the various pathways articulated by Schaufeli and Taris
(2014) in the quickly changing working environment of nurses, a context where PsyCap is
particularly relevant.

Method
Procedure and sample
The data were collected by an online survey from a sample of nurses working in the
Australian healthcare sector. We employed a private research company to administer the
survey. They began by sending an e-mail containing a link to our survey to their members
who matched the occupational and background requirements (nurses residing in Australia).
The electronic survey consisted of questions regarding demographic characteristics,
perceptions of changes to work organization, stressors, job demands and job resources, and
job-related attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction and engagement). Ethical approval was obtained
from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the administering university.
Overall, 401 useable responses equated to a rate of 30 percent. Of these, 331 (83 percent)
were women. Most of the respondents were full-time employees (49.4 percent). The majority
were between 26- and 50-years old (62.4 percent). The majority were employed in local
government, non-profit, and public sector organizations (71 percent) with the remainder in
the private sector. The majority of the respondents had greater than ten years’ nursing
experience, followed by those with one to three years (25.9 percent), and three to less than
 five years (20 percent). The largest group of respondents held an undergraduate degree in Psychological
nursing (35.8 percent), followed by those with a postgraduate qualification (19.6 percent). capital
An independent t-test was conducted to determine if there was any sectorial difference
between public/non-profit and private sector respondents in relation to the variables in
the path model. The analysis showed that there was no sectorial difference and they were
combined for further analysis.
Preliminary data analyses were conducted using IBM PAWS 20. These included
reliability, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analyses. AMOS
v.22 was used to test the measurement and structural path models. A one-factor model
confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken prior to conducting the path analysis.
Measurements. Job demands. We used six items from Caplan et al.’s (1975) quantitative
job overload scale to operationalize job demands. The items were rated on seven-point
Likert scale, such that higher ratings indicated a high level of job demands (sample item is,
“How often does your job require you to work very fast?”). One item was removed due to low
factor loading ( χ2/df ¼ 1.467, CFI ¼ 0.999, TLI ¼ 0.996, RMSEA ¼ 0.034). This scale has a
composite reliability coefficient of 0.90.
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Job resources. We adopted five items of the job discretion scale from Karasek et al. (1985).
The items were rated on a five-point Likert scale (“1” strongly disagree to “5” strongly
agree). Sample item included “My job requires a high level of skill” ( χ2/df ¼ 0.968,
CFI ¼ 1.000, TLI ¼ 1.000, RMSEA ¼ 0.000). This scale has a composite reliability coefficient
of 0.86.
PsyCap. PsyCap was measured with the 12-item short-form Psychological Capital
Questionnaire developed by Luthans, Avolio, Avey and Norman (2007). The items were
rated on “1” strongly disagree to “5” all the time. It has four sub-scales: efficacy (e.g. “I feel
confident analyzing a long-term problem to find a solution”), hope (e.g. “If I should find
myself in a jam at work, I could think of many ways to get out of it”), resiliency (e.g.
“I usually manage difficulties one way or another at work”), and optimism (e.g. “When
things are uncertain for me at work, I usually expect the best”). Four items were removed
from further analysis due to low discriminant reliability. These four sub-scales were used to
form a second-order composite factor, PsyCap. This second-order composite factor exceeds
the minimum requirement for goodness of fit ( χ2/df ¼ 1.497, CFI ¼ 0.995, TLI ¼ 0.991,
RMSEA ¼ 0.035) as noted in the literature (Byrne, 2009). Following Luthans, Avolio, Avey
and Norman (2007), we created a higher order composite factor to operationalize PsyCap
(composite reliability ¼ 0.91).
Psychological well-being. We used the 12-item GHQ-12 (Goldberg and Williams, 1988) to
measure psychological well-being. The items were rated on “0” not at all to “3” all the time.
Two sub-dimensions of GHQ-12 were used in this model, comprising six items of positively
worded items (sample item “Been able to concentrate on whatever you’re doing”) and six
items negatively worded items (sample item “Lost much sleep over worry”). Negatively
worded items were reverse-coded such that high ratings indicate high psychological
well-being. CFA confirmed the two-factor structure ( χ2/df ¼ 1.925, CFI ¼ 0.976, TLI ¼ 0.966,
RMSEA 0.048). It has high internal reliability (composite reliability ¼ 0.80).
Work engagement. Work engagement was operationalized using the nine-item shortened
Utrecht Work Engagement Scale developed by Schaufeli et al. (2006). The items were rated
on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from “1” strongly disagree to “7” strongly agree.
Confirmatory factor analysis resulted in two items being removed from further analysis
( χ2/df ¼ 1.456, CFI ¼ 0.998, TLI ¼ 0.995, RMSEA ¼ 0.034). Sample items include “I feel
happy when I am working intensely” and “At my work, I feel bursting with energy.”
Two items were removed from further analysis due to low discriminant validity (composite
reliability ¼ 0.93).
 PR Validity and reliability. Prior to further analysis, we performed several checks for
discriminant validity. In the first instance, a single-factor confirmatory factor analysis was
undertaken with all of the constructs. This analysis showed that the data were not a good fit
to the model ( χ2/df ¼ 3.647, CFI ¼ 0.759, TLI ¼ 0.692, RMSEA ¼ 0.081). We tested a series of
nested models (see Table I) in order to determine the best fit model for this study. Model 1
comprised of the five factors in the study, and it was used to compare with a series of nested
models, ranging from one to four factors. A χ2 difference test showed the five-factor model
had the best goodness of fit and discriminant validity exists (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).
We also used the average variance explained to check for discriminant validity by following
Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) test. Results of the tests satisfied the minimum guidelines
required for path analysis (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
Finally, we conducted Harman’s single-factor test and incorporated a method factor into the
path model in order to check for the effect of common method bias (see Podsakoff et al., 2003).
This analysis resulted in seven factors with an eigenvalue of greater than 1.0, of which the
single largest factor explained 25.4 percent of the variance. All of these analyses showed that
common method bias is of no major concern.
We determined the adequacy of the measurement model by undertaking a confirmatory
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factor analysis of all of the constructs in the model ( χ2/df ¼ 1.944, CFI ¼ 0.941, TLI ¼ 0.933,
RMSEA ¼ 0.048, SRMR ¼ 0.066). These were then used to test the structural model. We then
used Hayes’ (2016) PROCESS macro to conduct mediation analysis. Moderation analysis
was conducted within the structural model, following the procedure in Petrou et al. (2017).

Results
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations are reported in Table II. As shown in the table,
psychological well-being is negatively correlated with organizational type (i.e. private sector

χ2 df χ/df CFI TLI RMSEA SRMR χ2 test difference

Model 1 Baseline: 5-factor model 899.120 465 1.9336 0.941 0.933 0.048 0.0662 Preferred model
( JD, JR, PCQ, GHQ, EE)
Model 2 4-factor model ( JD+JR, 1,270.000 469 2.7079 0.891 0.877 0.065 0.1069 Δχ2(4) ¼ 370.88
PCQ, GHQ, EE) p o 0.001
Model 3 3-factor model ( JD+JR 1,920.763 472 4.0694 0.803 0.779 0.088 0.1021 Δχ2(7) ¼ 1,021.643
+PCQ, GHQ, EE) p o 0.001
Model 4 2-factor model ( JD+JR 1,963.162 474 4.1417 0.797 0.774 0.089 0.1113 Δχ2 (9) ¼ 1,064.042
+PCQ+GHQ, EE) p o 0.001
Table I. Model 5 1-factor model ( JD+JR 2,256.127 475 4.7497 0.757 0.73 00.097 0.1144 Δχ2(10) ¼ 1,357.007
Results of nested +PCQ+GHQ+EE) p o 0.001
model comparison Notes: Proposed five-factor model has the best fit. GHQ: GHQ-12 psychological well-being

M SD AVE 1 2 3 4 5

1. Org type (“1” public/non-profit vs “0”

private) 0.71 0.45 –
2. Psychological capital (PsyCap) 2.98 0.59 0.75 0.04
3. Job demands 2.05 0.87 0.62 0.02 −0.21***
4. Job resources 2.51 0.60 0.67 −0.07 0.69*** −0.41***
Table II. 5. Psychological well-being 0.68 0.14 0.66 0.10* 0.55*** 0.31*** 0.27***
Descriptive statistics 6. Work engagement 3.96 1.05 0.70 0.07 0.76*** −0.21*** 0.70*** 0.67***
and intercorrelations Notes: n ¼ 401. AVE, average variance estimates. *p o0.05; ***p o0.001
 nurses had more psychological well-being). Job demands were negatively correlated with Psychological
both job resources and work engagement. Psychological well-being had a positive capital
correlation with work engagement.
The hypotheses were tested in a structural equation model (SEM) analysis that included
all the paths considered in the hypotheses as shown in Figure 1. The results are illustrated
in Figure 2 and show that the structural model had a good fit with the data whereby it
explained 60 percent of the variation in work engagement ( χ2/df ¼ 1.930, CFI ¼ 0.941,
TLI ¼ 0.933, RMSEA ¼ 0.0.048, SRMR ¼ 0.067). The results of the SEM showed that
PsyCap positively relates to psychological well-being and employee engagement,
supporting H1. PsyCap was also positively associated with perceptions of job resources
and negatively with job demands, supporting H2.
Job demands were significantly and positively related to well-being (H3a), and job
resources were positively related to engagement, supporting H4a. As shown in Table III, the
mediation effects of job demands and job resources were significant for well-being and work
engagement, supporting H3b and H4b. The indirect mediating effect for PsyCap→job
demands→psychological well-being→work engagement was also significant ( β ¼ −0.09,
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Job 0.28** Psych

Demands Well-being

–0.20*** 0.44*** 0.26**

0.37*** Work
PsyCap
Engagement
R2 = 0.60
0.36***
0.54***
Job
Resources Figure 2.
Results of
path analysis
Notes: **p <0.01; ***p <0.001

Path coefficient

H1a. PsyCap positively relates to psychological well-being 0.44***

H1b. PsyCap positively relates to work engagement 0.37***
H2a. PsyCap relates positively to perceptions of job resources 0.54***
H2b. PsyCap relates negatively to perceptions of job demands −0.20***
H3a. Job demands relate negatively to psychological well-being 0.28**
H3b. Job demands mediate the impact of PsyCap on psychological well-being 0.07 (95% boot CI: 0.028, 0.136)
H4a. Job resources relate positively to work engagement 0.36***
H4b. Job demands mediate the impact of PsyCap on work engagement 0.40 (95% boot CI: 0.307, 0.518)
H5. PsyCap moderates the impact of job demands on psychological ns
well-being (H5a) and work engagement (H5b) such that their effects are
weaker as PsyCap increases
H6. Psychological well-being relates positively to work engagement 0.26** Table III.
Job demands negatively relates to job resources −0.26** Results of
Notes: ns, not significant. **p o0.01; ***p o0.001 hypothesis testing
 PR 0.95% BootLLCI−0.16, 0.95% BootULCI−0.04). Specifically, nurses high in PsyCap report
lower job demands and, in turn, greater well-being and work engagement.
The moderation hypothesis was tested by including the interaction term of “PsyCap x
job demands” with a path to well-being “PsyCap x job resources” with a path to engagement
(Petrou et al., 2017). Neither of these paths is statistically significant, and therefore they are
not shown in the Figure 2. The moderation H5 was not supported. Lastly, well-being was
positively related to work engagement (H6).

Discussion
This paper explores the various roles that the personal resource of PsyCap plays in the JD-R
model as theorized by Schaufeli and Taris (2014). The results show that nurses who possess
high levels of PsyCap have a more positive outlook that affects how they perceive the milieu
of their jobs, including job demands and resources. PsyCap directly influences how nurses
perceive job resources, job demands, and levels of psychological well-being and work
engagement. PsyCap did not moderate the impact of job demands or resources on stress.
Instead, PsyCap influences perceptions of job demands and job resources that mediate the
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impact of PsyCap on well-being and engagement. The contribution of the study is in

showing how the holistic construct of PsyCap directly influences perceptions of the job and
its outcomes and does not moderate, or buffer, the effects of job demands or resources on
well-being or work engagement. These results have a number of implications, including
re-thinking the importance of environmental factors in the JD-R model compared to personal
resources in challenging, difficult conditions. In the following sections, we explain the
findings, then the implications for theory against the backdrop of previous research, and,
finally, the practical implications and limitations.

Explanations
PsyCap predicts nurses’ well-being because people high in PsyCap have positive self-
concepts that allow them to maintain a joyous outlook concerning the demands and
resources of their jobs. The characteristics of optimism, hope, resilience, and self-efficacy
work together to form a virtuous cycle of building a positive self-concept ( Judge and Bono,
2001; Judge et al., 1998). PsyCap promotes employees’ psychological well-being, optimism,
and self-efficacy that also promote and support the development of a positive self-concept
among employees (Avey et al., 2009). In turn, the direct influence of PsyCap on how people
view their work environment was the major influence on well-being and engagement.
This overall positive view of work influences perceptual processes compared to a
moderating effect. Perceptions of the job are the driving force for nurses to experience
more well-being and engagement, which supports and strongly supplements the JD-R
model. The direct effects of PsyCap on perceptions suggest that the positive orientation of
people high in PsyCap helps them to perceive job demands in a more positive fashion that
promotes well-being. This finding is further supported by the mediation analysis that
shows PsyCap influences job resource perceptions and subsequently engagement.
This explanation contrasts with the moderation explanation that PsyCap helps people to
muster the resources to deal with the demands of work. Furthermore, this finding is
consistent with previous findings that show that more positive people have more positive
views of the job demands and resources available to them (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007;
Zapf et al., 1996).

Theoretical implications
The present findings contribute to our understanding of the growing role of PsyCap in
organizational behavior generally and the JD-R model specifically. Previous research
 demonstrates that elements of PsyCap contribute to well-being (Avey, Luthans and Psychological
Youssef, 2010; Avey et al., 2011) and engagement (Boamah and Laschinger, 2015). capital
These findings are supported in our study with PsyCap as the higher order construct.
Furthermore, our research incorporates PsyCap as a personal resource and examines the
extent to which, and how, it functions within the JD-R model.
We found that PsyCap levels influence positive thought by employees about their work
in general, which reflects the direct effect on perceptions as theorized by Schaufeli and
Taris (2014). The implication of direct effects vs moderation of PsyCap is that people who
embrace their work lives in a positive way perceive fewer job demands and more job
resources, which is consistent with Xanthopoulou et al. (2007).
The present study makes a contribution beyond Xanthopoulou et al. (2007).
Their results show that personal resources influence the motivation process by affecting
job resources. The present results extend that to the impairment process, showing that
PsyCap affects perceptions of job demands and, in turn, well-being and engagement.
Therefore, the present findings support and advice the work of Xanthopoulou et al. (2007).
It supports the idea that PsyCap influences perceptions of job resources and job demands,
and does not act as a buffer. It advances to show that both job demand and job resource
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perceptions are affected.

The present result of no moderation contrasts with previous studies that have found forms
of moderation. For example, Van den Broeck et al. (2011) found a moderation effect of personal
resources. However, they operationalized personal resources as basic needs satisfaction using
intrinsic-extrinsic motivation, finding that the relation of job resources to work engagement
was enhanced by greater intrinsic motivation. Despite both being operationalized as personal
resources, intrinsic motivation is a quite different variable than PsyCap, which is arguably
much closer to the definition of personal resources as “aspects of the self that are generally
linked to resiliency and refer to individuals’ sense of their ability to control and impact upon
their environment successfully” (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007, pp. 123-124). PsyCap completely
captures the powerful sense of being able to control one’s environment.
These findings begin to unravel the role of PsyCap specifically, and personal resources
generally, in the JD-R model. The interesting thing about the difference in these
operationalizations is that PsyCap predicts a fundamental approach to the work situation,
and therefore people high in PsyCap enjoy the positive work environment as noted through
its impact on attitudes toward job demands and resources and, in turn, the outcomes.
In contrast, those variables such as basic needs satisfaction are secondary and predict how
people can react to their environment. Comparing these effects defines boundary conditions
for personal resources in the JD-R model.
While previous studies have utilized the optimism and efficacy dimensions of PsyCap as
a personal resource (Gillespie et al., 2007; Luthans, Avolio, Avey and Norman, 2007), the
present study tested the higher order composite construct of PsyCap. PsyCap, as a higher
order composite of hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resiliency, associates with reduced role
stress and enhanced work engagement. Luthans, Avolio, Avey and Norman (2007) found
that the PsyCap construct, as a constellation including all the components, predicts
performance and satisfaction better than the individual sub-dimensions alone. The present
study further extends this concept to show the holistic construct influences the experience of
stress in the fast changing environment of nursing.
Even though Luthans, Avolio, Avey and Norman (2007) show the importance of the
composite construct, most studies consider the individual components of PsyCap as
opposed to the holistic construct (e.g. Barbier et al., 2013; Xanthopoulou et al., 2009).
The present findings extend Boamah and Laschinger’s (2015) finding that the PsyCap
constellation influences work engagement of nurses. We extend these findings to illustrate
how PsyCap affects engagement. Boahma and Laschinger (2015) only found that PsyCap
 PR relates to engagement. We extend that finding by showing that it reduces job demands
perceptions, and that its mediation through job demands and psychological well-being
promotes work engagement. These two contributions are shown by the mediation path
of PsyCap→job demands→well-being→engagement. This mediation finding further
explains why PsyCap relates to engagement. The resilience and optimism of PsyCap
allows people to view their job demands in a more positive light which, in turn, leads to more
psychologically healthy well-being and allows them to enjoy energy, vitality, and
enthusiasm for their work. Similarly, hope and efficacy provided the positive psychological
resources needed for nurses to deal with an increasing level of job demands in the context of
healthcare reform in Australia. This central finding also has managerial implications.

Managerial and practical implications

The main practical implication of these findings is that PsyCap is positive. It positively
influences how nurses imagine their jobs and the healthy psychological outcomes from it.
Therefore, supporting PsyCap among the population of nurses should have a positive
influence on those individual workers: Boosting PsyCap lifts their overall view of the
world in general and work life in particular. Nurses do incredibly important work, and
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therefore it seems reasonable that hospitals – and in fact anyone who might be a patient
someday – wants them to have work experiences. Therefore, interventions of any sort that
promote PsyCap should positively benefit the individual nurses as well as the institution
(and hence patients) as well.
PsyCap interventions have been shown to elevate PsyCap (Luthans et al., 2006, 2008;
Zhang et al., 2014). We encourage hospitals to consider offering such interventions.
Interventions boost participants’ awareness of the underlying PsyCap components of
optimism, hope, resilience, and efficacy. Typical interventions highlight each component
and then provide exercises to personalize it for the participant. Highlighting the concept of
goals reinforces the importance of making challenging and achieving goals. Continuing in
the face of thwarted goal attainment is then considered. In order to personalize the training,
participants are generally asked to consider goals that have been frustrated in the past and
then to develop strategies for re-engaging with those goals. This brings the concepts closer
to the individual participants and helps them to reorient in a way that boosts their resilience,
efficacy, and optimism.
These interventions can be offered in a variety of different ways. Luthans et al. (2008)
developed a web-based training program, which has the advantage that it can be offered to
essentially to anyone from anywhere. Much of that program draws on the strengths of
traditional class-based training by interspersing a video discussion by a facilitator along
with self-focused exercises. Other ways of offering interventions include Zhang et al.’s (2014)
reading-based intervention. Simply in a different format, this intervention teaches
people about goals and how to achieve them in the face of adversity, thus building a
forward-thinking, positive, and resilient participant.
Hospitals and other organizations can be advised that, of course, placing some effort on
employees by offering training that focuses on the self will be seen as positive by those
employees. In addition, employees trained using these kinds of PsyCap interventions
develop greater resiliency and optimism that translate into a host of engagement and other
positive outcomes (Grover et al., 2017; Luthans et al., 2006, 2008; Zhang et al., 2014).
Such interventions can be done inexpensively, which seems like a wise investment for
forward-looking enterprises.
Nurses and others working in healthcare and other high-stress occupations should
particularly benefit from PsyCap interventions. PsyCap is a way of coping with the stress
directly (Grover et al., 2017), and as shown in the present study, influences how nurses view
the world, both in terms of how they view the demands and opportunities of their immediate
 jobs, and also how they experience work in terms of engagement and well-being. The very Psychological
essence of these positive attitudes comes to life in these high-stress, demanding occupations, capital
and it seems organizations that fail to at least attempt to boost this in their employees are
missing a great opportunity.

Limitations and future research implications

The cross-sectional design has potential common method variance because respondents’
mood states and disposition potentially relate to well-being (Podsakoff et al., 2003). While the
current study has undertaken several procedural and statistical checks to ensure common
method bias is limited (Podsakoff et al., 2003), future research should collect longitudinal
data to better understand the causal effects of personal resources on job demands and how
that, in turn, affects employee attitudes across at least three different time points.
Multi-wave data could also be collected from supervisors on objective assessment of
employees’ work engagement attitudes. These two designs would specifically incorporate
the temporal effect of change into the research (Kelloway and Francis, 2013).
A more critical aspect of the present design is that it cannot differentiate reverse
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causation, particularly between PsyCap and job demands and resources. Our theoretical
reasoning is that people with a more positive outlook captured by PsyCap view similar job
demands and resources more positively, that they diminish the negative demands and see
the resources as available to them. An alternative reasoning articulated by Schaufeli and
Taris (2014) is that resources and demands influence PsyCap. Having the appropriate
resources to meet demands and not having too many demands makes people feel
self-efficacious and optimistic and hopeful. In fact, Xanthopoulou et al. (2007) suggest that
the personal resources of organizationally based self-esteem, optimism, and self-efficacy act
as mediators between job resources and work engagement. However, neither their
cross-sectional design nor ours allows true differentiation between these different mediation
models because neither has a time differential between measurements. Future studies could
differentiate personal resources, JD-R variables, and outcomes at points in time to analyze
this sequence in a more exact manner.
The present findings concerning PsyCap require triangulation. Few studies have seriously
considered the impact of personal resources on the JD-R model. Clearly, characteristics or
features of organizational participants as active beings influence the way they perceive their
environment and the subsequent positive and negative effects. Future work should center on
this clearly to determine the boundary conditions and effective interventions.

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Corresponding author
Steven L. Grover can be contacted at: steven.grover@otago.ac.nz

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