Hero Plus What : positive psychological capital in Lebanese civil society organizations' leaders

Abstract

Purpose: Using a constructivist approach to grounded theory, this paper explores Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in Lebanese civil society organizations’ leaders (CSOLs), and investigates capacities other than PsyCap that might have contributed to their success. This research contributes to the fields of positive psychology (PP) and positive organizational behavior (POB). Methodology: Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with twelve leaders to determine the extent to which they used the capacities of hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism as psychological resources that contributed to their success. Constructivist grounded theory (CGT) procedures and strategies were applied for data analysis; strategies like constant comparison, memo-writing, theoretical sampling assisted in building a theory grounded in data. Findings: Data analysis evidenced the presence of PsyCap in all the participants, more specifically hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism. Three other capacities emerged and showed to have contributed to the leaders’ success are humility, spirituality and meaning. These three emergent capacities were argued to meet POB criteria, and have the potential to be included in PsyCap. Originality/value: The originality of this study lies in being the first to explore PsyCap of CSOLs at the global and Lebanese levels. Also, it is the first study to explore PsyCap in general in Lebanon.