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Research has consistently demonstrated that psychological capital (PsyCap) is an important predictor of various employee outcomes. Despite this, there is a paucity of knowledge regarding antecedents of PsyCap and the boundary conditions that influence PsyCap relationships. This study aimed to address these gaps by investigating how ethical leadership (EL) influences employee PsyCap, and in turn, predicts a range of desirable and undesirable employee attitudes. Furthermore, the study examined the moderating role of length of the leader-follower relationship (LLR) and organisational identification in these relationships in a novel moderated-mediation model.

Data were collected from 269 full-time employees in Australia via an online survey across two time-points.

The results show that PsyCap mediates the relationship between EL and employee attitudes. The results also indicate that LLR moderates these relationships, whereby these relationships are strengthened as LLR increases.

This study responds to calls for further investigation of antecedent and outcome variables related to PsyCap, as well as moderators of the relationships between PsyCap and antecedent and outcome variables. The findings also extend the application of social exchange theory to the context of EL and PsyCap.

This paper presents the most up-to-date comprehensive meta-analysis of the effectiveness of interventions to enhance psychological capital (PsyCap). It also reports the first meta-analytic examination of longer-term effects (beyond the immediate post-intervention period).

This meta-analysis followed PRISMA 2020 guidelines and utilised the methodologies of Hunter and Schmidt (2004) and Borenstein et al. (2009). The search period was from 2006 until February 2023. A total of 40 studies (N = 4,207) were included in the meta-analyses. The analyses were performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) Version 4 software programme.

The results indicate that the impacts of interventions on PsyCap and each of its component resources are greater than those reported in a previous meta-analysis (Lupșa et al., 2020), with the strongest impacts on hope and optimism. Interventions had sustained positive effects on PsyCap, hope, resilience and optimism, but not efficacy, and the frequency of intervention sessions influenced the effectiveness of interventions on hope, efficacy and optimism. Interestingly, specific PsyCap-focussed interventions did not have the greatest impact on PsyCap or its component resources.

This study contributes to emerging research on wellbeing-oriented HRM and provides valuable insights into more effective design and implementation of interventions to enhance PsyCap and its component resources. These interventions are a promising form of investment in employees which may bring mutual gains for individuals and organisations. The present findings extend those of previous studies and specifically respond to the call for further research on the persistence of PsyCap intervention effects.

Research focusing on psychological capital (PsyCap) has been mainly conducted at the individual level. However, recent research has expanded investigations to the collective level with a greater focus on team-level PsyCap. Although, as demonstrated by recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses, the relationships between individual-level PsyCap and the desirable/undesirable outcomes are fairly established in the literature, less is known about such relationships for team-level PsyCap. One of these important, yet least investigated, research areas is the research stream that focuses on the relationship between team-level PsyCap and the outcomes of health, Well-Being, and safety. This chapter aims to highlight the role of individual-level PsyCap as an important predictor of employees’ health, Well-Being, and safety outcomes, but also to go beyond that to provide insights into the potential role of team-level PsyCap in predicting such outcomes at both individual and team levels. To do so, the chapter first draws upon relevant theories to discuss the empirical research findings focusing on the relationship between individual-level PsyCap and the outcomes of health, Well-Being, and safety. It then focuses on team-level PsyCap from theoretical, conceptualization, and operationalization perspectives and provides insights into how team-level PsyCap might be related to health, Well-Being, and safety outcomes at both individual and team levels. Thus, this chapter proposes new research directions in an area of PsyCap that has been left unexplored.