Antecedents of psychological Capital at Work: A Systematic Review of Moderator–mediator Effects and a New Integrative Proposal

Abstract

Psychological Capital has been proposed as one of the main bases of the current competitive advantage of any organization; therefore, many studies have assessed the effects of this variable on different work environments. However, to date, no study has addressed systematically the existing research on PsyCap as a mediating and moderating variable in the workplace. The aim of this paper is to respond to the need for reconstruction and reinforcement of the theory surrounding PsyCap and to shed light on the factors that seem to influence the PsyCap levels. Studies included in the Web of Science (WOS) and PsycINFO databases from 2004 to 2020 are reviewed. The results show the importance of PsyCap within the fields of creativity, psychological health, performance, job satisfaction, organizational climate, leadership and other emerging issues. Furthermore, we propose a new classification to integrate all these antecedents of PsyCap, which has important theoretical and practical implications.