Psychological Safety and Career Success among Employees of Indian Start-ups: Mediating Role of Passion

Abstract

India is one of the leading countries that have a favorable start-up ecosystem and is home to hundreds of start-ups and unicorns. From fintech and e-commerce to healthcare and agritech, these startups are disrupting traditional industries, leveraging technology to address unique challenges and tap into vast market opportunities. The start-ups' human resources policies are different, and they do not have complex human resources rules and policies to promote new ideas. The start-ups’ future is unpredictable, and they have a lot of uncertainty. Human assets work in start-ups to get a sense of career success despite the psychological fear about the future as they have a strong passion to succeed. This research seeks to explore the impact of psychological safety on the professional achievement of human resources within Indian startups, with a particular focus on the intermediary role of passion. This study adopts a descriptive approach and utilizes a survey-based research methodology to gather first-hand data from employees working within the realm of Indian startups. The study results convey that psychological safety impacts the overall career success of start-up employees, and it also significantly impacts the objective career success of the employees. Objective career success pertains to tangible accomplishments or results in a person's professional journey, which are usually quantifiable and evident to external observers. Further, it is found that passion mediates psychological safety and objective career success of the start-up employees significantly.