Happy-Productive Teams and Work Units: A Systematic Review of the ‘Happy-Productive Worker Thesis’

M. Esther García-Buades, José M. Peiró, María Isabel Montañez-Juan, Malgorzata W. Kozusznik and Silvia Ortiz-Bonnín
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M. Esther García-Buades: Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
José M. Peiró: IDOCAL (Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral), University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
María Isabel Montañez-Juan: Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Malgorzata W. Kozusznik: Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology Research Group (WOPP), KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Silvia Ortiz-Bonnín: Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 17, issue 1, 1-39

Abstract: The happy-productive worker thesis (HPWT) assumes that happy employees perform better. Given the relevance of teams and work-units in organizations, our aim is to analyze the state of the art on happy-productive work-units (HPWU) through a systematic review and integrate existing research on different collective well-being constructs and collective performance. Research on HPWU (30 studies, 2001–2018) has developed through different constructs of well-being (hedonic: team satisfaction, group affect; and eudaimonic: team engagement) and diverse operationalizations of performance (self-rated team performance, leader-rated team performance, customers’ satisfaction, and objective indicators), thus creating a disintegrated body of knowledge about HPWU. The theoretical frameworks to explain the HPWU relationship are attitude–behavior models, broaden-and-build theory, and the job-demands-resources model. Research models include a variety of antecedents, mediators, and moderating third variables. Most studies are cross-sectional, all propose a causal happy–productive relationship (not the reverse), and generally find positive significant relationships. Scarce but interesting time-lagged evidence supports a causal chain in which collective well-being leads to team performance (organizational citizenship behavior or team creativity), which then leads to objective work-unit performance. To conclude, we identify common issues and challenges across the studies on HPWU, and set out an agenda for future research.

Keywords: happy; productive; performance; satisfaction; affect; engagement; team; work-unit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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