I Character Strengths in Pakistan: the Role of Signature

Character Strengths in Pakistan: The Role of Signature Strengths Use for Employee Work Behaviors and Organizational Outcomes at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the Technische Universität Darmstadt submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat. Psychology) Doctoral thesis by Tahira Mubashar First assessor: Prof. Dr. Claudia Harzer Second assessor: Prof. Dr. Joachim Vogt Darmstadt 2021 i Mubashar, Tahira: Character Strengths in Pakistan: The Role of Signature Strengths Use for Employee Work Behaviors and Organizational Outcomes Darmstadt, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Published in TUprints: 2021 URN: urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-179454 Date of the viva voce: March 11th, 2021 Published under CC BY-SA 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ ii Acknowledgments First and foremost, I am grateful to Allah Almighty for granting me the strength, ability, and opportunity to commence this research. The completion of this dissertation marks an important milestone on an incredible journey in personal and professional growth for me. There are several people I would like to thank who have significantly enhanced my journey throughout the doctoral program. I am incredibly grateful to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Claudia Harzer for her wonderful support over the past five years. She has been a generous mentor and role model. Her enthusiasm, stimulating discussions, and exceptional guidance have contributed to my development as a scientist and a faculty member. I truly could not have asked for a better supervisor. I am also deeply appreciative of the support and guidance of my co-supervisor, Prof. Dr. Joachim Vogt to make my dissertation better and helped promote my growth as a researcher. Within my program, I am thankful for the wonderful support of my colleagues and friends, Laura, Katharina, Christian, Sadaf, Anam, and Natalia. We motivated each other throughout this long and at times, difficult journey. I especially want to acknowledge the support of Marco, who generously provided ideas (especially in the Positive Psychology Lab meetings), words of encouragement, and advice. A special thanks to my alma mater, University of the Punjab, Pakistan, for providing me an overseas scholarship that paved the way to proceed for the doctoral degree and the Technical University of Darmstadt for STIBET scholarship for completion of the degree. I would also like to thank the authors for permitting me to use their instruments. Special thanks go to all the participants and their supervisors who filled in the surveys. I would like to show deep appreciation for my family for all the love, support, and prayers they have sent my way along this journey: my father (in heaven) for giving me the strength to chase my dreams (I hope that I have made you proud); my mother for unconditional love and prayers; my siblings especially my sister for constant encouragement and moral support (in addition to yummy meals); my children for giving meaning to my life; and my Shakil for being there for me at the end of the day. Your love is what has kept me on the way and gotten me through the bumpy ride of the doctoral degree. Thank you very much! iii Abstract Character strengths are universally valued positive attributes, theorized to improve individuals’ functioning as well as of the organizations. Over the last two decades, the study of character strengths has attracted a large number of researchers across the globe. However, most of the existing research has been conducted in Western countries whereas research on character strengths is sparse in Pakistan and under-represented in international studies. Therefore, the prime aim of the present dissertation is twofold (a) to explore the relevance and prevalence of character strengths in Pakistan and (b) to get a further understanding of the role of character strengths and signature strengths use for workplace outcomes at the employee and organizational level. The present dissertation is organized into four studies. The first study examined the extent to which the 24 character strengths of the Values in Action (VIA) Classification were perceived as relevant in Pakistan. The Cultural Relevance of Character Strengths Survey (CRCSS) was developed to explore different aspects of the cultural relevance (e.g., existence, helpfulness, and importance) as well as gender and age-based practices of character strengths. Among 288 members of the Pakistani society, high rates of the agreement were found about nine aspects of the cultural relevance for all the 24 character strengths (perceived by ≥ 70 % of the participants). Spirituality, gratitude, and love were perceived as highly relevant character strengths. Moreover, at least 70% of the participants agreed that both gender and age groups (younger and elderly) practice all the 24 character strengths (except the practice of bravery by women). The second study aimed to assess the prevalence of character strengths in Pakistan and to make the results comparable with the global findings. A sample of 352 participants from the general population filled in the questionnaire measuring possession of character strengths. The results showed that the mean scores on possession of the 24 character strengths were above average for all the 24 character strengths (M ≥ 3.49). Honesty, fairness, kindness, teamwork, and leadership were the top five character strengths whereas modesty, humor, forgiveness, love of learning, and self-regulation were the bottom five character strengths. Further, ranks of the character strengths of the present Pakistani data showed considerable similarities with pre-existing Pakistani and US data (McGrath, 2015a). Women scored higher on character strengths of appreciation of beauty and excellence. Age positively correlated with gratitude and spirituality. The results supplemented the findings of the first study, corroborated the existing international literature regarding the prevalence of character ii strengths, and extended it by providing evidence from a relatively less studied population of Pakistan. Overall, the findings advocated that character strengths are not a culture-specific phenomenon and thus settled the ground for further study of the VIA Classification in specific settings (such as work) in Pakistan. The third study was the first-ever attempt in the work setting of Pakistan examining the role of character strengths and signature strengths use for productive (i.e., job performance and organizational citizenship behavior) and counterproductive work behaviors (i.e., deviant behavior and workplace procrastination). A sample of 227 employees from diverse occupational groups (e.g., sales, customer services, and academia) provided self- ratings for all the study variables along with supervisory ratings of job performance. In line with the expectation, the findings indicated that character strengths and signature strengths use positively correlated with job performance and organizational citizenship behavior whereas negatively correlated with deviant behavior and workplace procrastination. Signature strengths use emerged as a prominent predictor of job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Hope and modesty emerged as the most important predictors of supervisory ratings of job performance (e.g., emerged for seven and four dimensions respectively). Curiosity and love were the prominent predictors for organizational citizenship behavior. Forgiveness and fairness emerged as important negative predictors of deviant behavior and workplace procrastination respectively. The findings provided initial insight that character strengths and signature strengths use matter at work. However, there is a dire need for an overarching theoretical framework that explains how strengths-relevant behaviors are linked to various outcomes at work. The fourth study tested the motivational process of the Job Demands-Resources theory to explicate the role of signature strengths use as a personal resource and perceived organizational support for strengths use as job resource for different work outcomes. Further, it extended the role of resources to organizational outcomes (i.e., perceived and objective organizational performance, and actual turnover) through serial and parallel mediation of employee level variables (i.e., work engagement, job performance, and turnover intentions). The sample consisted of 202 top managers from 56 branches of a large bank in Pakistan. All the information was collected from participants except objective organizational performance and turnover. The findings divulged the mediational role of serial and parallel mediators between both kinds of resources and organizational outcomes. The effect of signature iii strengths use was fully mediated on turnover and partially mediated on perceived and objective organizational performance by work engagement, job performance, and turnover intentions. Moreover, the effect of organizational support for strengths use on perceived and objective organizational performance was fully mediated by work engagement, job performance, and turnover intention. Overall, initial evidence about the relevance and prevalence of character strengths from Pakistani culture offers important implications for their widespread utility at the individual as well as societal level. The findings based on studies representing ‘character strengths at work’ also hold several practical implications for employees and employers. At the employee end, identification and use of signature strengths

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