x•Preface
PsyCap in particular. There is a substantial amount of evidence across industries
and global cultures that PsyCap can be validly measured and is a higher order
core construct. This means that PsyCap better predicts desired outcomes than
each of its four individual components (see Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman,
2007 for the basic research and the 51 studies using and verifying PsyCap as a
core construct in the quantitative meta analysis by Avey, Reichard, Luthans, &
Mhatre, 2011, and the 66 PsyCap articles identified in a recent comprehen-
sive literature review by Newman, Ucbasaran, Zhu, & Hirst, 2014). In addi-
tion, PsyCap has been empirically demonstrated to add value over and above
demographics and other established positive traits such as self-evaluations,
personality, and person-organization and person-job fit in predicting desired
behaviors and relates negatively with undesired behaviors (Avey, Luthans, &
Youssef, 2010; also see Choi & Lee, 2014 who controlled for Big Five personal-
ity traits). Through experimental (Luthans, Luthans, & Avey, 2014; Luthans,
Avey, Avolio, & Peterson, 2010; Luthans, Avey, & Patera, 2008) and longitu-
dinal (Peterson, Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa, & Zhang, 2011) studies, PsyCap
has been empirically demonstrated to be open to development and cause perfor-
mance improvement.
This evidence-based PsyCap has been supported, not only in the United
States but across the globe. Representative of this global research are PsyCap
studies conducted in China (Luthans, Avey, Clapp-Smith, & Li, 2008; Wang,
Sui, Luthans, Wang, & Wu, 2014; Wang, Liu, Wang, & Wang, 2014), Korea
(Choi & Lee, 2014), Australia (Avey, Nimnicht, & Pigeon, 2010), New Zealand
(Roche, Haar, & Luthans, 2014), Romania (Karatepe & Karadas, 2014),
South Africa (Cascio & Luthans, 2014; Reichard, Dollwet, & Louw-Potgieter,
2014), Vietnam (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012), Pakistan (Abbas, Raja, Darr, &
Bouckenooghe, 2014), Portugal (Rego, Marques, Leal, Sousa, & Pina e Cunha,
2010), and Egypt and the Middle East (Badran & Youssef, 2014; Youssef, 2011).
In addition, PsyCap has been conceptually and empirically shown to play an
important role in the development of a global mindset (Clapp-Smith, Luthans, &
Avolio, 2007; Story, Barbuto, Luthans, & Bovaird, 2014) and in positive global
leadership (Youssef & Luthans, 2012).
The Avey, Reichard et al. (2011) meta-analysis quantitatively aggregated
prior PsyCap research and found that PsyCap was indeed strongly related to
desired employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. The Newman et al.
(2014) review noted that PsyCap was also related to employee creativity (Huang
& Luthans, 2014; Rego, Sousa, Marques, & Pina e Cunha, 2012; Sweetman,
Luthans, Avey, & Luthans, 2011), problem solving and innovation (Luthans,
Youssef, & Rawski, 2011), job search (Chen & Lim, 2012), and well-being
(Avey, Luthans, Smith, & Palmer, 2010; Baron, Franklin, & Hmieleski, 2013;