Examining the Internal Consistency Reliability and Construct Validity of the Authentic Happiness Inventory (AHI) among Iranian EFL Learners

Imagining positive workplaces: extrapolating relationships between job crafting, mental toughness and authentic happiness in millennial employees

Purpose

Millennial managers are required to adopt to contemporary management practices and continually evolve to manage the workforce. To help them evolve and create positive workplaces, this study aims to extrapolate the associations between job crafting, mental toughness and authentic happiness (AH) among millennials and derive implications.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected from 496 millennial employees at Time-1 (March 2018), Time-2 (November 2018) and Time-3 (August 2019) from multiple sectors. A combined structural equation modelling and artificial neural networks approach was implied to test the strength of the proposed associations.

Findings

With reference to the relationships thus obtained between job crafting, mental toughness and AH, the results specifically conclude that challenging job demand is significant predictor of AH. Mental toughness partially mediates the relationship between challenging job demands and AH, indicating that mental toughness is an essential component for employee happiness.

Practical implications

Millennial managers and policymakers must challenge the skills of employees for obtaining optimal performance. When employees perceive adequate workload and have a set deadline for the completion of tasks assigned to them, they carry out the tasks with greater efficacy, in turn, leading them to find greater meaning (focusing on essential tasks), purpose and engagement in life (enthusiastic, interested, engaged). Overall, when millennial managers focus on such associations, they can help enhance productivity and constitute happier workplaces.

Originality/value

This study explores constructs such as mental toughness to support the job crafting and happiness relationship. A hybrid statistical analysis strengthens the accuracy of the proposed model and enhances its empirical and implied value.

Measuring Well-Being

Interest in the study of psychological health and well-being has increased significantly in recent decades. A variety of conceptualizations of psychological health have been proposed including hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, quality-of-life, and wellness approaches. Although instruments for measuring constructs associated with each of these approaches have been developed, there has been no comprehensive review of well-being measures. The present literature review was undertaken to identify self-report instruments measuring well-being or closely related constructs (i.e., quality of life and wellness) and critically evaluate them with regard to their conceptual basis and psychometric properties. Through a literature search, we identified 42 instruments that varied significantly in length, psychometric properties, and their conceptualization and operationalization of well-being. Results suggest that there is considerable disagreement regarding how to properly understand and measure well-being. Research and clinical implications are discussed.