Psychological Well-being and Performance - Focused on the Social Loafing and Job Engagement -

After the development of the Positive Organizational Behavior theory (Luthans, 2002), the field of organizational behavior was influenced by the positive psychology movement and began to consider the happiness of members of an organization as the purpose of the organization. However, the happiness of members of an organization should not be pursued as a norm; it should be pursued in a sustainable manner, and in order to continuously pursue members’ happiness, organizational growth is required. This study uses psychological well-being as a major variable to identify members’ happiness and aims to establish a relationship between members’ happiness and performance. This study considers social loafing and job engagement as major paths from psychological well-being to performance, and it considers empowering leadership as a moderator of social loafing and job engagement. The data were collected from 333 members of 12 organizations in the Republic of Korea, and the results of individual-level analysis indicate that members who had a high level of psychological well-being participated less in social loafing and showed more job engagement, which led to better performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Empowering leadership as a moderator of social loafing was valid. By examining both the theoretical perspective and empirical analysis, this study contributes to the fields of social loafing, cooperative research, and the Positive Organizational Behavior theory, as well as provides recommendations for practical implications.