Psychological Capital: A Positive Approach to Enhance Commitment to Change among University Students

Shashika Naotunna^1,

¹Department of Business Management, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, Belihuloya, Sri Lanka

Cite this paper:
Shashika Naotunna. Psychological Capital: A Positive Approach to Enhance Commitment to Change among University Students. American Journal of Educational Research. 2015; 3(6):765-769. doi: 10.12691/education-3-6-16

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions need to engage in planned change initiatives in order to enhance the quality of higher education. However, gaining commitment for such change efforts is still problematic. Even though, considerable scholarly work has been devoted to commitment to change over the years it remains as an issue. Following this problem, the study aimed to investigates the impact of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) on dimensions of commitment to change (i.e. Affective Commitment to Change, Continuance Commitment to Change, and Normative Commitment to Change). The respondents of the study were undergraduates of Faculty of Management Studies of Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. Data were collected through a standard and validated questionnaire survey. Survey resulted in 396 usable questionnaires. SPSS 21 and Amos 16 were used to analyze data. Results suggest that PsyCap positively and significantly related to affective commitment to change, normative commitment to change and negatively affects continuance commitment to change. The results imply the importance of Psychological capital in enhancing affective and normative commitment to change while minimizing negative effects of continuance commitment. This research makes a novel contribution by being among the first to examine the impact of Psychological Capital in explaining commitment to change among university students.

Keywords:
affective commitment to change; continuance commitment to change; normative commitment to change psychological capital

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