The Influence of Psychological Capital and Organizational Culture on the Performance of the Health Organization

Abstract

In Portugal, the Primary Healthcare reforms in progress since 2005 aimed to implement a new organizational culture focused on the empowerment and psychological capital of its professionals signaling a bottom-up process. Recent investigations point to the importance of positive psychological capital and organizational culture in organizational performance generating positive operational results with job satisfaction. Starting from the research question: "To what extent do the psychological capital of professionals based on organizational culture impact their organizational performance?" was performed an empirical, crosssectional, retrospective, non-experimental, descriptive-correlational study with a sample of 193 health professionals (doctors and nurses) from of 32 health units (Community Care Units, Personalized Health Care Units, Family Health Units) that sought to assess the contribution of psychological capital and organizational culture to organizational performance. The Psychological Capital scale of Luthans, Youssef and Avolio was used; Organizational Culture scale, by Cameron and Quinn based on the Competing Values Framework; Organizational Performance Questionnaire based on indicators of the internal contracting of ACeS; Job Satisfaction of Brayfield and Rothe; and Intent on Leaving the Organization of Meyer, Allen and Smith. Confirmatory factorial analysis and reliability evaluation through Cronbach's alpha. The hypotheses of correlation analysis, regression models and moderation studies were tested. The results suggest the existence of a positive relationship between psychological capital, organizational culture, organizational performance and job satisfaction. The regression models show that the US typology explains 5% of the USF/UCSP organizational performance. Organizational culture increases 11% (ΔR2) of organizational performance, specifically due to the Flexibility factor. In total, the model explains 21% of the organizational performance of the USF/UCSP. Psychological capital does not have a predictive effect on organizational performance. However, the mediation studies show a very significant indirect effect: β = .61 * β = .72 = β = .44. in which the organizational culture has a mediating effect. Psychological capital accounts for 38% of the variance in organizational culture that explains organizational performance (β = .72). Organizational culture mediates psychological capital over organizational performance with a global effect of 42%. The implications of the results obtained are important in the management and training of health professionals given the importance of developing an organizational culture that favours organizational performance. Future research should be directed to the people, employees and users of health services, to evaluate beyond the impact of culture on the performance of the organization, the mediating effect it may have on the effectiveness of the service provided to the citizen. Keywords positive psychological capital, organizational culture, organizational performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment