Psychological and Organizational Determinants of Workplace Happiness: A Systematic Review
Keywords:
Employees, Professional, Organizational Psychology, Working women, Industrial PsychologyAbstract
Happiness at work has become an essential factor in determination of sustainability in the organization in the 21st century. The growing work-related stress, technological hastening, flexible work place arrangements and performance-related workplace are some of the factors that have increased the demand to comprehend psychological wellness at the work place (Schaufeli et al., 2009). Modern studies indicate that happiness in the work place forecasts increased creativity, productivity, commitment, and resilience instead of it being a consequence (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005; Oswald et al., 2015).
The present systematic review is a synthesis of empirical research that studied psychological and organizational variables that relate to workplace happiness. Searching Scopus, Psyc INFO, Pub Med and Google Scholar, a systematic search was conducted that yielded 412 articles published in the last 5 years (2010-2025).
As recommended in PRISMA 2020 (Page et al., 2021), 76 empirical peer-reviewed studies were included in the study. It has been found that personality factors (extraversion, neuroticism), emotional intelligence, resilience, and work engagement are always predictors of workplace happiness, and burnout has strong negative correlations (Steel et al., 2008; Maslach and Leiter, 2016). The presence of organizational predictors, transformational leadership, psychological safety, work-life balance, compensation fairness and career development opportunities are strongly supported empirically (Bass and Riggio, 2006; Allen et al., 2013). These relationships are mediated and moderated through mediating and moderating mechanisms such as engagement, gender, age and cultural context.
The review brings together evidence in the context of Positive Psychology, Self-Determination Theory and Job Characteristics Theory, and suggests an integrative multilevel theory of workplace happiness. Discussed are practical and theoretical implication.
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