Think Positive, Focus on Positive: How to Develop Psychological Capital in Tourism Businesses

Introduction

Developments experienced in environmental factors in recent years have reshaped rivalry in the work place. The changes, which globalisation led to, concern tourism industry closely. Tourism businesses take part among the businesses that feel the obligation of rapid adaptation to the changing environmental conditions due to their features peculiar to tourism industry such as the flexibility of the demand, the production and consumption of the service presented taking place in the same time period, and the service not being stored. Businesses which take part in tourism industry taking part in the service industry have entered a fierce competition environment (Coşar, 2008). The importance of the human element has gradually increased in terms of businesses in the process when the changes much more increasing the competition in the work place occur. Because the human resourse has the knowledge, education and experience which can provide advantage over the rivals and they can be made widespread. Physical resources in the tourism businesses, as in the other businesses, decision making models in the administration, managerial procedures can not be very difficult to be imititated by rivals by way of comparison.

Many organisations in competition have been functioning with the same technological capacity recently. The products produced by using advanced technology are reproduced in a very short time and presented to consumers even at a cheaper cost by the rivals by using counter engineering methods(Luthans & Youssef, 2004, pp. 144–145). Therefore, businesses have given importance to the human resource, the only element, which can provide them with competition advantage. Because the human resourse ‘s being imitated by rivals becomes rather difficult. This competition has more importance in tourism industry where service quality and customer satisfaction depend upon the performance of the employees. It is required that the employee contentedness, satisfaction, motivation should be maintained and their performance be increased in order to gain the desired results from the emploees. Psychological Capital (PsyCap) has the characteristics which can enable this. In this chapter positive organisational behavior (POB) and PsyCap are first defined, PsyCap dimensions, antecedents and consequences are included and then the importance of PsyCap in tourism industry and the studies conducted on it are included.