J Happiness Stud

DOI 10.1007/s10902-017-9882-x

RESEARCH PAPER

Happiness at Work Scale: Construction

and Psychometric Validation of a Measure Using Mixed
Method Approach

Sanjay Singh1,2 • Yogita Aggarwal2

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017

Abstract Using a mixed method approach we conducted three studies to construct a

multidimensional measure of happiness at work. In Study 1, a qualitative content analysis
using Atlas.ti 7 offered support for the proposed, a priori deductive model which also
discriminated between the construct of happiness at work and happiness in personal life.
Further, a principal axis factoring of the responses consisting of 539 working people (Study
2) yielded four factors reflecting the equal role of organizational and human aspects of the
workplace happiness, i.e. supportive work experiences, unsupportive work experiences,
flow and intrinsic motivation and work repulsive feelings. In Study 3, a Confirmatory
Factor Analysis testing the reflective versus formative structure of the proposed scale
supported a four-factor reflective model over a series of 13 competing models. Moreover,
the scale showed statistically significant convergent and discriminant validity. Possible
applications of the scale in predicting happiness styles and enhancing the experience of
happiness at work has been presented at the end.

Keywords Happiness at work scale
Happiness styles
Subjective well-being

1 Introduction

There seems to be a steep rise of popular as well as research interests in the construct of
happiness at work (Fisher 2010; Pryce-Jones 2010) as it brings a range of positive benefits
for individuals as well as for organizations. Happiness at work (HAW) has been found to
be associated with greater career success, earning, job performance and helping others at

& Sanjay Singh

[email protected]
1
Department of Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour, Asia-Pacific Institute
of Management, New Delhi 110025, India
2
Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

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 S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal

work (Boehm and Lyubomirsky 2008). Happy employees are twice as productive, six
times more energized, take the only 1/10th of sick-leaves, and intends to stay twice as long
in the organizations as compared to an unhappy employee (Pryce-Jones and Lindsay 2014).

1.1 Conceptual Operationalization of the Construct

In the research literature, the idea of HAW has been drawn on the happiness research
mainly in the field of psychology (Diener et al. 1993) and economics (Krause 2014).
Happiness is often considered synonymous with subjective well-being and defined as a
state of the high level of satisfaction with life coupled with high level of positive affect and
low level of negative affect (Carr 2004; Sheldon and Lyubomirsky 2004). However, the
construct of subjective well-being, coined by Diener, denotes only an aspect of happiness
that can be empirically measured. Hence, some researchers consider subjective well-being
as a scientific synonym of happiness (Pawelski and Gupta 2011). However, happiness is
part of everyday human experience and discourse. Thus, it will necessarily have fuzzy
boundaries and varying definitions (Diener 1984). For example, researchers have stressed
upon good luck and favourable external conditions (Oishi et al. 2013), coping resources
(Cohn et al. 2009), time and other orientation (Aaker et al. 2010) while understanding and
defining happiness. There is no unanimity over the content, definition and measures of
happiness (Agbo et al. 2012) with some researchers considering indicators of subjective
well-being, affect, quality of life denoting happiness (Easterlin 2004), while others high-
lighting the need to differentiate between them (Bruni and Porta 2005).
Therefore, while conceptualizing HAW we have kept in mind the important, if not
universal, measurement aspect of subjective well-being along with keeping our under-
standing of HAW simple, experiential and grounded in data (study 1). We conceptualize
HAW as an experience of subjective well-being at work that involves interaction between
individual employee experiences as well as organizational experiences. We operationally
define HAW as an experience of subjective well-being at work reflected through a high
amount of positive individual (e.g., highly valuing one’s work, feeling engaged to work)
and organizational (e.g., providing supportive work environment) experiences and low
amount of negative individual and organizational experiences. Based on this we propose a
priori framework (see Fig. 1) suggesting that a high amount of HAW will bring a high
amount of happiness-reflecting employee (e.g., feeling highly engaged to one’s work) and
organizational experiences (e.g., satisfaction with professional support and training
received). Similarly, a high amount of happiness means low amount of happiness reducing
(thus, unhappiness increasing) employee-level (e.g., strongly disliking one’s work) and
organizational experiences (e.g., the absence of avenues for meaningful work that impact
others).

2 Review of Literature

Fisher (2010) has offered three levels of analysis of HAW, i.e., personal, collective and
transient/state laying emphasis on HAW as an individual experience affected by the work
group dynamics. She also takes into account the momentary, but profound, experiences
that play a vital role in this entire relationship within the broader organizational context.
The important personal level variables, according to her, related to HAW are job satis-
faction, dispositional affect, affective organizational commitment, job involvement, work

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Individual level experiences

Subjective well-being at
work enhancing experiences

+ Subjective well-being at
work reducing experiences

Happiness

at

Work

Organizational level experiences

+
Subjective well-being at work
enhancing experiences
-

Subjective well-being at work

reducing experiences

Fig. 1 A priori operationalization and factor structure of the proposed scale. A high amount of happiness at
work will be reflected in high amount of those individuals and organizational experiences that increased
subjective well-being of employees at work

engagement, the typical mood at work, thriving, vigour and flourishing, and affective well-
being at work. Many of these individual level constructs extrapolate at collective and
transient stage affecting the happiness at that particular level.
Fisher’s framework seems appealing and comprehensive but gives an overwhelming
emphasis on job satisfaction and affect variables at various levels. For example, affect
appears as a dispositional variable, mood state, affective well-being as well as a sort of
affective commitment towards organizations. Fisher has traced the construct of HAW to its
positive psychological roots, and, thus this outcome doesn’t seem surprising. However, the
important point is that the study gave us a background, helped us to begin with a broad
deductive framework while inductively accommodating new constructs from other studies
by saturating the existing constructs. As the aim of the current research was to measure
HAW at individual level only so we ignored the group and transient state level constructs.
Finally, based on Fisher we selected dimension of job satisfaction, work engagement,
thriving and vigour, flow, and amount of positive affect for item generation (see Table 1).
Furthermore, to inductively derive factors from employee’s perspective we carried out a
qualitative study (Study 1) in which 260 employees offered their feedback about what
makes them happy at work in response to an online survey. Apart from reflecting the
dimensions outlined earlier we additionally got dimensions of supportive work

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Table 1 Dimensions of the proposed scale

s. no. Dimensions Operational definition Sample item Source
(extent to which an
employee)

1 Job …scores high on ‘‘I don’t get sufficient credit for Fisher (2010)
satisfaction contentment with job my achievements.*’’
2 Work …enjoys work and remains ‘‘I feel deeply involved in my Fisher (2010)
engagement devoted to it work.’’
3 Thriving and …feels flourishing and ‘‘My work provides me sufficient Fisher (2010)
vigour energetic at work opportunity to realize my full
potential.’’
4 Flow …feels absorbed in his ‘‘When I start doing my work I Fisher (2010)
work forget everything else.’’
5 Affect … feels higher amount of ‘‘My work makes me smile.’’ Fisher (2010)
positive emotions and
lowers amount of negative
emotions
6 Supportive …respects top leaders and ‘‘My organization provides all Expert
work managers for creating necessary training and feedback,
experience supportive work information to complete work qualitative
environment on time.’’ study
7 Team …perceives inclusive team ‘‘My organization does not have Expert
experiences culture in organization proper guidelines to regulate feedback,
team behavior and the work that qualitative
requires collective effort.*’’ study
8 Workplace …perceives workplace safe, ‘‘Many of my colleagues have Qualitative
hygiene uncluttered and hygienic improper sanitary habits.*’’ study
9 Job security …feels secure at his/her job ‘‘I feel secure at my job.’’ Expert
feedback,
qualitative
study
10 Impact on …perceives work has a ‘‘My work has a positive impact Hackman and
others significant impact on the on the lives of my company Oldham
lives of others customers and other people.’’ (1976),
expert
feedback

* Denote the negatively worded items of the scale

experiences, team experiences, feeling of workplace hygiene, perceived job security and
the impact of work on lives of others. These dimensions are briefly discussed below.
Job satisfaction is defined as an individual’s positive attitude toward job (Robbins and
Judge 2012). Happy individuals are reported to be ‘‘more loving, forgiving, trusting,
energetic, decisive, creative, sociable, and helpful’’ (cited from Myers 2000, p. 58) which
may lead to employees develop a more favourable attitude toward their work. A high level
of energy, creativity and enthusiasm can motivate the employees to devote themselves
more to work (given that organization provides sufficient avenues for the same). Fur-
thermore, happy employees show more sensitivity to opportunities at work and remain
confident and optimistic about their work (Bakker and Demerouti 2008). This would
increase the work engagement of the happy employees and sometimes an employee may
feel fully devoted or absorbed in work. As compared to this an unhappy employee is less
likely to feel engaged or to flourish at work and more likely to feel stressed and exhausted

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leading to a diminished sense of thriving and vigour at work. This will also reduce the job
performance of the employee (Carmeli et al. 2009).
Related to this is the concept of flow, defined as a state of experiencing peak enjoyment,
energetic focus, and creative concentration when an employee is completely immersed in
the job. Based on the literature cited earlier we believe that a happy employee will
experience more creativity, energy, focus and enjoyment at work leading to the experience
of flow. However, flow has been considered the main source or ingredient of happiness
(Csikszentmihalyi 2013) which is likely to reflect a formative influence of flow on hap-
piness. Nonetheless, happiness in the context of flow research has been variedly, some-
times very differently, defined as compared to the main idea of scientific happiness. For
example, Bakker (2008) in his measurement model of flow considered work enjoyment as
a dimension of flow which is close to happiness but not exactly happiness as it is
understood in positive psychology since the component of satisfaction, although seems
implied, but objectively missing in his flow inventory. This indicates that researchers
believe that flow brings experiences similar to happiness (e.g., work enjoyment) but may
not lead to exactly what we call scientific happiness. A high energy, enthusiasm and
heightened focus brought by happiness (Bakker and Demerouti 2008) may itself lead to the
experience of flow. To clarify the reflective versus formative relation between flow and
happiness, we have tested both reflective and formative measurement model and found
support in favour of the reflective influence of HAW on flow (see Table 4). Finally, the
dimensions of work engagement, thriving and vigour and flow may appear overlapping, but
Spreitzer and Porath (2014) has drawn fine distinctions among them.
Affect at work is another important variable in this context as happiness is often
experienced in the form of positive affective states. A high-level of positive affect coupled
with high level of satisfaction has been an important component of happiness in positive
psychology literature (Carr 2004). We believe that a high amount of HAW will be reflected
through a high amount of positive affect and low amount of negative affect. Furthermore,
employees spend a significant amount of time in organizations interacting with co-workers,
working in teams and meeting the expectations set out by their leaders. Employees develop
different subjective evaluations of organizational support and team experiences depending
upon their feelings and the level of satisfaction at work. As happy people are more
optimistic and forgiving, we hypothesize that happy employees will value their organi-
zational and team experiences more favourably while an unhappy employee will essen-
tially have complains and negativity for the same. Hence, we took supportive work
experiences and team experiences as two other aspects of HAW.
Workplace hygiene is a major issue at the workplace and according to a survey around
57% people at work judge a coworker based on the extent to which the coworker keeps the
workplace clean or dirty (Goudreau 2012). Unhappy people show less keenness to plan and
are less organized (White 2014) which could be reflected in the form of the messy desk or
unhygienic habits. Happy people are better workers (McKee 2014) and this will have
implication for workplace hygiene too. We do not deny the possibility of a formative role
of workplace hygiene on HAW, but we focus on the important relationship between two
variables and the implication that HAW will have for workplace hygiene. Furthermore,
since happy people are more socially outgoing, confident and sensitive to new opportu-
nities they are more likely to feel secure (job security) and growing professionally.
However, it’s more customary to think that it is job security promising a regular stream of
income that will lead to happiness but such influence of a regular job/income on happiness
has often been less than satisfactory or mostly illusory (Kahneman et al. 2006).

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The last dimension taken in the study was the impact of work on others which we
found conceptually closer to the concept of task significance given in the Job Charac-
teristics Model (Hackman and Oldham 1976). As pointed by Dunn et al. (2011) hap-
piness is related to focusing on the experiences rather than material good, becoming
more other-oriented, giving importance to the happiness of others and contributing to the
lives of others. A genuine happiness will nudge an employee to look for work avenues
that will contribute positively to the lives of others. The theory of authentic happiness
(Seligman 2002) considers hedonic, desirable as well as meaningful pursuits important
for happiness. PERMA model of well-being (Seligman 2011) emphasizes on positive
emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning and accomplishment (PERMA). We find
these ten dimensions addressing authentic happiness and PERMA model at work to a
good extent.

3 Scale Development

3.1 Critique of the Existing Measures of HAW

The scale development process started with the search for existing scales on the HAW
while avoiding the subjective well-being measures assessing happiness in general or
personal life. We found that there has been focused attempt to develop a scales for
measuring HAW mainly at professionals level but less so at the academic level. Happiness
at Work Survey (Happiness Works Ltd. 2016) and SMILES Framework (Andrew 2011)
fall into the category of scales developed by professionals. Noticeable scales with the
academic approach are the Work Well-being Scale (Tatiane and Tamayo 2008), the Job-
Related Affective Well-Being Scale (Van Katwyk et al. 2000) and iPPQ based HAW Scale
(Lutterbie and Pryce-Jones 2013). There has been some amount of overlap between the
core dimensions of HAW captured by these scales indicating increasing consensus on the
content validity of the construct. However, the scales falling within professional category
suffer from the lack of research rigour. Some of these scales (e.g., iPPQ) appears more of a
popular measure and cannot be considered scientifically developed and validated scale of
HAW.

3.2 Development of Dimensions and Item Writing

The ten dimensions of the proposed scale were identified based on the conceptual trian-
gulation between literature review, expert feedback and a qualitative content analysis
(Study 1). Since literature review and the feedback of two experts gave us sufficient
conceptual framework to proceed with identifying key dimensions, therefore, we coded the
qualitative data obtained in Study 1 using a combination of inductive and deductive
approaches (Friese 2011, 2014) in Atlas.ti 7 software. First five out of total ten dimensions
were based mainly on the literature review while the remaining five dimensions were based
primarily on the expert feedback and the qualitative analysis (Study 1). Based on this we
operationally defined all the ten dimensions and the details of the same are given in
Table 1 along with sample item and relevant sources.

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3.3 Proposed Factor Structure and Content Validity of the Scale

Following a priori framework (Fig. 1) we wrote both positive and negative items on each
of the dimensions of HAW identified through review of the literature and qualitative
analysis (study 1). We expected a hierarchical four factor model of HAW to measure the
proposed construct. Later, the results of the EFA (Study 2) confirm the emergence of four
factors which were validated based on the confirmatory analysis (Study 3).

3.4 Reliability, Convergent, and Discriminant Validity

To assess the convergent validity during the CFA we included only those items in a
dimension which showed standardized factor loading greater than .7, with composite
reliabilities of the dimensions greater than .7, and Average Variance Extracted (AVE)
value more than .5 (Hair et al. 2013). Maximal reliability or Coefficient H was calculated
to assess the stability of the dimension over repeated administrations. A construct with
H coefficient more than .8 indicates good stability (Hancock and Mueller 2001). Coeffi-
cient H is considered a better measure of the construct reliability as compared to Cron-
bach’s alpha coefficient as the later reflects the reliability of a composite only rather than
the reliability obtained through measured indicators of the factor (Hancock and Mueller
2010). We also checked the correlations between the proposed scale scores and other
standardized constructs like subjective well-being, positive emotion and negative emotion,
satisfaction with life and optimistic life orientation (for psychometric details of these
measures see study 3; for results of correlation analysis see Table 3). For discriminant
validity, we checked if Maximum Shared Variance (MSV) values were less than AVE,
along with whether square root of AVE values were greater than off-diagonal correlations
(Fornell and Larcker 1981; Hair et al. 2013). The calculation for validity was done using
the master validity plug-in AMOS (Gaskin and Lim 2016) and results are presented in
Table 5.

3.4.1 Discriminant Validation of Reflective versus Formative Structure

of the Proposed Scale

We also attempted to distinguish whether the reflective or formative structure of the

proposed scale better fits to data using three well-studied constructs associated with
happiness, i.e. affect (positive versus negative), satisfaction with life, and life orien-
tation. Psychological constructs like happiness, personality, attitude are essentially
reflective constructs in nature (Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2006; Diamantopoulos and
Winklhofer 2001). Thus, we hypothesized that relating a reflective model of HAW with
reflective models of affect (positive versus negative), satisfaction with life, and life
orientation will fit better to data as compared to relating a formative model of HAW
with the same. For this, we took reflective measurements of affect, satisfaction with
life, and life orientation and tested various combinations of measurement models by
varying the proposed scale’s measurement model between reflective and formative
models (see Table 4 for results).

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4 Study 1: Identifying Dimensions of HAW Scale Through Qualitative

Inquiry

4.1 Method

An open-ended qualitative survey was used to collect information regarding events

occurred within past one year that respondents associate with workplace happiness. Par-
ticipants were also asked to mention the anticipated happiness related events at their
workplace in the coming year. To differentiate between events that people relate with
happiness at work in contrast to happiness in personal life the respondents were also asked
to mention similar events in their past and future one years of life. The obtained data was
qualitatively analyzed for the major themes underlying HAW. Based on the review of
literature some provisional codes (Saldana 2015) were developed which were further
refined and updated based on the codes grounded in qualitative data. A combination of
deductive and inductive approach was used by the authors to code data as per the Noticing-
Collecting-Thinking approach (Friese 2011, 2014). The coding process was initiated with a
deductive framework proposed in the beginning (Fig. 1). The codes which were not found
susceptible to provisional coding were developed inductively through open coding
approach.

4.2 Sample

The qualitative survey was sent to 680 working people with the help of psychology
undergraduate students of the University of Delhi. We received 260 usable responses
making effective response rate of 38.23%. The sample consisted of 63% male and 37%
female executive level employees from various parts of India.

4.3 Results and Discussion

The qualitative coding process led to the generation of total 118 open codes. The network
view showed the emergence of different themes for HAW under the two broad deductive
category of individual and organizational factors. However, it was noticed that while
talking about HAW respondents also referred to unhappiness even when they were not
explicitly asked about it. Some respondents related their unhappiness with a high work-
load, feeling job insecurity, transfer or relocation. Unhappy employees also made reference
to office politics, bad work environment, disproportionate workload, an insufficient number
of holidays, unfair treatment, stress, job uncertainties, long commuting distance, poor
location, untidy and cluttered workplace, and unwarranted transfers.
The individual and organizational factors of happiness were saturated with inductively
derived codes which were subsequently converted into categories. The one prominent
organizational aspect signified toward a positive work experience which contained
appreciation for organizational support/facilities, colleagues, and bosses. The other aspects
were networking and growth of opportunities, salary, promotion, paid leaves, holidays,
tours and vacations, job security and perception of top leaders including leadership ethics,
perceived fairness toward employees and the fair decision-making process. Participants
also mentioned individual level intrinsic experiences such as personal achievements that
boosted the self-esteem of the employees, their engagement with work and the extent to
which their work impacted the lives of others including company customers, colleagues,

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their family members as well as society in general. Matching with the zeitgeist employees
also cited mastering new skills and learning new things related to HAW.
In contrast to this, the most prominent themes related to happiness in life were the
occurrence of social events like celebrating birthdays, anniversaries of self and significant
others, vacations, bonding with family and friends, the achievements of self and significant
others like getting good grades, a new job, or making some social contribution. Moreover,
health-related issues like illness and accidents followed by family and relationship issues,
and financial losses were also found prominently related to unhappiness in life. Based on
the results of the qualitative analysis it’s clear that there are distinct themes underlying the
construct of HAW and happiness in personal life. People at work associate happiness with
more professional reasons (e.g., salary, nature of work) as compared to the happiness in life
where it is expressed mainly through social events and bonds. It gave us support to include
only work-related aspects, reflected in 10-dimensions identified earlier, in our measure of
happiness.

5 Study 2: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

5.1 Method

Based on the review of the literature and the results of study 1, the authors generated 65
items oversampling the identified ten dimensions (see Table 1). Both positive and negative
items were generated for each dimension as per the criteria laid by Edwards (1983) and
Hinkin (1995). The response option for items varied from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
(strongly agree).

5.2 Sample

We collected data in two phases. In the first phase, the 65 item HAW scale was sent to 750
working people through hired field surveyors and volunteering undergraduate students of
the University of Delhi. Total 314 subjects belonging to different sectors returned data of
which 280 responses were found usable. In phase 2 the same questionnaire was personally
administered to 270 working people out of which 259 responses were found usable. The
total sample (N = 539) consisted of 46.2% working male and 53.2% females with the
mean age and the mean work experience of 34.68 and 7.96 years respectively. The sample
was majorly drawn from the Tier I Metro cities of India with 47.5% subjects belonging to
Indian origin private sector organizations, 11.7% belonging to foreign origin private sector
organizations, 17.1% belonging to public sector/government organizations, 1.7% entre-
preneurs and remaining 1.1% per belonging to non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

5.3 Result

Before going for exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Velicer’s minimum average partial
(MAP) test was conducted to identify the reliable number of independent factors as it is a
more objective method for identifying the possible number of factors as compared to its
subjective counterparts like Kaiser’s criterion or scree plot (O’connor 2000). Velicer’s
MAP test suggested four factors with eigenvalues ranging from 2.34 to 10.02. Furthermore,
an initial reliability analysis with all 65 items confirmed sufficient reliability of the scale

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(a = .89). Researchers have recommended considering the item-total correlation cut-off

ranging from .3 (Nunnally and Bernstein 2010) to .4 (Edwards 1983; Field 2013) for the
acceptance of items for further exploratory analysis. There were 42 such items retained
after reliability analysis. There were no negative item-total correlations reflecting the
absence of bad wording, sampling error or miskeying (Nunnally and Bernstein 2010).
These 42 items were subjected to an iterative process of principal axis factoring which
yielded four factors consisting of 16 items as shown in Table 2.

5.4 Results and Discussion

As per a priori conceptualization, contrasting dimensions emerged reflecting individual and

organizational factors which jointly explained 55.62% of the variance. Based on the
content of items organizational dimensions were named as supportive organizational
experiences (n = 4 items, a = .73) and unsupportive organizational experiences (n = 3
items, a = .72), while employee dimensions were named as flow and intrinsic motivation
(n = 5 items, a = .71), and work repulsive feelings (n = 4 items, a = .75). Furthermore,
total score on the proposed scale was found significantly positively correlated with sup-
portive organizational experiences (r = .62, p \ .01) and flow and intrinsic motivation
(r = .65, p \ .01) dimensions, while being negatively correlated with work repulsive
feelings (r = -.68, p \ .01) and unsupportive organizational experiences (r = -.47,
p \ .01) dimensions. Again, correlation table (Table 3) shows that HAW correlates pos-
itively with the construct of positive emotion (r = .39, p \ .01), satisfaction with life
(r = .24, p \ .01) and life orientation (r = .15, p \ .05), and negatively with negative
ffect (r = -.24, p \ .01). These correlations are in conceptually intended direction and
offer further supports to the validity of the proposed scale.

6 Study 3: Scale Validation Through Confirmatory Factor Analysis

(CFA)

6.1 Method

Study 3 was conducted with an aim to confirm the factor structure of the proposed scale.
Data was collected on the 16 item HAW scale along with four standardized validity
measures whose details are given below in the measures section.

6.2 Sample

The sample consisted of 400 Indian working male (36%) and female (64%) with a mean
age of 27.90 years and the average experience of 3.27 years. The respondents mainly
belonged to private sector Indian origin organizations (68.2%), followed by public sec-
tor/government organization (20.5%), private sector multinational companies (11.4%).
Around 45% respondents had a graduate degree, 35.6% reported having a master degree
and rest reported diploma and other qualifications. Furthermore, 81.8% reported practising
religion as Hinduism, 3.6% Islam, 3.6% Christianity, 3% Sikhism, 2.4% Jainism, and
remaining 5.5% atheist and other religions.

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Table 2 Results of EFA & CFA on retained items of the proposed scale
Items Factor loadings based on principal axis Standardized loadings (k) based on Item reliability Error term
factoring (Study 2, N = 539) confirmatory factor analysis of four- (k2) (1 - k2)
factor 12 item model (Study 3,
N = 400)

FIM WRF SOE UOE FIM WRF SOE UOE

i25. At my work, I remain inspired and try to inspire .690 .075 .025 .030 .825 .681 .319
others as well (Gehrich 2012)a.
i27. I feel internally driven to do great things at my .617 -.038 .032 -.129 .856 .732 .267
work (Hassanzadeh and Mahdinejad 2013; Zhang
and Kemp 2009).
i26. When I start doing my work I forget everything .615 -.094 -.093 .014 deleted – –
else (Kondo and Hirano 2016; Vanderkam 2015).
i24. I enjoy what I am doing at work (Revesencio .563 -.003 .148 -.004 .765 .585 0414
2015; Waterman 1993).
i16. I continue to do a task till it is perfectly done .491 .094 .088 .094 deleted – –
(interpretation based on Bakker and Demerouti
2008).
i50. I am not very comfortable in approaching my .004 .635 -.008 .034 .751 .564 .440
boss.*
i57. I hate lot of people here for always being -.070 .603 .010 -.012 deleted – –
around the boss for personal gains (based on
Chanania 2011; Schrage 2010).*
i32. I feel stressed at work (based on Kjerulf 2014; .053 .564 -.027 -.110 .855 .731 .269
Nishitani and Sakakibara 2007).*
i42. Often I feel like quitting my job (Coomber and .009 .560 -.020 -.065 .765 .585 .415
Barriball 2007; Halbesleben and Wheeler 2008).*
i31. My organization provides all necessary training .089 .118 .643 .086 .749 .561 .439
123

and information to complete work on time.

i41. The decision-making process in my company is -.056 -.083 .632 .012 .832 .692 .308
fair and just (based on Martin et al. 1997).
 Table 2 continued
123

Items Factor loadings based on principal axis Standardized loadings (k) based on Item reliability Error term
factoring (Study 2, N = 539) confirmatory factor analysis of four- (k2) (1 - k2)
factor 12 item model (Study 3,
N = 400)

FIM WRF SOE UOE FIM WRF SOE UOE

i21. Top leaders of my organization have clear .051 -.053 .628 -.081 .713 .508 .492
vision and focus.
i6. We celebrate and cheer each other at the .035 .021 .583 -.021 deleted – –
accomplishment of targets.
i19. My organization does not have proper .054 .011 -.083 .763 .756 .572 .428
guidelines to regulate team behaviour and work
that require collective effort (based on Rook
1984).*
i11. My company does not have a proper interface -.076 .018 .097 .665 .873 .762 .238
that can allow us to work for social cause.*
i14. I don’t get sufficient credit for my .023 .120 -.003 .541 .717 .514 .486
contributions.*
Eigen values 3.38 3.30 1.40 1.11
% Variance explained (Total = 55.62%) 21.15 18.77 8.75 6.95
a .75 .71 .73 .72

Items are presented with their original item number in parent scale. Deleted—item deleted during confirmatory analysis to improve the model fit
FIM flow and intrinsic motivation, WRF work repulsive feelings, SOE supportive organizational experiences, UOE unsupportive organizational experiences
Primary factor loadings are shown in bold

S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal
* Denote the negatively worded items of the scale
a
Some studies supporting a reflective influence of happiness at work on the content measured in items are shown in parentheses. The detailed explanation of the same can be
seen in the discussion part
Happiness at Work Scale: Construction and Psychometric…

Table 3 Correlation among psychological variables (Study 3)

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Happiness at work r a = .72

scale N 398
2 Positive affect r .394** a = .83
N 173 174
3 Negative affect r -.243** -.343** a = .74
N 169 170 170
4 Positive life orientation r .151* .314** -.310** a = .43
N 174 174 170 175
5 Satisfaction with life r .239* .214* -.326** .081 a = .75
N 108 108 105 109 109
6 Oxford happiness scale r .527** – – – – a = .79
N 137 – – – – 137
Values on diagonal denote Cronbach’s Alpha (a) value of the respective scales. Oxford Happiness Scale was
not administered in Study 3 hence its correlation with other scales are not available
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; r denotes correlation and N denotes respective sample size

6.3 Measures

6.3.1 Oxford Happiness Questionnaire

Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Hills and Argyle 2002) was used to measure the uni-
dimensional subjective well-being factor among subjects. It is a 29 item Likert- type scale
(a = .79) with response options varying from 1(‘‘Strongly disagree’’) to 6 (‘‘Strongly
agree’’). The scale contains 12 negative items all of which were reverse scored before
analysis. A sample item of the scale is ‘‘I feel that life is very rewarding.’’

6.3.2 Positive and Negative Affects Schedule (PANAS)

To measure the affective state of the subjects we used 20-items PANAS (Watson et al.
1988) that contains 10 adjectives measuring the positive affect (e.g., inspired, enthusiastic;
N = 175, a = .83) and 10 adjectives measuring negative affect (e.g., irritable, distressed;
N = 174, a = .74). Subjects were asked to indicate the extent of feelings on these
adjectives on a 5-point Likert-type scale varying from 1 (‘‘Not at all’’) to 5 (‘‘Extremely’’).

6.3.3 Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)

It is five-item Likert-type positively worded scale to measure global life satisfaction (Pavot
and Diener 1993) with response options varying from 1 (‘‘Strongly disagree’’) to 7
(‘‘Strongly agree’’). A sample item of this scale (N = 109, a = .75) is ‘‘I am satisfied with
my life.’’

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 S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal

6.3.4 Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R)

This scale measures dispositional optimism defined in term of generalized outcome

expectations (Scheier et al. 1994) based on 10 Likert-type items scored from 0 (‘‘Strongly
disagree’’) to 4 (‘‘Strongly agree’’). The scale included three filler items which were not
included in the analysis. Although its reliability was found comparatively low in current
sample (N = 175, a = .43) but Gustems-Carnicer et al. (2016) have reported overall good
reliability (N = 291, a = .72) for the Spanish version of this scale.

6.4 Results and Discussion

6.4.1 CFA

We performed CFA using AMOS 23 to validate the factor structure that emerged after
EFA in the study 2. For testing the model fit we relied on the values of the recommended
indices of model fit, i.e. relative Chi square (v2/df) value between 1 and 3, Goodness of Fit
Index (GFI) and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) value of more than .95, Standardized Root
Mean Square Residual (SRMR) values less than .08, and Root Mean Square Error of
Approximation (RMSEA) value less than .06 (Hu and Bentler 1999). Since the models were
non-nested, we used Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) to compare the relative quality of
competing models. AIC is probably the best and most widely known and used (Cavanaugh
2012) parsimony-based criterion that indicates loss of information while selecting a can-
didate model as the true model (the actual model that give rise to sample data). A model
having a lower value of AIC is preferable as it indicates less information loss as compared
to the true model. We calculated AIC change (Di) defined as the difference between AIC
value of a competing model (ith model) and the minimum AIC value reported for best
fitting model (i.e., Di = AICi –AICmin) and ranked models based on their AIC value in the
ascending order (model with lowest AIC change value has been given the rank of 1).
To allow free estimation of factor loadings for all the four EFA dimensions and keep the
model identifiable the variance of second order HAW construct was constrained to 1
(Model 6.3). The initial analysis (Model 6.3) showed mediocre model fit (v2/df = 3.335,
GFI = .904, CFI = .921, SRMR = .074, RMSEA = .077, AIC = 405.539). To improve
the model fit we analyzed the correlation between error terms and based on the modifi-
cation indices and low standardized loadings we iteratively eliminated four items (i6, i16,
i26, i57) to avoid redundant items and improve model fit. This offered 12-item hierarchical
model (Model 6.2) with acceptable fit (v2/df = 1.923, GFI = .962, CFI = .978,
SRMR = .054, RMSEA = .048, AIC = 152.154). We further compared this model (Model
6.2) with a 16-item (Model 7.1) and 12-item (Model 7.2) reflective four-factor model in
which the second-order happiness construct, whose variance was constrained to 1, was
eliminated because a model with no imposed constraints with all factor loadings varying
freely is preferable as compared to a constrained model (Dahling et al. 2008). The 12-item
four factor reflective model (Model 7.2) showed better fit as compared to the 12 item
reflective hierarchical (Model 6.2) model (v2/df = 1.635, GFI = .969, CFI = .985,
SRMR = .039, RMSEA = .040, AIC = 135.55). We found the most robust indices for the
Model 7.2, thus, compared it with other competing models. The competing models
included a null model, a common factor model, three pairs of reflective versus formative
models with reflective PANAS (Model 3.1 and Model 3.2), reflective SWLS (Model 4.1
and Model 4.2), reflective LOT-R (Model 5.1 and Model 5.2), a formative first-order

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Happiness at Work Scale: Construction and Psychometric…

hierarchical model (Model 6.1), and a 16-item four factor reflective model (Model 7.1).
The results of CFA along with indices of model fit are presented in Table 4.
Based on the results of comparative model fit we accepted 12-item four-factor reflective
Model 7.2 (Fig. 2) as it shows better indices of model fit as compared to all other models.
Furthermore, all reflective models performed better as compared to their formative
counterpart.

6.4.2 Reliability, Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Table 5 shows that the proposed scale has no convergent and discriminant validity issues.
All the composite reliabilities and coefficient H values are greater than .8 reflecting the
good reliability of the constructs. All the AVE values are more than .5 reflecting con-
vergent validity. Furthermore, MSV values are less than their AVE values of the respective
constructs along with square root of AVE values being more than off-diagonal values
indicating the discriminant validity of the constructs.

7 General Discussion

Our study shows that people do distinguish between happiness in personal and professional
life (study 1). We further identified four major dimensions of the happiness at work (study
2) and used a series of 13 competing models to confirm the four-factor structure (Study 3)
of the proposed scale. Scale development in psychology essentially involves working with
reflective constructs where constructs reflect the indicators in contrast to index develop-
ment exercise, which is more common in disciplines like economics and sociology, with
formative constructs (Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2006; Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer
2001). Thus, measurement of psychological constructs like happiness, attitude, personality
is done in a way where indicators (manifestations) typically originate from their parent
construct (latent variable). The four EFA dimensions are essentially latent factors where
items have been conceptualized to originate from their respective factors. However, on the
surface level, some indicators give the impression of being a formative measure of hap-
piness at work. Technically the major points of distinction between formative and
reflective models are that reflective models have indicators which are interchangeable,
correlated, thus reflect internal consistency, along with having error terms and forming
statistically identifiable models (Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer 2001, p. 271). The
obtained exploratory model meets the interchangeability criterion as removal of any item
will not lead to any substantial change in the nature of underlying construct (although it
may affect construct reliability or may create the problem of model identification). Sim-
ilarly, there is an acceptable amount of correlation between the four dimensions and
internal consistency shown by the final scale.
However, the relationship between variables is not always possible to clearly categorize
as either formative or reflective because casual relations among psychological variables
can sometimes work mutually. For example, volunteering (time) and donation (money)
have been found to bring greater well-being, and people with a greater sense of well-being
have been found to spend more hours in volunteering and donate more money (Aaker and
Akutsu 2009; Thoits and Hewitt 2001). However, we accept the premise that psychological
measures are essentially reflective and, keeping in mind certain limitations of this
dichotomy, we discuss the obtained results about the content and factor structure of the

123
 Table 4 Fit indices for test of discriminant validity (N = 400) (Study 3)
123

Model Second order First order v2 df v2/df SRMR RMSEA GFI CFI AIC Di = Model
AICi - AICmin rank

Model 1: Null – – 2136.914*** 66 32.377 – .280 .431 .000 2160.914 2025.364 13

model
Model 2: Common – Reflective 1099.863*** 54 20.368 .146 .220 .638 .495 1147.863 1012.313 10
factor model
Model 3.1 PANAS Four factor 1248.689*** 464 2.691 .094 .125 .693 .906 1612.935 1477.385 12
reflective formative
Model 3.2 PANAS Four factor 781.602*** 462 1.692 .089 .080 .708 .962 1157.230 1021.680 11
reflective reflective
Model 4.1 SWLS Four factor 229.089*** 119 1.925 .177 .093 .795 .781 297.089 161.539 6
reflective formative
Model 4.2 SWLS Four factor 207.912*** 115 1.808 .1403 .086 .822 .815 283.912 148.362 5
reflective reflective
Model 5.1 LOT-R Four factors 298.025*** 90 3.311 .212 .115 .808 .740 358.025 222.475 8
reflective formative
Model 5.2 LOT-R Four factors 159.430*** 86 1.854 .092 .070 .894 .908 227.430 91.880 3
reflective reflective
Model 6.1 HAW Four factor 287.362*** 54 5.322 .206 .104 .882 .887 335.362 199.812 7
reflective formative
Model 6.2: HAW Four factor 96.154*** 50 1.923 .054 .048 .962 .978 152.154 16.604 2
Hierarchical reflective reflective
model 12-item
Model 6.3 HAW Four factor 333.539*** 100 3.335 .074 .077 .904 .921 405.539 269.989 9

S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal
reflective reflective
16-item
Model 7.1 – Four factor 182.990*** 94 1.947 .067 .049 .948 .970 266.990 131.440 4
reflective
16-items
 Table 4 continued

Happiness at Work Scale: Construction and Psychometric…

Model Second order First order v2 df v2/df SRMR RMSEA GFI CFI AIC Di = Model
AICi - AICmin rank

Model 7.2: – Four factors 78.483** 48 1.635 .039 .040 .969 .985 135.55 (AICmin) 0 1
Accepted model reflective
12-items

** p \ .01; *** p \ .001

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 S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal

.44

-.39 -.21

-.38 .48 -.35

Work repulsive Flow & intrinsic Supportive Unsupportive

feelings motivation organizational organizational
experiences experiences

.77 .85 .75 .76 .86 .82 .75 .83 .76 .87
.71 .72
i50 i32 i42 i24 i27 I25 i31 i21 i41 i19 i11 i14

1.48 1.03 1.69 .84 .50 .66 1.23 1.50 .82 1.58 1.57 .77

Fig. 2 Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Happiness at Work Scale

Table 5 Reliability, convergent and discriminant validity

Scale CR AVE MSV Coefficient 1 2 3 4
dimensions H

1 Flow and 0.856 0.666 0.232 0.862 0.816

intrinsic
motivation
2 Supportive 0.809 0.587 0.232 0.820 0.482*** 0.766
organizational
experiences
3 Unsupportive 0.827 0.616 0.196 0.848 -0.207*** -0.348*** 0.785
organizational
experiences
4 Work repulsive 0.834 0.627 0.196 0.844 -0.377*** -0.388*** 0.442*** 0.792
feelings

CR composite reliability, AVE average variance extracted, MSV maximum shared variance
*** p \ .001

proposed scale in the following paragraphs. Although we have taken special care to
incorporate only researches linking the content of items with workplace happiness as far as
possible, due to the paucity of the researches in this direction researches related to general
happiness have also been incorporated wherever relevant.

7.1 Flow and Intrinsic Motivation

Researchers have studied the relationship between happiness and inspiration (item 25) in
both formative and reflective manner. For example, Thrash et al. (2010) found that
inspiration significantly enhances well-being, while Chaiprasit and Santidhiraku (2011)
could not find a significant influence of job inspiration on HAW (B = .13, t = .16,
p = .11). Gehrich (2012) suggest a reflective influence of happiness on inspiration and
holds the view that ‘‘everytime employees experience a small burst of happiness, they get
primed for creativity and innovation. Happy people are more inspired and productive’’

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Happiness at Work Scale: Construction and Psychometric…

(p. 98). Furthermore, researchers have reported a significant relationship between happi-
ness and achievement motivation (Hassanzadeh and Mahdinejad 2013), and intrinsic
motivation (r = .31, p \ .05, Zhang and Kemp 2009). Thus, a high level of HAW will be
reflected in internal drive and motivation of the employees to do great things at work (item
27).
HAW is also reflected in the extent to which employees feel absorbed in their work
(item 26). Early researchers emphasized a formative relationship between feeling absorbed
in work and happiness, for e.g., Myers and Diener (1995) believe that either at work or
leisure people enjoy themselves more when they are absorbed in the flow of an activity.
However, a recent article in Fortune (Vanderkam 2015) while citing Japanese authors
(Kondo and Hirano 2016) says that happy people actively seek work that can absorb them.
It doesn’t appear logical to presume that a passive absorption (which may happen during
the meeting of deadlines or piling up of work) will always lead to HAW. Furthermore,
recent researches have shown that when employees are happy they tend to enjoy work
more (item 24) and are more effective, creative and collaborative (Revesencio 2015).
Furthermore, perfectionist people are rarely happy as things rarely reach to the state of
perfection or stay there (Matthews and Ewens 1988; Walsh 2013). This diminishes the
scope of the formative effect of perfectionist attitude on happiness at work. If employees
are happy, they reflect greater engagement with work and organization due to the influence
of positive mood which is associated with happiness at work. As happy people show
increased sensitivity to opportunities at work, are more helpful, confident and optimistic
(Bakker and Demerouti 2008) they are more likely to strive for perfection in their work
(item 16).

7.2 Work Repulsive Feelings

The simple idea of ‘approaching boss’ for anything is enough to cause discomfort and
anxiety among most of the employees unless employees prefer socializing with the boss,
developing personal equations to receive guidance or improve their power and position in
the organization. Meeting with the boss unavoidably involves indulging in some normative
or expected behaviour, or one that pleases the boss along with the possibility of being
judged accordingly as any type of organization (structure) almost always gives more power
to the bosses than the employees. This is likely to create anxiety and unhappiness among
the employees. According to a Harvard Business review article (de Vries 2016) around half
of the American employees leave their jobs at some point in their career to get away from
their bosses. Similar or even higher figures can be expected in other continents of the
world. Thus, unhappiness at work could be well reflected in the form of the inhibition to
approach or tendency to avoid one’s boss (item 50). Being uncomfortable in approaching
one’s boss or tendency to avoid the boss as far as possible could be a good behavioural
measure as well as a heuristic to understand unhappiness at work. However, here other
variables may also play a role, for e.g., personality traits like introversion, psychological
barrier, perceived negative attitude or behaviour of the boss, which is not uncommon, like
micromanaging, bullying, stealing credit, poor listening habit, and negative past experi-
ences. Furthermore, if employees (either extrovert or introvert) have no choice in choosing
the way they become happy, then the scenario is likely to bring only unhappiness (Hills
and Argyle 2001). As employees rarely have choices or equal power when they approach
their bosses hence a discomfort to approach one’s boss can be considered a good indicator
of employee unhappiness.

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 S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal

Furthermore, it is believed that introverts comprise over one-third of the population but
the actual number could be between 47 and 55% (Helgoe 2013). According to another
estimate the prevalence of introversion and extroversion among the bosses is in the ratio of
50:50 (Brush 2012) so there is always more than the chance possibility of unhappiness at
work being reflected by a discomfort in approaching one’s boss who could be a person of
opposite personality disposition. Although extroverts consistently rate themselves higher
on happiness but that may be due to their self-serving bias and perception of being fit in a
seemingly extroversion-endorsing culture (Hills and Argyle 2001).
Bosses may knowingly or unknowingly promote dysfunctional behaviour at work like
sycophancy, suck-ups, the motivated admiration which may generate repulsive or loath-
some feeling among other employees (Schrage 2010). In the presence of such dysfunc-
tional behaviours in which honest and task oriented employees feel incapable of indulging,
the unhappiness of employees would be reflected through the feeling of nausea and
repulsiveness toward sycophant employees in particular (item 57) and work in general. The
intensity of unhappiness brought by this dilemma, especially when professional losses
could be up to 5% in this competitive world of work (Chanania 2011), would be reflected
in the feeling of disgust which is a strong primary visceral emotion. Since prevalence rate
of sycophancy is very high in the organizations, up to 80% in case of public sector
organizations (Chahal and Poonam 2015), unhappiness at work would often be reflected
through the feeling of repulsiveness in such situations.
Though stress may appear to have a formative influence on happiness, it is more prudent
to think that absence of HAW will be reflected through symptoms like stress (item 32),
sleep disturbances, poor health, burnout, depression, poor productivity or similar negative
outcomes. Around 20 to 40% employees feel unhappy and miserable at work (Kjerulf
2014) which has been found to be positively correlated with unhealthy eating behaviour,
stress, and depression (Nishitani and Sakakibara 2007). The experience of unhappiness at
work seriously affects the attitude of employees toward their job which could be reflected
in employee’s intention of quitting the job (item 42) but this may not result in the employee
actually quitting the job as the relationship between attitude and behaviour is essentially
weak (Erwin 2014). This also explains why a large number of people don’t quit their job
even after being unhappy and unengaged to it. Feeling of unhappiness at work brings
disengagement and lack of embeddedness that leads to intention to quit (Halbesleben and
Wheeler 2008). Unhappiness with work also means dissatisfaction at work that again leads
to intention to quit (Coomber and Barriball 2007; Scott et al. 2003).

7.3 Supportive/Unsupportive Organizational Experiences

Items 31, 41, 21 (belonging to supportive organizational experiences dimension) and items
19, 11, 14 (belonging to unsupportive organizational experiences dimension) essentially
reflect how happiness affects the employee evaluation of various types of organizational
support or lack of it. The general premise underlying these items is that happiness at work
will lead to positive evaluation of various organizational supports while unhappiness will
lead to negative evaluation reflected in perceived lack of support from the organization
(Batra and Stayman 1990; Martin et al. 1997). Happy employees are more likely to express
satisfaction with the company training programs (item 31) and the organizational support
that is required to complete their work. Happy employees are more likely to value the
learning of new skills and will show greater keenness to undergo training programs so as to
improve their skills, self-esteem, and earnings. It is not uncommon to observe happy and
successful athletes offering a more favourable evaluation of their coaches or happy

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Happiness at Work Scale: Construction and Psychometric…

students showing better class attendance, class participation, appreciation for the teacher,
and overall satisfaction with the teaching–learning process.
Moreover, the perception of fairness at work again to a large extent depends on how
employees feel at work (item 41). A happy and satisfied employee is more likely to
perceive decision-making process as fair and just because people in positive mood offer
more favourable evaluation than people in negative mood (Martin et al. 1997). Similarly,
happy employees are more likely to hold a favourable evaluation about their organization’s
vision and focus (item 21). Furthermore, a happy employee is less likely to be jealous of
achievement of other colleagues, and more likely to participate in celebrating and cheering
others/teams at the accomplishment of targets (item 6). We consider it one of the important
indicators of employee happiness expressed at group or team level. Celebrating and
cheering others at the accomplishment of targets is an indication of the extent of mood-
sharing in the organizations which is positively related to shared vision and organizational
engagement (Mahon et al. 2014).
In contrast to this, unhappiness at work will be reflected in various sorts of unfavourable
evaluation by the employees for organizational team behaviour (item 19), avenues for
doing socially impacting work (item 11) and stealing of work credit by others (item 14). It’s
not uncommon to find unhappy employees being less participative in teams, complaining
about politics and stealing of credit by others, and looking for alternative avenues to do
meaningful work. Modern workplaces strongly favour team culture and sociability offering
enough scope for developing professional and personal relations which may also bring
workplace politics, favouritism, and a host of counterproductive work behaviours (Mor-
rison and Nolan 2007). Since negative social outcomes are more strongly related to
individual well-being than positive social outcomes (Rook 1984) it will lead affected
employees to hold a negative attitude or, if possible, avoid working in teams especially
when they perceive team behaviour is not properly regulated (item 19), or others might
steal the credit of their work (item 14), or the work is not meaningful or socially impacting
(item 11).
In addition to this, results of the confirmatory analysis (Table 4) showed good model fit
for the four-factor reflective model (refer Model 7.2 in Table 4) as compared to all other
competing models. Hence, based on the statistical criteria for reflective models prescribed
by Diamantopolous et al. the items retained after EFA are essentially parts of the reflective
constructs of happiness at work.

8 Application, Limitations, and Future Directions

8.1 Application

The four dimensions could be arranged in the form of a happiness quadrant giving four
distinct happiness styles (as shown in Fig. 3) based on the interaction between the quantum
of positive and negative characteristics of individual and organizations on a two-dimen-
sional continuum. The empirical validation of these happiness styles will require a separate
research which we would like to take up in future.
A combination of the supportive work experiences and flow and intrinsic motivation can
bring flourishing style of happiness in which both individuals and organizations grow and
prosper. However, when an intrinsically motivated employee has to work in an unsup-
portive workplace s/he accumulates frustration and unhappiness leading to a frustrating

123
 S. Singh, Y. Aggarwal

Flow & Intrinsic Motivation

Frustrating Flourishing
Type Type
(I+O-) (I+O+)

Unsupportive Supportive
organizational organizational
experiences experiences

Festering Freeloading
Type Type
(I-O-) (I-O+)

Work Repulsive feelings

Fig. 3 Four predicted styles of happiness at work. I Individual characteristics, O organizational

characteristics. X-axis represents organizational continuum while Y-axis represents individual continuum.
Plus sign (?) shows positive characteristics while minus sign (-) shows negative characteristics

style. Contrary to this, when organizational experiences are supportive but employees
dislike their job then it leads to a freeloading, parasitical type of situation in which
organizations will be the main loser. Lastly when organizational experiences are unsup-
portive, and employees also dislike their jobs then we get a mutually degenerating, fes-
tering style in which neither employees nor individuals benefit.

8.2 Limitations and Future Directions

The broad deductive framework of HAW offered by current research is simple and
appealing. In future researches, the scale and the proposed happiness styles need to be
validated by undertaking cross-cultural mixed method studies. A common limitation of
psychometric studies is the use of questionnaire data which can also be a limiting factor for
the current study. In future experiments and interventions can be planned on the identified
dimensions to offer experimental validation for the scale.

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