Psychological Capital and Quality of Work Life Increase the

Employee Performance of Laboratory Animal Division

Karina Nur Wulandari

and Ade Irma Susanty

Telkom University, Jl. Telekomunikasi Terusan Buah Batu No.1, Bandung, Indonesia

wulandarikarin21@gmail.com, adeirma@telkomuniversity.ac.id

Keywords: Psychological Capital, Quality of Work Life, Performance, Laboratory Animal Division.

Abstract: The Laboratory Animal Division holds the first key in the vaccine safety. Over the past 5 years, the division

performance has declined, as the result most of the sections sometimes could not reach the target due to the

lack of employee expertise which was caused by unequal career development programs. This inequality was

triggered by education levels owned by the employees which has affected the level of their confidence to

increase the work ability. This condition is called Psychological Capital and Quality of Work Life. In this

regard, the division needs to consider the capabilities of its resources through the aspects of PsyCap and QWL.

The aim of this research is to measure the level of PsyCap and QWL, also to analyze whether PsyCap and

QWL has a positive and significant effect on the employee performance. Data were collected through the

questionnaires to 96 employees and processed using Multiple Linear Regression Analysis with "IBM SPSS

Statistics Version 20.0” program. The result showed that the level of PsyCap is high (79.68%), while the level

of QWL is average (71.70%) and the level of performance is relatively high (84.79%). This research concludes

that the PsyCap and QWL has a positive and significant influence on performance. This research suggests the

division to make PsyCap and QWL as the considerations in the policy making process. The management must

involve the employees in the decision-making meetings and establishing the quality improvement team.

1 INTRODUCTION

Indonesia's economic development is supported by

State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The Laboratory

Animal Division is part of the SOEs that plays a key

role in testing the immunogenicity of vaccines in

animals prior to the Clinical Trial on humans. This

division has five sub-divisions, all have the initial

keys in the vaccine testing and safety processes, so it

becomes very important for the company to pay good

attention to the HR performance for the sake of on-

time delivery materials according to the

specifications and targeted time of researches.

Problems arose within the last 5 years when the

performances of most subdivisions declined and

sometimes did not reach the specified targets due to

the lack of employee expertise as a result of unequal

career development programs. Table 1 below shows

the training participants index followed by personnel

of the Laboratory Animal Division during the period

of 2012-2016.

Table 1: Training followed by the employees of laboratory

animal division 2012 – 2016.

Position

Training Participants

Total

Head of

Division

Head of Sub

Division

Section

Chief

Executant

Staff

Junior Staff

Total

Training

106

This inequality is caused by the variety of

educational levels owned by the employees of

Laboratory Animal Division, in which the

educational background also becomes the

consideration in assessing whether or not an

employee to be included in the trainings held by the

490

Wulandari, K. and Susanty, A.

Psychological Capital and Quality of Work Life Increase the Employee Performance of Laboratory Animal Division.

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business, and Philanthropy (ICIEBP 2017) - Transforming Islamic Economy and Societies, pages 490-495

ISBN: 978-989-758-315-5

division. Highly educated employees are often

considered more potential and productive than the

low-educated ones.

Table 2: Employee education level data of the laboratory

animal division.

Position

Education

Total

SMA/

SMK/

SNAK

Head of

Division

Head of

Sub Div.

Section

Chief

Senior

Executant

Staff

Junior Staff

Total

Head of Laboratory Animal Division argued that

the levels of formal education owned by the

employees affect their psychological levels in terms

of Self Efficacy to increase the ability of work.

Employees with low levels of education usually feel

marginalized and ultimately do not have confidence

in their abilities, while those with higher education

are increasingly encouraged to demonstrate their

abilities.

Such condition is what then called Psychological

Capital. Psychological Capital or abbreviated as

PsyCap leads to how an organization can achieve

goals through the utilization and development of the

existing psychological components. While Quality of

Work Life becomes a component which results in a

more humane working environment and manages to

meet all the needs of the organization. Inequality in

the implementation of trainings indicates the poor

quality of work life provided by the Laboratory

Animal Division. In fact, training is a vehicle to

motivate employees to develop their talents and

abilities for a better performance.

Based on the above phenomenon, the observation

is focused on the attention of the Laboratory Animal

Division to find out how large the capacity of PsyCap

and QWL of their employees because Psychological

Capital is an important dimension that proved to have

a significant effect on employee performance

(Luthans, Youssef and Avolio, 2007). Moreover,

although recent studies (May and Lau, 1999) have

analyzed the relationship between Quality of Work

Life and firm performance, very little work has been

undertaken to identify PsyCap and QWL as a whole.

This present study attempts to cover these gaps in the

research.

Considering the importance of the role and work

environment of the Laboratory Animal Division, it

also important for the division management to make

PsyCap and QWL as the considerations in policy

making. This opinion is reinforced by the statement

of Luthans (2006) which reveals that the components

of Psychological Capital and Quality of Work Life of

each individual will continue to develop, so it is

advisable for the organization to learn how to

improve these components in order to be able to

compete more superiorly

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Performance

Gibson (2012) pointed out that "job performance is

the outcomes of jobs that relate to the purpose of the

organization such as quality, efficiency, and other

criteria of effectiveness". Performance is generally

built by two main dimensions of task performance

and contextual performance. Colquit, LePine, and

Wesson (2009) defined task performance as

"employee behaviors that are involved in the

transformation of organizational resources into the

goods or services that the organization produces",

while the contextual performance refers to how an

employee is willing to engage voluntarily in informal

activities, insist on achieving a task, help or cooperate

with others, obey the organizational rules, and also

support or maintain the organizational goals (Chen,

2009).

Cormick and Tiffin (2002) argues about three

factors that can affect the performance, first of all is

individual factors such as physical traits, personality,

age, gender, education level, and work experience.

The second is situational factors, such as the working

methods and conditions of the equipment. The last is

social and organizations factors, including the

company policy, type of training, and the system of

wages and allowances. These arguments lead to the

conclusion that this present study uses personality and

social organizations factors to measure PsyCap and

QWL of the employees.

2.2 Psychological Capital

This study uses the definitions of Luthans, Youssef,

and Avolio (2007), in which Psychological Capital is

defined as a development of a positive psychological

state in individuals with the characteristics: (1) having

Psychological Capital and Quality of Work Life Increase the Employee Performance of Laboratory Animal Division

491

the confidence to select and make the efforts required

to succeed on challenging tasks (self-efficacy); (2)

making positive attributions of current and future

success (optimism); (3) being diligent in achieving

goals and when it is necessary, diverting ways to

achieve goals in order to succeed (hope), and (4)

when in troubles, the individuals can survive and rise

again even beyond their original state to succeed

(resilience).

The characteristics which build Psychological

Capital affect each other, so this construct is better

measured as a whole (Luthans, Youssef and Avolio,

2007). Therefore, the present research uses the

effectiveness of Psychological Capital as a whole,

including self efficacy, optimism, hope, and

resiliency.

2.3 Quality of Work Life

Cascio (2006) stated that, "quality of work life in

terms of employee perceptions is their physical and

mental well-being of work" or it can be interpreted as

the employee's perception of their mental and

physical well-being in the workplace. Cascio (2006)

stated that the quality of work life consists of

communication, conflict resolution, career

development, employee participation, pride,

equitable compensation, save environment, job

security, and wellness.

For the purposes of the present study, the above

definitions of QWL permit the primary purpose of

QWL measurement is to enhance the productivity of

employees by the things that firm possesses, such as

career development, employee participation,

equitable compensation, and save environment.

3 HYPHOTHESES

DEVELOPMENT

The above arguments become the model of the

present study, as shown in Fig.1, and the model leads

to the formation of hypotheses, as follows:

H1: Psychological Capital has a positive and

significant effect on employee performance.

H2: Quality of Work Life has a positive and

significant effect on employee performance.

Figure 1: Research model and hypotheses.

4 METHODOLOGY

The samples of this study were equivalent to the

population, consisting of 96 employees working in

Laboratory Animal Division. This study used survey

questionnaires sent directly to the respondents. The

response rate was 100%.

The questionnaire was separated into four

sections for demographic data, PsyCap, QWL, and

performance. The employee's PsyCap was measured

by the questionnaire originally developed by Luthans

(2007) and consisted of 16 questions. The

measurements on QWL were adapted from Cascio

(2006) and had 12 questions. The job performance

was measured using task performance and contextual

performance with 8 questions. A total of 36 items

referring to the 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1-

Strongly Disagree to 6-Strongly Agree.

This questionnaire was validated by pearson

product moment (r) and reliability test using

cronbach's alpha (α) statistic test. Multiple

Regression was employed in the data analysis, using

"IBM SPSS Statistic Version 20.0".

5 EMPIRICAL RESULTS

Table 3 summarizes descriptive statistics, in which

the majority of the respondents are men as many as

91 people, while female respondents are only 5

people. Most respondents are in the age group of 20

to 29 years old, educated high school or vocational

high school, and have worked for over 16 years.

ICIEBP 2017 - 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business and Philanthropy

492

Table 3: Respondents profile.

Category

PsyCap

7343

9216

79.68

High

QWL

4956

6912

71.70

Quite High

Perform-

ance

3907

4608

84.79

High

Hypothesis testing in this research was done using

multiple linear regression technique. The following

table delineates the results of multiple linear

regression calculations obtained with the help of

"IBM SPSS Statistic Version 20.0" program.

Table 5: Descriptive analysis variables.

The hypothesis test using t test has obtained that

the value of t

count

for the variable of Psychological

Capital (X

) is 4.697 (4.697 > t

table

1.989) with the

significance value of 0.000 which is smaller than 0.05

(0.000 < 0.05). This means the study hypothesis of H

stating that there is a positive and significant

influence between Psychological Capital and the

employee performance of the Laboratory Animal

Division has been proven. This result also indicates

that any 1% increase in Psychological Capital will

raise the performance value by 22.8% (β = 0.228).

The higher the Psychological Capital owned by the

employees, the higher their performance will be.

Meanwhile, the hypothesis test on the variable of

Quality of Work Life (X

) has generated the value of

count

equal to 2.079 (2.079 > t

table

1.989) with the

significance value of 0.040 which is also smaller than

0.05 (0.040 <0.05). This indicates that the research

hypothesis of H

stating that there is a positive and

significant influence between Quality of Work Life

and the performance of Laboratory Animal Division

employees has been proven. This result also shows

that any 1% increase in Quality of Work Life will

raise the performance value by 18.1%. The higher the

QWL the employees have, the higher their

performance will be.

6 DISCUSSION

The results showed that Psychological Capital has a

positive and significant influence between the

employee performance of the Laboratory Animal

Division. Psychological Capital is a positive mood

that will increase the frequency of someone's work

and show the spontaneous behaviour of pro social

(Jex and Britt, 2008). This result supports the findings

of recent research (Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa and

Psychological Capital and Quality of Work Life Increase the Employee Performance of Laboratory Animal Division

493

Li, 2005) that Psychological Capital of employees

have a significant effect on the performance. This

result is also in line with the research by Choi

Yongduk and Lee Dongseop (2014), where in their

research stated that Psychological Capital has a

positive effect on performance, turnover intention, as

well as the happiness and well-being work.

Furthermore, results demonstrate that there is a

positive and significant relationship between Quality

of Work Life and employee performance of the

Laboratory Animal Division. Our findings confirm

the existing empirical literature. Shahbazi et al.

(2011) found that Quality of Work Life has a positive

effect on performance. This result also in accordance

with previous research by Huro’ng (2016), where it

is stated that Quality of Work Life has positive and

significant effect on employee performance in Ho Chi

Minh Public Organization. Thus, the QWL is an

important factor that should be considered because it

helps employees to meet their needs and help the

company in realizing the goals of the organization

effectively and efficiently (Nanjundeswaraswamy,

2013)

Finally, the empirical results offer support for the

increasing of the Quality of Work Life. Having a

medium QWL means the employees of the

Laboratory Animal Division feel the efforts of the

company do not run effectively as they should,

thereby there are still employees who have not fully

perceived the career development in their work.

Researchers such as Cascio (2006) suggest that career

development can be done by conducting education

and training, performance evaluation, and promotion.

Employees whose performance is just average or

below average usually not become an ultimate choice

for the leadership of the organization. Therefore,

career development is always associated with a

person's performance. If the employee has good

performance then they have a chance for the

development of their career.

7 CONCLUSIONS AND

MANAGERIAL

IMPLICATIONS

This present study concluded that the level of

Psychological Capital owned by the employees of

Laboratory Animal Division is high with an average

percentage of 79.68%, while the level of Quality of

Work is quite high with an average percentage of

71.70%. The analysis also stated that the

Psychological Capital has a positive and significant

effect on the performance of Laboratory Animal

Division employees, similarly with the Quality of

Work Life variable. Broadly, this research offers

several implications for the managerial: (1) the results

of the research can be taken into consideration or

discussion material in the policy making process; (2)

to increase the Self Efficacy of the employees can be

done by involving them in decision-making meetings

so that they have braveness to take risks and make

choices; (3) to improve Career Development of the

employees can be done by providing opportunities for

all employees to participate in the trainings or courses

which support work fairly and equitably.

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