Gallery Presentation International Positive Psychology Association 7th IPPA World Congress 2021

More positive correlations inferred between high performer corporations and collective subjective wellbeing of their employees in the pandemic era: grounded and quantitative research for Japanese SMEs and their employees     (#371)

Toshiyuki Yasui 1 , Taisuke Yamakawa 2 , Yukiko Kinugawa 2 , Yojiro Kakinuma 2 , Yuko Arao 3
  1. Graduate School of System Design and Management, Keio University, Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
  2. Office of Future Design, Shokochukin Bank, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
  3. CEO, Clementia Co., Ltd., Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

This study is to measure quantitatively changes of correlations between corporate performances and collective subjective wellbeing of their employees during the era of economic and sanitary turmoil affected by the COVID-19 by the panel survey focusing on the small and medium size companies which have been affected most by the pandemic. The recent world-wide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic poses challenges to conventional outcomes by researches on happiness studies at work (e.g., Gange & Deci 2005, Fisher 2010). The traditional researches which have assumed work engagements and wellbeing mainly affiliated to the physical workplaces (Schaufeli et al. 2002) are now questioned their relevance in the lock down situation where the employees can feel less commitments to their workplaces (Bakker & Leiter 2010) as physical presence and they are keener to their job security in severe financial downturn in disruptive economic conditions. The authors have investigated the correlations on individual financial behaviors and subjective wellbeing, particular in the area of their economic activities and subjective wellbeing (Yasui et al. 2017, 2018 and 2019). This research focuses the research question on how the pandemic affected positive emotions for work (Inoue et al. 2020) and subjective wellbeing of employees, as well as correlation upon happiness at work and corporate results performances in the Japanese small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which represents major source of industrial innovations of Japan (Okuyama et al. 2019). This quantitative survey targeted employees working more than 50 Japanese SMES revealed that even in the pandemic era higher subjective wellbeing observed in the employees and correlated corporate performances of their companies.                             

  • Keywords: Business and Organizations, Career and Work, Financial well-being, Health and Medicine, Motivation