Background
It is difficult to prove that psychological factors are not only related to performance but also causes of performance.
Hypotheses/Research Questions
This study sought to examine both correlation and causality between employees' psychological features and performance in Japanese food shops.
Sample Characteristics and Sample Size
The company was a large food company with more than 200 shops. Participants were all employees of the highest or the lowest 30 shops in terms of annual sales.
Design
They completed self-report measures regarding their wellbeing as extracted from a PERMA profiler or workplace PERMA and various personal traits.
Results
As a result of the statistical comparison of the employees’answers from the two groups and the correlational analysis between the rate of change of sales of the shops at the time of the surveys and the psychological positivity, the wellbeing of life (P, A, satisfaction) was shown to be most clearly related positively with the performance of shops, while some traits (autonomy, spirituality, the motivation of contribution in society and workplace, and non-optimistic expectation of employees) were seen to be moderately associated with it. However, there was little relation between workplace PERMA (except A) and the performance. Moreover, there was a substantial mean difference between PERMA and the traits of the managers at the highest shops and those at the lowest shops.
In addition, the time-series analysis during 29 months around the two surveys indicated that the relations of the most features mentioned above at several months after the surveys were higher than those before then.
Scientific Contribution
It is highly plausible that the causal influence of the psychological factors on the performance is more than its opposite direction; it follows that there may be not only a correlational but also a causal relationship between the psychological features and the performance.