Orientation: The development of psychological capital amongst call centre employees could have an impact on positive work-related attitudes and behaviour; such as work engagement and organisational commitment.Research purpose: The purpose of the research was to determine the relationship between psychological capital, work engagement and organisational commitment amongst call centre employees; and further, to determine whether psychological capital and work engagement hold predictive value for the organisational commitment of call centre employees.Motivation for the study: There is a gap in research in understanding and enabling positive resource capacities in highly stressful work contexts such as call centres.Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey design was used. A sample of 106 call centre employees from a South African organisation participated in the research. The measuring instruments included a demographic questionnaire, the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) and the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ).Main findings: Significant positive relationships were found between psychological capital, work engagement and organisational commitment. The results showed work engagement as being the only significant predictor of organisational commitment.Practical/managerial implications: Call centre employers need to develop and implement workplace interventions that would increase the psychological capital of call centre employees.Contribution/value-add: The research findings will benefit both call centre employees and management. The study highlighted the importance of the role of optimism as a subdimension of psychological capital in developing work engagement and organisational commitment amongst call centre employees.

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between job insecurity, job satisfaction and affective organisational commitment of maintenance workers (N = 178) in a parastatal in Gauteng. A cross-sectional design was used. Stratified random samples of maintenance workers (N = 178) were taken. The Job Insecurity Inventory, Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and Organisational Commitment Questionnaire were used as measuring instruments. The results revealed small but significant relationships between job insecurity and extrinsic job satisfaction and job insecurity and affective organisational commitment. Job satisfaction was found to mediate the relationship between job insecurity and affective organisational commitment.

<strong>Orientation:</strong> Support staff members play a vital role in tertiary education institutions. With this in mind, the institutions must address their particular needs. In the context of positive psychology, issues of happiness and work engagement could lead to increased positive organisational outcomes like the commitment of support staff.<p><strong>Research purpose:</strong> The purpose of the research was to determine the relationship between happiness, work engagement and organisational commitment and to determine whether happiness and work engagement hold predictive value for the organisational commitment of support staff.</p><p><strong>Motivation for the study:</strong> This study aims to enable the identification of a link between happiness, work engagement and organisational commitment and to identify a predictive value of the model.</p><p><strong>Research design, approach and method:</strong> The researchers used a cross-sectional survey design. They used a sample of 123 (<em>N</em> = 123) support staff members from a tertiary education institution in South Africa. The researchers used four demographic questionnaires for the research. These were the ‘Satisfaction with Life Scale’ (SWLS), the ‘Well-Being Questionnaire’ (WBQ), the ‘Utrecht Work Engagement Scale’ (UWES) and the ‘Organisational Commitment Questionnaire’ (OCQ).</p><p><strong>Main findings:</strong> The researchers found a significant positive relationship between affective organisational commitment and work engagement, as well as between affective organisational commitment and happiness (as the SWLS and WBQ measure). They found a significant positive relationship between work engagement and happiness. Finally, the results showed that happiness and work engagement have predictive value for affective organisational commitment.</p><p><strong>Practical/managerial implications:</strong> Happiness and work engagement have predictive value for affective organisational commitment. Therefore, institutions should carefully tailor any implementation programme or initiative to address this relationship.</p><p><strong>Contribution/value-add:</strong> The findings will benefit both managers and workers. Institutions should consider evaluating the levels of happiness and work engagement of their support staff to address the issue of the organisational commitment of their employees.</p><p><strong>How to cite this article:</strong><br /> Field, L.K., &amp; Buitendach, J.H. (2011). Happiness, work engagement and organisational commitment of support staff at a tertiary education institution in South Africa. <em>SA Journal of Industrial Psychology/SA Tydskrif vir Bedryfsielkunde, 37</em>(1), Art. #946, 10 pages. doi:10.4102/sajip.v37i1.946</p>

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), showing good psychometric properties for cross-cultural use and correlating well at the nation level with other supposed facets and indicators of I-C. In Study 2 (N = 8,652), nation-level contextualism predicted ingroup favoritism, corruption, and differential trust of ingroup and outgroup members, while controlling for other facets of I-C, across 35 nations. We conclude that contextualism is an important part of cultural collectivism. This highlights the importance of beliefs alongside values and selfrepresentations and contributes to a wider understanding of cultural processes.