Purpose: Millennial managers are required to adopt to contemporary management practices and continually evolve to manage the workforce. To help them evolve and create positive workplaces, this study aims to extrapolate the associations between job crafting, mental toughness and authentic happiness (AH) among millennials and derive implications.Design/methodology/approach: Data was collected from 496 millennial employees at Time-1 (March 2018), Time-2 (November 2018) and Time-3 (August 2019) from multiple sectors. A combined structural equation modelling and artificial neural networks approach was implied to test the strength of the proposed associations.Findings: With reference to the relationships thus obtained between job crafting, mental toughness and AH, the results specifically conclude that challenging job demand is significant predictor of AH. Mental toughness partially mediates the relationship between challenging job demands and AH, indicating that mental toughness is an essential component for employee happiness.Practical implications: Millennial managers and policymakers must challenge the skills of employees for obtaining optimal performance. When employees perceive adequate workload and have a set deadline for the completion of tasks assigned to them, they carry out the tasks with greater efficacy, in turn, leading them to find greater meaning (focusing on essential tasks), purpose and engagement in life (enthusiastic, interested, engaged). Overall, when millennial managers focus on such associations, they can help enhance productivity and constitute happier workplaces.Originality/value: This study explores constructs such as mental toughness to support the job crafting and happiness relationship. A hybrid statistical analysis strengthens the accuracy of the proposed model and enhances its empirical and implied value.

Many studies investigated cultural differences in values, most notably by Hofstede and Schwarz. Relatively few have focused on virtues, a related and important concept in contemporary social science. The present paper examines the similarities and differences between nations, or blocks of - culturally related - nations on the perceived importance of virtues. Adults (N = 2.809 students) from 14 countries were asked to freely mention which virtues they found important to practice in daily life, and next to rate a list of 15 virtues, which reflect the most frequently mentioned categories in The Netherlands, as found in a previous study. The 14 nations included the United States, Mexico, nine European and three Asian nations. For the free-listed virtues, we compared the top-ten lists of most frequently mentioned virtues across the nations. We used a correspondence analysis on the frequency table to assess the relationships between the virtues and nations. For the 15 virtues ratings, a MANOVA, and follow-up ANOVA’s were used to examine effects of nation, age, gender and religion. We found strong evidence for relationships between nations and blocks of culturally related nations and the importance attached to various virtues. There appear to be some country specific virtues, such as generosity in France, but also some relatively universal virtues, most notably honesty, respect, and kindness.

Purpose: Positive psychology views organizational virtuousness (OV) and psychological capital (PsyCap) as significant external and internal variables. From a research perspective, both OV and PsyCap have indicated a positive relationship with employee performance. However, the underlying mechanism of the causal relationship needs to be explored. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a cross-sectional design. The sample was collected through snowball technique from (n = 122) Indian bank employees from the public (51 per cent) and private sector (49 per cent). Findings: OV and PsyCap reveal a positive effect on self and supervisor-rated performance of the Indian bankers. OV predicts PsyCap. Overall, OV and PsyCap impacts supervisor-rated performance. Research limitations/implications: Our study demonstrates that organizations can develop employee OV to enhance their PsyCap. It is essential to improve their perceptions of OV. Moreover, this relationship also empowers employee performance, thereby emphasizing the importance of OV among employees, managers and organizations. Study findings seem robust, but other researchers should extend this work into other sectors and with larger sample sizes. Originality/value: Our study is the first to explore the relationships between OV and PsyCap. Also, it assesses the variable’s impact on self and supervisor rated performance. The results of our study provide insights into banking employees' performance that managers can use in their daily operations.