Investigating how to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the light of positive psychological capital (case study: National Iranian Petrochemical Company)

The present study aimed to offer a model to gain sustainable competitive advantage on the basis of positive psychological capital. The approach in the study is a mix of quantitative and qualitative with a pragmatic paradigm approach. From purpose view, it is an applied research and the method selected for the study is descriptive survey. Participant of the survey were managers and elites of National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC) and some other companies active in petrochemical industry and were selected using nonrandom sampling method. In qualitative section of the study, data collected from semi-structured interviews with 17 elites in the industry were analyzed, using qualitative content analysis method in AtlasTi.8, and all conceptual model and concepts were extracted. In quantitative section, data were collected using questionnaires and the final research model was evaluated and prepared using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method. SEM results in AMOS26 software showed that positive psychological capital affects sustainable competitive advantage through direct and indirect impact on other variables, as social capital, human capital, intellectual capital, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), knowledge management and innovative work behavior. So, to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, positive psychological capital plays the pivotal role comparing other human resource capitals. Social capital is the second most important variable in this regard. The study findings include different indices and factors effective in achieving sustainable competitive advantage and present of an optimized model to reach sustainable competitive advantage on the basis of positive psychological capital in NIPC.