Positive solutions to find a job: Cultural mismatches between companies and employees

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Psychology is not just the study of disease, weakness, and damage; it also is the study of strength and virtue (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Attempts to change this thinking school is the theory of Positive Psychology from Seligman which is the base for this dissertation. The methodology used in our model followed the hypothesis testing in order to assess the veracity of positive behaviors affecting the outcome of finding a job. Therefore, through the use of Logistic Regressions, several results proved that positive behaviors such as optimism are indeed affecting the way we apply to a job and how satisfied we are with it. Thus, since each country presents a different set of cultural behaviors such as the level of optimism and self-determination, companies and education systems that are internationalizing should concern cultural impacts and maybe mind about cultural teachings to local workers to improve their adaptation to the institution. The models studied in this dissertation should be tested again with different samples in order to bring more consistency to this subject.