[en] Researchers and academics in the area of management usually try to demonstrate that research should aim to improve business or economic performance. The importance of variables such as productivity or economic performance as the ultimate goal of any model of scientific research is beyond doubt; however, it is important to consider another variable of special relevance in the life of any individual, namely, happiness at work. Happiness is something fundamental that everyone wants to achieve in their lives, and I believe it would be interesting to study how to achieve happiness in our daily work by better managing our work environment. This study aims to emphasise the crucial role played by the concept of happiness at work for organisations. The aim is to remind everyone – especially researchers and academics in the area of management – that for many people being happy is more important than simply boosting the corporate bottom line. Concepts related to happiness (motivation, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, etc.) have so far been studied with the aim of demonstrating their influence on corporate economic performance. Beauregard (2010), for example, has shown that the behaviour of people in organisations is crucial in determining corporate profits. This study proposes an integrative model that in the first place offers a measurement for a new construct: happiness at work. A second contribution is to study the relationship between transformational leadership and happiness at work. A third contribution investigates whether organisational learning capability can act as a mediating variable between transformational leadership and happiness at work. The study was based on medical staff working in allergy units at Spanish hospitals because of the importance for this study of a knowledge-intensive environment, where learning is a vital element. Emotions are continuously present in work issues. However, happiness at work has been insufficiently studied as a concept because for many years various constructs have been investigated from the perspective of Luthans (positive organisational behaviour), in which different levels of the antecedents and consequences of constructs such as work satisfaction, organisational commitment, motivation, involvement have been analysed without achieving the necessary explanatory capacity to measure happiness at work. Luthans defined positive organisational behaviour as 'the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities (Luthans, 2002). The discussion about the importance of happiness at work remains open (Fineman 2006; Roberts 2006; Hackman 2009; Luthans and Avolio 2009; Fisher 2010; Atkinson and Hall 2011) and it is necessary to advance the study of this construct. For Fisher (2010), one of the reasons for the existence of this discussion is the lack of a measurement for happiness at work that is sufficiently explicative. The initial objective of this study is to measure a new construct: happiness at work. Fisher (2010) proposes that some people are happier than others in organisations depending on four variables: the environment, personal characteristics, interaction with the environment, and their own wish to be happy. Management can act on the environment and interaction with the environment. Warr (2007) states that supervision is a motivational factor and it is one of the aspects considered by transformational leadership, but the latter goes beyond monitoring and includes a commitment to make employees aware of organisational needs and so increase their own needs in terms of organisational results. The second objective for this research is finding out if there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and happiness at work. It would seem clear that the study of transformational leadership makes more sense in creative and knowledge-intensive contexts, and therefore this study is focused on allergy specialists in Spanish hospitals. This type of activity is knowledge-intensive and requires a constant expansion and renewal of practical knowledge in the field. This work is also subject to a changing theoretical framework with almost daily research publications, as well as constant review of clinical practice guidelines. In that context organizational learning could become specially important. Organisational learning is defined as the process by which organisations learn so that there is a change in organisational models that maintain or improve outcomes (Hedberg, 1981; Dibella et al., 1996). The concept of organisational learning capability (OLC) is centred on those factors that encourage organisational learning (Dibella et al., 1996; Goh and Richards, 1997). According to Chiva et al. (2007), there are five factors that facilitate organisational learning capability: experimentation; risk-taking; interaction with the external environment; and dialogue and participation in decision-making. It seems accurate to believe that those employees in a knowledge-intensive context with the option to experiment, take risks, interact with their environment, and participate in decision-making, will be happiest in their work. The third objective this research addresses is knowing if organisational learning capability has a mediating role in the relationship between transformational leadership style and happiness at work. The methodology employed is quantitative modelling using structural equation models. These represent one of the most powerful tools in social sciences for the study of causal relationships using non-experimental data when these relationships are lineal (Batista-Foguet and Coenders, 2000). Results allow us to conceptualize and measure happiness at work and see the important consequences when checking the three hypothesis. Implications for this new construct open a wide range of possibilities to study antecedents and consequences of happiness at work. This research proposal aims to create an explanatory model of organisational management (with an inclusive approach that considers all the aspects of an individual) and to scientifically show how to be happier in our jobs.

[es] En los últimos veinte años se ha producido un incremento de los artículos que buscan cómo mejorar el resultado económico en las empresas. No hay duda de la importancia que tiene esta variable como fin último de cualquier investigación, sin embargo, en este estudio queremos proponer una variable que consideramos de especial relevancia para la investigación en el área de organización de empresas como es la felicidad en el trabajo. La felicidad en general está directamente conectada con beneficios tan importantes como la salud física o mental, y las medidas que hasta ahora se han aproximado a la felicidad en el trabajo se han relacionado con variables tan importantes como la mejora de la motivación, la comunicación personal o incluso la mejora del resultado económico. Sin embargo estas variables no recogen con la suficiente amplitud la felicidad en el trabajo (Fisher, 2010) y existe un gap en la literatura reclama aportar una medida suficientemente explicativa para este concepto. Hackman (2009) afirma que sería necesario además conocer los contextos bajo los cuales se promueven comportamientos positivos en las organizaciones. En esta Tesis proponemos en primer lugar aportar una medida suficientemente explicativa de la felicidad en el trabajo, compuesta por las variables compromiso individual, satisfacción laboral y compromiso organizativo afectivo. Estas medidas pueden tener una importante conexión con el estilo de liderazgo, considerando que estamos en un mundo global, con altos niveles de competitividad, en el que es necesario asignar los recursos de la forma más eficiente posible, y ahí los líderes pueden realizar un papel especialmente importante. En concreto, el estilo de liderazgo transformacional, que entiende al líder como referente, generador de positividad, de innovación y preocupado por sus colaboradores de una forma humana, podría tener algún tipo de conexión con la generación de felicidad en el trabajo. Además, el contexto de esta Tesis, que se centra en los médicos especialistas en alergología de los hospitales españoles, para los cuales es necesario en su trabajo diario reciclarse continuamente y aportar nuevo conocimiento, considera que el papel de la capacidad de aprendizaje organizativo puede tener algún tipo de rol medidador en la relación entre el liderazgo transformacional. Los resultados de este estudio muestran, en primer lugar, que podemos validar la escala de medida de la felicidad en el trabajo, es decir, que podemos medir y conceptualizar la felicidad en el trabajo, y en esegundo lugar que el estilo de liderazgo transformacional, a través de la capacidad de aprendizaje organizativo, es capaz de generar felicidad en el trabajo. Es decir, ponemos a disposición de la literatura un nuevo constructo, la felicidad en el trabajo, y un modelo que permite conocer sus antecedestes, y también ofrecemos a las empresas una herramienta para medir y lograr la felicidad de sus trabajadores. Los trabajadores más felices van a sentirse más seguros en su puesto de trabajo, y por tanto más capaces y competentes, lo cual lleva a un mejor desempeño de su trabajo, y en el contexto sanitario esto puede tener una relevancia tan importante como la mejora de la calidad de vida de las personas. En general, para cualquier organización, y frente al proceso deshumanizador que estamos viviendo en las empresas, este modelo permite cambiar esta tendencia con la finalidad de mejorar tanto la calidad de vida de las personas como su desempeño. Productividad y calidad en el trabajo no son incompatibles, sino que más bien pueden lograrse con una gestión más humana de las personas en las organizaciones.