Erotic capital and employees’ happiness. Do other kinds of capital matter? An examination of the interaction effect on the Spanish workforce

Abstract

Erotic capital is currently one of latest studies capital by researchers. In this extent, other kind of capitals such as social or human capital have much more investigated, especially in relation with happiness at work. However, some studies highlight how attractiveness and beauty are an intangible asset which should be taken into account for happiness promotion at work, especially in the private sector. What is more, is that prior research highlights how an effect of a specific capital can be influenced by another kind of capital. In fact, contributions show how different capitals can interact by providing divergent effects on employees’ wellbeing. Nevertheless, surprisingly such kind of contributions are largely missing, especially those referred to employees’ happiness. Moreover, studies which consider erotic capital are almost absent. Therefore, it is important to better understand how the interaction between erotic capital and human or social capital can bring higher happiness in the workplace. While it is possible to hypothesize a positive interactive effect, recent contributions highlight how potential conflicting effect can be present. We use the Spain's General Social Survey (SGSS) carried out by the Center for Sociological Research of Spain to make a quantitative analysis through moderation regression models by using SPSS software and PROCESS package in a sample of more than 5.000 employees in Spain. Results highlights that erotic capital is an important asset to promote employees’ happiness at work. Moreover, those who experiment both erotic and social (or human capital) have higher levels of happiness. However, there are negative interactive effect between capitals, outlining potential conflicting outcomes. The results are important to understand the interactive (and conflicting) effect that different kind of capital can have on happiness. The current study fosters theoretical advancements on capitals and happiness at work, especially those referred to erotic capital, which is a current gap in the literature. Moreover, it outlines managerial recommendations in order to balance the presence of different capitals at work in order to understand and present conflicting effects. The main limitations are the cross-sectional of the dataset, as well as the context reference which is limited to the Spanish country.