From thriving and organic structure to performance: Exploring the psychological and behavioral pathways through agility and core self-evaluations

Background The banking sector in Pakistan operates in a highly evolving, regulated and competitive environment, which places increasing demands on proactive behavior of employee, their adaptabilities and innovative abilities. In this context, human resource practices must emphasize not only employee competence but also workplace conditions that enhance psychological vitality and learning. Constructs such as thriving at work, organic organizational structure, and employee agility have gained increasing attention as vital contributors to organizational effectiveness, yet their integrated impact in emerging economies remains underexplored. Objective This study aims to investigate how thriving at work and organic organizational structure influence organizational performance in the Pakistani banking sector, while also examining the mediating roles of employee agility and core self-evaluations. This research fills a critical gap in the literature by examining a comprehensive conceptual model that captures psychological, structural, and behavioral dynamics in a developing country context. Methods Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 441 white collar individuals working in banks across three major metropolitan cities in Pakistan. Structural Equation Modeling utilizing SmartPLS3 was applied to test the proposed hypotheses. Results The findings indicating that thriving at work has a significant and positive effect on organizational performance. While organic organizational structure shows a positive but statistically insignificant direct effect, both employee agility and core self-evaluations are significantly mediating the relationship between the independent variables and organizational performance. Conclusions This study offers theoretical contributions by integrating constructs that are rarely examined together and practical implications for improving workforce effectiveness in the banking sector of developing economies.