Antecedents and outcomes of employee empowerment : an empirical study of British managers

Spreitzer's (1995) four dimension psychological empowerment measurement has opened up a wealth of research possibilities for the organisational behaviour researcher to study the subject of employee empowerment more objectively and analytically. However, many current studies employed Spreitzer's empowerment model by aggregating the four measures resulting in a less than adequate understanding of the concept of empowerment. It is suggested that by critically investigating the four empowerment dimensions separately, a more fine-grained understanding on the aspects of psychological empowerment can be examined (Carless, 2004). Moreover, few studies to date have been made with on organisational specific level as most studies seem to focus on personality specific level. For the purpose of this study, the antecedents of psychological empowerment proposed are organicity, centralisation, organisational support, training, rewards, information sharing, leadership trust, role conflict and role ambiguity. Together these measures encompass Structure and Support, HR Practices, Leadership Trust and Conflict and Ambiguity dimensions of organisations. The outcomes of empowerment are job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and turnover intention. The sample was drawn from an alumnus of a well known business school in the Britain. All the respondents (n=284), comprising managers of British businesses randomly selected from a range of industry sector. Data analysis was performed in three stages: firstly, the direct relationships between antecedents and outcomes as well as individual psychological empowerment variables were made secondly mediation tests were performed on all possible variables thirdly, moderation tests were analysed. The results strongly support the hypotheses that the antecedents9 positively impacted on dimensions of psychological empowerment As for outcomes, job satisfaction and organisational commitment impacted positively by perceptions of psychological empowerment whilst turnover intentions impacted negatively. Additionally, mediation analysis employing Baron and Kenny's (1986) procedures found that dimensions of psychological empowerment in particular meaning, self-determination and impact mediated between the antecedents and outcomes. Moderation effects further suggest that aspects of empowerment, in particular meaning, self-determination and impact are enhanced in the presence of positive HR practices and supportive organisational structures. Demographics like job level, tenure and age also moderated the relationship between antecedents and work outcomes supporting the notion that empowerment initiatives should be addressed differently depending on employee circumstances. Competence, however did not suggest any mediation supporting concerns posited by Kraimer et al. (1999) and Siegall and Gartner (2000). The study also found strong support for organisational commitment and job satisfaction mediating the relationship between psychological empowerment dimensions and turnover intentions. Overall, the study supports the premise that employee empowerment needs to be approached in a holistic manner, failing which empowerment initiatives would be futile. The study further contributes to the growing body of literature on employee empowerment by empirically testing related organisational behaviour constructs.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo