PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO VARIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL VARIABLES IN SELECT INDUSTRIES/SECTORS.

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to determine the relationship of psychological empowerment with job satisfaction, organization commitment, trust in management and job engagement. This paper examines the contribution of the four dimensions as defined by Thomas and Velthouse’s (1990) and Spreitzer (1995), multidimensional conceptualization of psychological empowerment and overall psychological empowerment in predicting various outcomes of empowerment: job satisfaction and organization commitment. This study also determines the role of trust in management and job engagement in predicting psychological empowerment. Study on relationship is conducted in various industries and sectors in order to have a comparative picture among them. Various literatures were reviewed in order to conduct this study. A questionnaire was employed in order to collect data on various variables (dependent /independent). The study covered 180 employees employed in three organizations. The data collected was analyzed through correlation, regression, t-test and post-hoc analysis using SPSS and MS Excel as analytic tool. The findings suggest that there is a significant relationship between psychological empowerment to job satisfaction, psychological empowerment to organization commitment, psychological empowerment to trust in management and psychological empowerment to job engagement. The findings also show that employees in service industry and public sector feels more empowered compared to others taken in study. Most of the previous researches were carried on one organization or one industry. This study incorporated three industries and two sectors in order to determine level of empowerment felt in them along with comparison of various outcomes of psychological empowerment.