Impact of Structural Empowerment on Organizational Commitment: The Mediating Role of Women’s Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to test the mediation role of women’s psychological empowerment on the relationship between structural empowerment and employee’s affective commitment. Organizational commitment leads to numerous positive consequences for an organization. So, it is vital to identify those factors which affect the commitment of employees. Previous research has demonstrated strong relationship between structural empowerment and psychological empowerment and commitment but not a single study examines all these in one study in Indian nursing context. In this cross-sectional study, the data were collected from 389 women nurses working in public and private hospitals operating in Punjab by adopting a multi-stage random sampling technique. Results of the study depicted that psychological empowerment mediates all the proposed relationship between different dimensions of structural empowerment and affective commitment. Indian nurses experienced high level of structural empowerment which further leads to high commitment. Results of the present study showed that in order to have a harmonious environment in the organization, it is important to create such an environment which foster psychological empowerment among employees as it has many attitudinal (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job strain and turnover intension) and behavioural (organizational citizenship behaviour, task performance and innovation) consequences.

Structural empowerment is a strong predictor of organizational commitment in nurses: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Based on the systematic review, private or public hospitals moderate the effect of empowerment to commitment while psychological empowerment was a strong mediator of structural empowerment to commitment (Aggarwal et al, ). More experienced nurses (having worked longer at one place) were more likely to be more empowered which led to more commitment (Chang et al, ; Eskandari et al, ; Ibrahem et al, ).…”

“…The total sample size was 10,912 nurses (range 92-3156), the mean age was 36.3 years (range 27.0-45.7) and on average the sample was mostly female (91.8%, range 53%-100%). Most studies took place in North America (mainly Canada) (N = 13) (Cho et al, 2006;Church et al, 2018;Cowden & Cummings, 2015;Dahinten et al, 2014;DeCicco et al, 2006;Laschinger & Finegan, 2005;Laschinger et al, 2002Laschinger et al, , 2009McDermott et al, 1996;Smith et al, 2010;Spence Laschinger et al, 2009;Wilson & Laschinger, 1994;Young-Ritchie et al, 2009), followed by Asia (N = 7) (Aggarwal et al, 2018;Ahmad & Oranye, 2010;Chang et al, 2010;Choi & Ahn, 2016;Eskandari et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2014Yang et al, , 2013.…”

“…Organizational commitment is frequently measured with the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire affective commitment subscale (Meyer & Allen, 1991;Meyer et al, 1993). This subscale consists of eight items measured on a seven-point Likert scale, with Cronbach's alpha over 0.800 in most papers throughout the nursing literature (Aggarwal et al, 2018;Cowden & Cummings, 2015;Laschinger et al, 2002;McDermott, Laschinger, & Shamian, 1996;Wilson & Laschinger, 1994).…”

“…The initial search revealed 204 studies which after applying the inclusion criteria where reduced to 23, after checking the title, abstract, and full texts (Aggarwal et al, 2018;Ahmad & Oranye, 2010;Chang, Shih, & Lin, 2010;Cho, Laschinger, & Wong, 2006;Choi & Ahn, 2016;Church, He, & Yarbrough, 2018;Cowden & Cummings, 2015;Dahinten et al, 2014;DeCicco, Laschinger, & Kerr, 2006;Eskandari, Siahkali, Shoghli, Pazargadi, & Tafreshi, 2017;Freire & Azevedo, 2015;Ibrahem et al, 2013;Laschinger & Finegan, 2005;Laschinger et al, 2002Laschinger et al, , 2009McDermott et al, 1996;Park, Park, Yom, & Kim, 2006;Smith, Andrusyszyn, & Spence laschinger, 2010;Spence Laschinger, Leiter, Day, & Gilin, 2009;Wilson & Laschinger, 1994;Yang et al, 2014;Yang, Liu, Huang, & Zhu, 2013;Young-Ritchie, Spence Laschinger, & Wong, 2009). One study was further excluded during analysis, because of an extremely small standard deviation (Park et al, 2006).…”

“…Meaning refers to the alignment between job requirements and beliefs, or the value of a work objective, compared with an individual's own ideals or standards (Li et al, 2018). Competence refers to the confidence individuals have in their abilities to perform activities proficiently, whereas self-determination relates to the sense of choice or control over employees autonomy during work activities in the workplace (Aggarwal, Dhaliwal, & Nobi, 2018;Avolio, Zhu, Koh, & Bhatia, 2004). Finally, impact is the sense of ability to influence important work outcomes (Avolio et al, 2004).…”