The Influence of Empowerment and Job Enrichment on Employee Loyalty in a Downsizing Environment

Abstract

Maintaining survivors’ loyalty in a downsizing environment is a difficult problem for management practitioners. Theorists have suggested that empowerment and job enrichment are mechanisms that allow survivors to cope with the stress of downsizing. This study examined the relationships between managerial empowerment behaviors, perceptions of job enrichment, and loyalty behaviors with employees who have survived downsizing in an organization. Results showed that empowerment does not have a direct effect on loyalty but affects loyalty indirectly through job enrichment. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and practice.

Service Climate, Employee Identification, and Customer Outcomes in Hotel Property Rebrandings

“…Moreover, the results suggest that employees may adjust to change more readily when they perceive that they have more personal control over the implementation of change. This is in line with previous findings suggesting that survivors who feel in control are more likely to use control-coping (Armstrong-Stassen, 1998), have improved mental health (Kivimaki et al, 2001), and feel more organizational attachment and loyalty, compared to survivors who do not feel in control (Niehoff et al, 2001). However, in times of relatively high job uncertainty and low levels of personal control (i.e., anticipation stage and the implementation stage for victims), employees reported a sense of job uncertainty that influenced their levels of emotional exhaustion independently of their perceptions of personal control over the future.…”

“…These negative reactions may be due to a loss of trust in the organization (Niehoff et al, 2001), increased workload (Greenglass & Burke, 2000) and increased job insecurity (Hellgren, Sverke & Isaksson, 1999;Kivimaki et al, 2001). The negative responses of employees who retain their job after downsizing are sometimes referred to as "survivor syndrome" (e.g., Baruch & Hind, 2000); however the research examining survivor responses to downsizing is inconclusive.…”

Perceived Organizational Support, Psychological Empowerment, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Job Performance and Job Embeddedness: A Research on the Fast Food Industry in Istanbul, Turkey

“…Job performance can be increased by OCB (Turnipseed & Rassuli, 2005). POS, OCB, and PE are closely related with JP (Niehoff et al, 2001;Chow, Lo, Sha & Hong, 2006). Chen (2008) conducted a research on POS and JP and elicited that if an employee has a higher degree of POS, this person exhibits affirmative OCB, and OCB improves JP of this employee.…”

“…According to the results of many studies, organizational citizenship behavior is one attribute of job performance (Chiang & Hsieh, 2012;Turnipseed & Rassuli, 2005). Besides, many studies asserted that organizational citizenship behavior, perceived organizational support, psychological empowerment and job performance are related (Chiang & Hsieh, 2012;Chow, Lo, Sha & Hong, 2006;Kirkman & Rosen, 1999;Liden, Wayne & Sparrowe, 2000;Niehoff, Moorman, Blakely & Fuller, 2001;Peccei & Rosenthal, 2001;Spreitzer, Kizilos & Nason, 1997). According to the reviewed theories (Hulin, 1991;Lee & Mitchell, 1994;Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski & Erez, 2001), job embeddedness is related to job performance.…”

Empowerment Practices and Performance in Malaysia – An Empirical Study

“…Measuring empowerment practices focuses on administrative behavior that proceeds to empower workers. Such conducts comprise of fostering an optimistic emotional environment, satisfying and cheering in perceptible and private ways, conveying buoyancy, nurturing scheme and accountability, and structuring on accomplishment (Conger, 1989;DuBrin, 1998;Niehoff, B. P. et al, 2001). Eventually, the triumph of a scrupulous scheme will be reliant, in the first illustration on the empowered being given the power and liberty to craft decisions that they judge to be precious, momentous and essential (Lashley, C., 1999).…”