The relationship between Psychological empowerment and organizational commitment:The mediating role of Psychological contract

Abstract

The concept of PE (Psychological Empowerment) was stem from the theory of empowerment, along with the development of empowerment theory , some researchers argue that managers should explain PE by how much empowerment measures can be accept by the employees. Research on empowerment should not be limited on how to authorize, whether the management measures can be accept by employees should be considered. The meaning of the Psychological Empowerment is more extensive than the empowerment measures, Spreitzer (1995) put forward the four dimensions of the psychological empowerment: meaning, self-determination, competence, impact, had gained agreements inside and abroad. Researches on Psychological Empowerment are abundant, personal factors, job characteristics and work environment are all can influence the Psychological Empowerment of employees, and at the same time PE can anticipate other important psychological status factor. This paper aim to explore the relationship mode between the PE and organizational commitment. Arguments about PE influent the organizational commitment has been mentioned both inside and abroad, our research find the relationships between PC (Psychological contract) and PE , organizational commitment, based on the researches before. The hypotheses are examined with data on 304 samples from 4 main companies, PC is a mediator in the relationship of PE and Organizational commitment. The main result of this paper as followed: I PE can influence the normative commitment, career commitment and economic commitment. For the more, PE are related to PC;II Explore a relationship mode of PE influence OC though PC, and come out with partial mediation path and complete mediation path.

Alternate abstract:

心理授权的概念最初源于授权理论的研究，随着授权管理理论的发展，一部分学者认为企业管理人员应从员工对授权管理措施的接受程度来解释授权。授权的研究不应该只局限于管理人员应如何授予员工权利上，还要考虑员工是否能够接受授权措施。心理授权的涵义比授权行为更为丰富，Sprietzer（1995）提出心理授权的四个维度：工作意义、自主性、自我效能和影响力，得到了国内外研究者的普遍认同。国外关于心理授权的研究已经非常丰富，个人特点、工作特征和组织环境因素都会对员工的心理授权水平产生影响，而作为重要的心理状态变量心理授权对员工的其他重要心理状态变量都有预测作用。 本文旨在探索心理授权对员工一个重要心理状态变量组织承诺的影响模型。心理授权对员工的组织承诺感有影响已经在国内外的研究中都有涉及，本文在国内外研究的基础上，通过文献回顾发现，心理契约与心理授权和组织承诺都有重要的联系。本研究通过304份有效问卷的调查数据研究结果发现：心理契约在心理授权和组织承诺的关系中起到中介变量的作用。本文的主要研究成果如下：1．心理授权对规范承诺、理想承诺和经济承诺都有预测作用。另外心理授权和心理契约显著相关，高水平的心理授权能够预测较高水平的心理契约；2．探索了心理授权通过心理契约影响组织承诺的关系模型。得出心理授权的工作意义维度和影响力维度分别通过心理契约的两个维度影响组织承诺感的部分中介模型和完全中介模型。