Psychological empowerment and employee attitudinal outcomes: The pivotal role of psychological capital

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of psychological capital in the relationship between perceived psychological empowerment and employee satisfaction, normative organizational commitment and turnover intentions.

To test the proposed research model, the authors collected field data from seven telecommunication companies located in the Islamabad Capital Territory of Pakistan. Through a two-wave data collection design, a total of 411 participants reported their perceptions about psychological empowerment and psychological capital at Time 1 and their job satisfaction, normative organizational commitment and turnover intention at Time 2.

Results supported the hypothesized relationships, showing that psychological capital fully mediates the relationship between perceived psychological empowerment and employee job satisfaction, normative organizational commitment and turnover intention.

This study relied on cross-sectional data, which does not fully satisfy the conditions of establishing causality.

Results of this study will help organizations and practitioners to understand the importance of psychological empowerment and psychological capital and how they positively influence organizational performance, including employee job satisfaction, normative organizational commitment and turnover intention.

Drawing upon the self-determination theory of Deci and Ryan (2000), this study contributes to organizational behaviour literature by proposing and testing psychological capital as an underlying mechanism that can explain the impact of psychological empowerment on employee satisfaction, normative organizational commitment and turnover intention.