The role of empowering leadership and psychological empowerment on nurses’ work engagement and affective commitment

Psychological Empowerment and Job Performance: Examining Serial Mediation Effects of Self-Efficacy and Affective Commitment

A substantial body of literature has analyzed the influence of psychological empowerment on individual and organizational outcomes. However, there is still a need to examine how empowered employees achieve higher performance. To fill this gap in the literature, this study analyzed the mediating role of self-efficacy and affective commitment in the relationship between psychological empowerment and task-based job performance. Data were collected from 357 employees. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping procedures. The results validated the structural relationships between psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, affective commitment, and task-based job performance. In addition, the serial mediation effect of self-efficacy and affective commitment was also confirmed. These results highlight the relevance of psychological variables, such as psychological empowerment and affective commitment, for individuals and organizations. The study supports that feeling empowered and emotionally committed is essential in building a long-term relationship between the employee and the organization.

Clinicians' psychological empowerment to engage in management as part of their daily work

PURPOSE

The purpose of the article is to analyze how physicians and nurses, as the two major health care professions, experience psychological empowerment for managerial work.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The study was designed as a qualitative interview study at four primary care centers (PCCs) in Sweden. In total, 47 interviews were conducted, mainly with physicians and nurses. The first inductive analysis led us to the concept of psychological empowerment, which was used in the next deductive step of the analysis.

FINDINGS

The study showed that both professions experienced self-determination for managerial work, but that nurses were more dependent on structural empowerment. Nurses experienced that they had competence for managerial work, whereas physicians were more ignorant of such competence. Nurses used managerial work to create impact on the conditions for their clinical work, whereas physicians experienced impact independently. Both nurses and physicians experienced managerial work as meaningful, but less meaningful than nurses and physicians' clinical work.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

For an effective health care system, structural changes in terms of positions, roles, and responsibilities can be an important route for especially nurses' psychological empowerment.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

The qualitative method provided a complementary understanding of psychological empowerment on how psychological empowerment interacted with other factors. One such aspect was nurses' higher dependence on structural empowerment, but the most important aspect was that both physicians and nurses experienced that managerial work was less meaningful than clinical work. This implies that psychological empowerment for managerial work may only make a difference if psychological empowerment does not compete with physicians' and nurses' clinical work.