The Effect of Organizational Structure on Job Involvement in Employees of Sport and Youth General Offices: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of organizational structure on job involvement of employees of Sport and Youth general offices through the mediating role of psychological empowerment. The population involved all employees of Sport and Youth general offices of Kerman (N=50) and Yazd (N=45) provinces. Given the small statistical population, whole employees were selected as the sample (N=n=95) and 76 questionnaires (Kerman 40 and Yazd 36) were returned. For data collection, Questionnaire of Organizational Structure of Sashkin and Morris (1984), Questionnaire of Psychological Empowerment of Spreitzer (1995), and Questionnaire of Job Involvement of Kanungo (1982) were used. Structural Equation Modeling and PLS software were used to analyze the data. Results indicated that psychological empowerment significantly affected job involvement (β=0.49). Also, organic structure and mechanic structure both significantly affected psychological empowerment (β=0.30, β=0.34 respectively). Furthermore, indirect results showed that psychological empowerment acted as a mediator between organic structure and job involvement (β=0.15), as well as between mechanic structure and job involvement (β=0.17). Thus, psychological empowerment and organizational structure must be considered to increase job involvement of employees.