The Role of Psychological Empowerment Dimensions in Predicting Work Engagement

Work engagement is a psychological state experiencing energy, absorption and dedication at work. The purpose of this study is to investigate impact of psychological empowerment and its components on work engagement. This cross sectional study was practical in terms of goal and descriptive-correlational in terms of nature. The statistical population was several public organizations in Mashhad, Iran. A simple random sampling method was applied. Krejcie and Morgan table showed that the suitable sample size is 384. Then, 420 questionnaires were distributed, led to 389 collected completed questionnaires. To measure the work engagement, Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova scale, and to measure psychological empowerment, Spreitzer scale were used. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the validity of measures were approved. The results of path analysis in LISREL software showed that psychological empowerment explains 73 percent of the employee's work engagement. While, competence’s effect on work engagement was not statistically significant, other components of psychological empowerment such as meaning, self-determination, and impact, had 48 percent, 33 percent and 38 percent positive and significant effect on the work engagement, respectively. Therefore, psychological empowerment is a significant predictor for work engagement. The results indicate that the organization performs interventions to increase employee's psychological empowerment. The pivot of these interventions should focused on sense of meaning for the tasks, self-determination, and impact.