Effect of psychological empowerment and psychological capital on individual readiness for change in employees of Iran ministry of Sports and Youth

The purpose of this research was to study the effect of psychological empowerment and psychological capital on individual readiness for change in staff of the Ministry of Sport and Youth. The statistical population consisted of all employees of the Ministry of Sports and Youth (N=850), which 265 subjects were selected by random sampling method based on the Cochran formula. To collect data, Spreitzer and Mishra’s (1995) psychological empowerment questionnaire, Luthan’s (2007) psychological resources questionnaire, and Dunham’s (1989) individual readiness for change questionnaire were used. To analyze the data and to identify the effects of research variables, the structural equation modeling was applied by using Lisrel software. The results of this research showed that psychological empowerment had a positive and significant effect on individual readiness for change (β=0.41, t=7.69). Psychological capital also had a positive and significant effect on individual readiness (β=0.86, t=11.01). The effect of psychological empowerment on psychological capital was positive and significant (β=0.79, t=10.22). Finally, the positive effect of psychological empowerment on individual readiness for change was confirmed by the mediating role of psychological capital (β=0.68, t=8.71). It can be concluded that the development of psychological empowerment and psychological capital can play an important role in the readiness of employees to accept changes.