Providing a Structural Model of Spirituality in the Workplace Based on Professional Commitment with the Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

Through research on employees of organizations, their shortcomings can be realized, and the path to growth and excellence can be found. In the meantime, all employees, from ordinary to those with disabilities, contribute to this procedure. It is necessary to know that a significant part of the country's population comprises people with disabilities. Hence, polling these people and other employees helps the organization's effectiveness. Accordingly, with the increase of competition in the field of sports and the evolution of its perspective as a sports industry, evaluating the efficiency of the employees of sports federations as the basic pillars of the country's sports promotion has an important position that in recent years, evaluating the performance of people working in this position in various federations and measuring them from different ways has been considered by researchers. Spirituality in the workplace has a tremendous impact on the organization because the organization, through the development of the human environment, causes the maximum growth of employees to achieve their capabilities. Therefore, the present study was conducted to model spirituality in the workplace based on a professional commitment with the mediating role of psychological empowerment.

The method of this research is descriptive correlational of structural equation modeling, in which the relationship between predictor, criterion, and mediator variables was examined. The research purpose is part of developmental research. In this study, workplace spirituality was considered a criterion variable, psychological empowerment as a mediating variable, and professional commitment as a predictor variable. First, the relationships between variables were analyzed using research tools, which is a questionnaire, and then the model was developed. The statistical population consisted of all employees of selected sports federations (Volleyball, Football, Taekwondo, and public sports in 2018–2019). They were selected through a stratified random sampling method based on the population size. Finally, 400 people were chosen, including 104 people (26%) from the Public Sports Federation, 128 (32%) from the Taekwondo Federation, 72 people (18%) from the Volleyball Federation, and 96 people (24%) from the Football Federation. To collect data, they answered the questionnaires on Spirituality in the Workplace by Milliman et al. (2003), Professional Commitment by Mier et al. (1993), and Psychological Empowerment by Spritz and Mishra (1995). For data analysis, SPSS software and LISREL were used. The significance level was set at 0.05.

In this study, the statistical characteristics of the subjects in the research variables were examined, which showed that the proposed model of the relationship between these variables has an acceptable fit. The results showed a positive and significant correlation between all components of spirituality variables in the workplace (significance, sense of solidarity, and alignment with the organization), professional commitment (emotional, continuous, and normative), and psychological empowerment (competence, autonomy, significant impact, and trust). Results showed that professional commitment has positive and direct effects on spirituality in the workplace (p<0.001, β=0.56) and on psychological empowerment (p<0.001, β=0.91). Also, psychological empowerment has a positive and direct effect on spirituality in the workplace (p<0.001, β=0.42), and professional commitment mediated by psychological empowerment (p<0.001, β=0.38) has a significant and positive indirect effect on spirituality in the workplace. The fit indices equal to CFI=0.97, NFI=0.94, IFI=0.94, AGFI=0.90, and RMSEA=0.051 were obtained, showing that the assumed model fits relatively well with the data.

Considering the significant effect of professional commitment and psychological empowerment on spirituality in the workplace and the possibility of manipulating and training these variables, the results of this study have applications for promoting mental health and employee development in the organization.