Linking leadership empowerment behaviour to employee attitudes and behavioural intentions: Testing the mediating role of psychological empowerment

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between leadership empowerment behaviour (LEB), employee psychological empowerment and employee attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction) and behavioural intentions (intention to stay). Design/methodology/approach: The hypotheses were simultaneously tested on a sample of 380 frontline service employees, using structural equation modeling. Findings: The paper found a direct relationship between leadership empowerment behaviour and job satisfaction and affective commitment. Psychological empowerment partially mediates these relationships. Employee attitudes were also shown to be related to intention to stay. Research limitations/implications: This study provides validation of the LEB construct in an individualized working context and suggests that psychological empowerment is a relevant construct to link LEB to employee attitudes and behavioural intentions. The cross‐sectional nature of this study restricts the clear pinpointing of temporal causal relationships within the empowerment process. Furthermore, common method bias might have inflated correlations between constructs. Practical implications: The LEB dimensions provide organizations with concrete behaviour that leaders should emphasize in order to foster employee commitment, satisfaction and loyalty to the company. Originality/value: This is the first paper that studies the relationship between leadership empowerment behaviour and the multi‐dimensional conceptualization of psychological empowerment. It aims to gain further insights into the relationship between structural and psychological perspectives on empowerment and clarifies how these constructs relate to employee attitudes and behavioural intentions.