The Impact Of Social Support On Work Engagement The Mediating Role Of Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of the psychological process leading to the effect of social support types (e.g. perceived organizational support, perceived supervisor support, perceived coworker support) on work engagement by testing the mediating role of psychological empowerment. It also attempts to treat social support types as separate constructs and test whether they have different effects on different work outcomes in a relatively disengaged, but under-researched, context as Egypt. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to customer service banking employees. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships across a sample size of 384 employees. Results revealed that psychological empowerment fully mediated the relationship between perceived supervisor support, perceived coworker support, and work engagement. It also partially mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and work engagement. Furthermore, although only perceived organizational support has a direct positive effect on work engagement, the three types of support positively affect employees’ psychological empowerment.