Roles of Employees' Social Capital in the Relationship Between Empowerment and Cynicism

Abstract

This paper aims to explain the relationship between organizational cynicism, empowerment and the individual's sense of social capital in terms of gender. In this direction the obtained data were analyzed by structural equation model. The results indicate that structural and psychological empowerments have reducing effect on organizational cynicism, and social capital has a moderator role between psychological empowerment and organizational cynicism for both women and men. However women with high social capital have a greater reduction of psychological empowerment on organizational cynicism than men with high social capital. These findings offer few recommendations for managers and employees. Managers to decrease employees' negative attitudes and to ease cynicism may use empowerment. However, even employees perceive as psychologically empowered, managers also should consider some other individual sources such as social capital that can buffer or strengthen the cynicism. Particularly for women employees, managers can focus more on psychological and social resources in order to decrease negative work consequences. Such an investigation is necessary to reveal the predictors of cynicism as one of the important concept in organizational behavior and management literature. It is also valuable to understand the differences between individuals in terms of cynical behaviours towards their organizations.