Psychological Empowerment on Organizational Commitment as Perceived by Saudi Academics

Abstract

Various scholars have identified commitment as one of the major contributors of workplace productivity.Commitment provides the interest and morale for handling tasks which results in organisation progress and growth.Commitment is perceived as either continuance, normative, or continuance commitment. The three commitmentcategories are fundamental, and academics have established empowerment as a fundamental tool for developingworkplace commitment. Significantly, empowerment is categorized as either psychological or structural.Psychological empowerment is purported to increase the commitment levels in institutions. Basically, psychologicalempowerment is concerned more with personnel experience and their responsibilities in the organization rather thanfocusing on managerial activities. This study, therefore, establishes the validity of psychological empowerment inimproving the commitment levels among institutions.The study sampled 100 employees from varied departments in King Saudi University. The participants weredistributed in accordance with their working experience; twenty of the respondents had worked for between 11 and 15years, thirty had a working experience of 6-10 years, and the majority (50) had worked for less than five years. Thelevel of psychological empowerment (PE) and the corresponding organization commitment (OC) was measuredthrough a survey questionnaire. In both questionnaires, the items were measured in 7-point Likert- type, with theleast value being 1 (strongly disagree) and the highest 7 (strongly agree). The results of the study indicated that thatthe average of psychological empowerment and the five dimensions relating to it with organization commitmentwere on the higher side. Notably, organization commitment relied heavily on the level of autonomy given to theemployee in decision making at the workplace.