Psychology Research and Behavior Management (Apr 2022)
Evaluation of Employee Empowerment on Taking Charge Behaviour: An Application of Perceived Organizational Support as a Moderator
Abstract
Nilesh Kumar,1 Zhiqiang Liu,2 Yanghua Jin1,3 1School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 3Zhejiang Financial College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yanghua Jin, Zhejiang Financial College, 118 Xueyuan Street, Xiasha Higher Education Park, East District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: Based on trait activation theory, this study validates the boundary effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on employee empowerment (EE) to sustain employee’s taking charge behaviour (TCB). It hypothesizes that EE has a strongly significant and positive relationship with TCB when POS is high.Methodology: The authors selected a time-lagged cross-sectional study and collected data from two sources in manufacturing firms in China where 290 team members and 56 supervisors participated in the survey. In a questionnaire, team members self-reported employee empowerment, taking charge behaviour, and perceived organizational support, whereas supervisors rated employees’ taking charge behaviour at individual-level to avoid common method bias. In addition, for meeting the study objectives statistically, we used SPSS-Process Macro for hypotheses testing.Findings: The study findings were significant, in which employee empowerment demonstrated positive relationship with TCB under the boundary condition of POS but under low POS. This empirical result endorses that employee empowerment accelerated by perceptions of low organizational support demonstrates a positive impact on the development of taking charge behaviour.Practical Implications: Receivers’ reactions to organizational support are not constantly positive; sometimes, they might feel vulnerable or incapable, and sometimes “overhelped”. Our study outcomes extend these streams of work by concentrating on support from the organization and authenticating an exclusive outline associating employee empowerment with perceived organizational support on employee’s taking charge behaviour- specifically organizations might, rather counterintuitively, attain greater levels of empowered employee’s taking charge behaviour by delivering less is more-oriented organizational support programs. More specifically, it is not always high, but sometimes low POS performs as a resilient situational factor or contextual moderator that is capable of activating and encouraging employee empowerment on their taking charge behaviour.Originality/Value: This study highlights the importance of taking charge as trait-relevant behaviour by empowered employees (a trait in our case) and organizational support as a trait-relevant cue for sustainable performance in the manufacturing industry of China.Keywords: employee empowerment practice, perceived organizational support, taking charge behaviour, trait activation theory
