International Journal of Human Resource Management and Research (IJHRMR) ISSN 2249-6874 Vol.

2, Issue 2 June 2012 95-101 TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF PERCEIVED EMPOWERMENT OF FACULTY MEMBERS ON THEIR ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT IN A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN INDIA
1

JIVETA CHAUDHARY & 2SUNAINA SANGWAN

Assistant Professor, School of Management , Itm University Sector 23 A, Huda , Gurgaon 122017, Haryana, India.

Assistant Professor, School of Management , Itm University Sector 23 A, Huda , Gurgaon 122017, Haryana,India.

ABSTRACT
The efficacy of higher education institutions is dependent on its faculty members commitment toward promoting excellence in education. It has been for long realized that workforce of organizations across different verticals is more effective when it is committed to the organizational goals and values. Several studies suggest that organizational commitment of employees has a positive influence over employees job performance. In order to enhance, the abilities of a higher education institution in nurturing learning environments that respond effectively to the changing demands of the society, it is imperative for them to develop talent that is committed to the institution and its philosophy. Research collaborates the positive influence that employees perceived empowerment has on their organizational commitment. This study thus assesses the impact of psychological empowerment of faculty members on their organizational commitment. For the purpose of the study, data was collected from 52 Assistant Professors of a Private University in Gurgaon (India) who completed Spreitzers (1995) psychological empowerment and Meyer & Allens (1991) organizational commitment questionnaires. Correlation and Simple Linear Regression analysis were done and results suggest that psychological empowerment has a positive impact on overall organizational commitment and its affective and normative components.

KEYWORDS:
Psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment, education

INTRODUCTION
For employees to be satisfied with their jobs and be committed to the work goals and values, organizations need to build work cultures that foster empowerment and provide employees opportunities of utilizing and nurturing their talents and creativity. Individuals are committed to the organizations when they believe that their work is meaningful, their skills are in sync with the job requirements, they have reasonable amount of autonomy and they have considerable impact in the organization and/or its department(s). It is true however, that merely by formulating and implementing policies of empowerment, organizations cannot guarantee positive outcomes of it. The reason is simple that employees believe that they empowered only when they feel they are. The perceived empowerment of

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employees has a positive impact on their organizational commitment. Thus, to enhance their level of commitment toward the organization, organizations need to psychologically empower them. Employees feel and work well when they are offered opportunities of superior self-control and goal internalization and hence, understanding the influence of their psychological empowerment on their organizational commitment becomes essential for organizations.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT
The concept of empowerment could be understood according to two perspectives viz., structural perspective that explains empowerment as a set of activities and practices by which managers grant authority, power and control to their subordinates and the employees perspective that explains employees are empowered only if they perceive themselves to be empowered, i.e., employees feel psychologically enabled. Conger and Kanungo (1988) explained empowerment as a process of enhancing the feelings of self-efficacy amongst organizational members. Thomas and Velthouse (1990, cited in Spreitzer 1995) expressed empowerment as increased intrinsic task motivation manifested in a set of four cognitions reflecting an individuals orientation to his or her work role: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Spretizer (1995) defined meaning as individuals perceived self-worth of the job, competence as the perceived ability to perform the job, self-determination as the perceived autonomy in ones work and impact as the perceived influence that the employee has in his/her department.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Chen, Sui and Farh (2002) defined organizational commitment as psychological attachment of employees to their organization. Mowday, Porter and Steers (1982) explained three components of organizational commitment viz., acceptance of organizations goals and values, extra effort on the organizations behalf and desire to stay with the employer. OReilly and Chatman (1986) advocated three dimensions of organizational commitment viz., compliance, identification and internalization. Meyer and Allen (1991) defined organizational commitment as a psychological state that would define the employees relation with their organization and propounded that it would impact the employees intention to stay in the organization. They proposed three components of organizational commitment viz., affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. They defined affective commitment as employees emotional attachment with their organization; continuance commitment as employees awareness of costs related to leaving the organization and; normative commitment as employees feeling of obligation to stay longer with an organization.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

Empirical studies on psychological empowerment and organizational commitment suggest a positive relationship between the two. Liden, Wayne and Sparrowe (2000) suggested empowerment of individuals results in higher levels of work satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance. Niehoff, Enz and Grover (1990) found a positive relationship between empowerment and commitment in

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Assessing the Impact of Perceived Empowerment of Faculty Members on Their Organizational Commitment in A Private University in India

an insurance company. Fulford and Enz (1995) found a similar relationship between the two in study of employees in private clubs. Liu, Fellows and Chiu (2006) in their survey of four construction companies in Hong Kong identified a similar relationship. Bogler and Somech (2004) too, in their study of Israeli middle and high schools witnessed similar outcomes. Dee, Henkin and Duemer (2002, cited in Choong, Woong & Lau, 2011) explained that psychological empowerment was positively related to organizational commitment for teachers in South-western United States. Rawat (2011) in her study of IT, ITes and Banking & Insurance employees concluded that psychological empowerment had a significant impact on organizational commitment.

RESEARCH DESIGN
Sample The sample for the study consisted 52 employees (70 questionnaires were rolled out of which 2 were rejected and 16 were not returned) of the Assistant Professors in a Private University in Gurgaon. Instruments Used 2.2.1 2.2.2 Spreitzers (1995) Psychological Empowerment instrument Meyer and Allens (1991) Organization Commitment instrument

HYPOTHESESs
Hypothesis I H0: Psychological Empowerment of Assistant Professors has no significant impact on their organizational commitment H1: Psychological Empowerment of Assistant Professors has a significant impact on their organizational commitment Hypothesis II H0: Psychological Empowerment would have same impact on different components of organizational commitment H1: Psychological Empowerment would have different impact on different components of organizational commitment

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

Reliability The questionnaires were tested for their reliability. The following table summarizes the Cronbachs Coefficient scores: Table 1 Reliability scores of Psychological Empowerment and Organizational Commitment Instruments

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Variable/Component Meaning component of Psychological Empowerment (3 statements) Competence component of Psychological Empowerment (3 statements) Self-determination component of Psychological Empowerment (3 statements) Impact component of Psychological Empowerment (3 statements) Affective Commitment component of Organizational Commitment (8 statements) Continuance Commitment component of Organizational Commitment (8 statements) Normative Commitment component of Organizational Commitment (8 statements)

Cronbachs coefficient .805 .771 .757 .884 .733 .716 .835

CORRELATION ANALYSIS
On testing the correlation amongst psychological empowerment and organizational commitment and its components, it was found out that psychological empowerment of employees is positively correlated to their organizational commitment (.298, p value<0.05). One interesting observation of the study is that although, there lies a significant relationship between psychological empowerment of employees and their affective commitment component (.335, p value<0.05) and normative commitment (.302, p value<0.05), the former is not related to continuance commitment.

SIMPLE LINEAR REGRESSION

Simple linear regression was conducted to study the impact of psychological empowerment on overall organizational commitment and its affective and normative components. On analyzing the impact of psychological empowerment (independent variable) on overall organizational commitment (dependent variable), the R square value came out to be 0.089. The ANOVA table signified that the regression model is significant as the p value <.05. The beta co-efficient showed a positive value and hence, psychological empowerment showed a positive impact on organizational commitment ( = 0.298, p

value<.05). For affective and normative commitment, R square value was generated as 0.112 and 0.091 respectively. The respective ANOVA tables signified that the regression was significant. The beta coefficients showed positive values and hence, it was identified that psychological empowerment is positively impacts affective ( = 0.335, p value<.05) and normative ( = 0.302, p value<.05)

commitment. The analyses show no problem of multi-colinearity.

HYPOTHESES TESTING
Hypothesis 1 H0 is rejected as p value<.05 Hence, Psychological Empowerment of Assistant Professors has a significant impact on their organizational commitment Hypothesis 2 H0 is rejected as p value<.05 Hence, Psychological Empowerment would have different impact on different components of organizational commitment

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Assessing the Impact of Perceived Empowerment of Faculty Members on Their Organizational Commitment in A Private University in India

CONCLUSIONS
The present research identified the relationship between an employees psychological empowerment with his/her level of organizational commitment. The study attempted to explain the dis/similarity in impact of psychological empowerment on the various dimensions of organizational commitment viz., affective commitment (the wants to feeling), continuance commitment (the has to feeling) and normative commitment (the ought to feeling). The study focused on interaction of these two variables (psychological empowerment and organizational commitment) in context of a private university set up in Gurgaon. The study concluded that psychological empowerment (PE) of the Assistant Professors has a positive impact on their organizational commitment (OC). An interesting observation however, in this case is that PE has a positive significant relationship with affective and normative commitment while it has no significant relation with continuance commitment. It was noted however, that in contrast to the previous literature, in the present study the impact of psychological empowerment of employees on their organizational commitment and its components was not very large. Thus, the University may identify other controllable and uncontrollable factors that influence commitment of its employees.

LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

The present study establishes the impact of psychological empowerment on organizational commitment level of faculty members of a private university in Gurgaon. The study however, suffers from certain limitations. The sample selected for the study may not be a true representative of the population on account of possible biasness in employee responses resulting from their tendency to give socially desirable responses. Another limitation of the study is that the impact of demographic variables has not been considered in the study and hence in future, research may focus understanding the relationship between psychological empowerment and organizational commitment taking workforce demographics as a moderating variable. Future research may also focus on understanding the precursors of psychological empowerment.

REFERENCES
1. Allen, N.J., & Meyer, J.P. (1990). The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 63: 1-18. 2. Bogler, R., & Somech, A. (2004). Influence of teacher empowerment on teachers organizational commitment, professional commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour in schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20: 277-289. 3. Chen, Z.X., Tsui, A.S., & Farh, J.L. (2002). Loyalty to supervisor vs. Organizational commitment: Relationships to employee performance in China. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75: 339-356.

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4.

Choong, Y.O., Wong, K.L., & Lau, T.C. (2011). Psychological Empowerment and Organizational commitment in the Malaysian private higher education institutions: A review and research agenda. Academic Research International, 1(3): 236-245.

5.

Conger, J.A., & Kanungo, R.N. (1988). The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice. Academy of Management Review, 13(3): 471-482.

6.

Fulford, M.D., & Enz, C.A. (1995). The impact of empowerment on service employees. Journal of Managerial Issues, 7: 161-175.

7.

Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J. & Sparrowe, R.T. (2000). An Examination of The Mediating Role of Psychological Empwerment on The Relations Between The Job, Interpersonal Relationship, and Work Outcome. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85: 407-416

8.

Liu, A.M.M., Fellows, R., & Chiu, W.M. (2006). Work empowerment as an antecedent to organizational commitment in the Hong Kong quantity surveying profession. Surveying and Built Environment, 26(3): 7-23.

9.

Meyer, J.P., & Allen, N.J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organization commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1(1): 61-89.

10. Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W., & Steers, R.M. (1982). Employee-Organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover, New York, NY: Academic Press. 11. Niehoff, B.P., Enz, C.A., & Grover, R.A. (1990). The impact of top-management actions on employee attitudes and perceptions. Group and Organization Studies, 15: 337-352 12. OReilly, C.A. III, & Chatman, J. (1986).Organizational commitment and psychological attachment: the effects of compliance, identification, and internalization on pro-social behaviour. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71: 492-499. 13. Rawat, P.S. (2011). Effect of Psychological Empowerment on Commitment of employees: An empirical study. 2nd International Conference on Humanities, Historical and Social Sciences, 17: 143-147. 14. Spreitzer, G.M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442-1465. 15. Thomas, K.W., & Velthouse, B.A. (1990). Cognitive Elements of Empowerment: An interpretive Model of Intrinsic Task Motivation. Academy of Management Review, 15(4): 666-668.

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Assessing the Impact of Perceived Empowerment of Faculty Members on Their Organizational Commitment in A Private University in India

ANNEXURE I CORRELATION MATRIX OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

Correlations Mean Value Mean Value Mean Value of of Mean Value of Overall Mean Value of

of Affective Continuance Normative Organizational Psychological Commitment Commitment Commitment Commitment Empowerment Mean Value of Affective Commitment Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N Mean Value of Continuance Commitment Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N Mean Value of Normative Commitment Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N Mean Value of Overall Organizational Commitment score Mean Value of Psychological Empowerment Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .335* .015 52 -.008 .954 52 .302* .029 52 .298* .032 52 52 1 Pearson 52 .119 .400 52 .517** .000 52 .779** .000 52 52 -.002 .991 52 .568** .000 52 52 .718** .000 52 52 1 .119 .400 52 1 .517** .000 52 -.002 .991 52 1 .779** .000 52 .568** .000 52 .718** .000 52 1 .335* .015 52 -.008 .954 52 .302* .029 52 .298* .032 52

Commitment the Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).