Moderating-mediating Effects of Leader Member Exchange, Self-efficacy and Psychological Empowerment on Work Outcomes among Nurses

Abstract

Background: The main effects of leader-member relationship and the quality of supervisor-subordinate relationship are emphasized as main variables that help improve nurses’ job satisfaction and reduce exhaustion. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of the emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, and psychological empowerment on psychological exhaustion and job satisfaction of nurses using moderation-mediation effects of leader-member exchange (LMX).Methods: A cross-sectional design was carried out in three public-sector hospitals in north west of Iran during 2016. A total of 138 self-administered questionnaires were used for analysis. The main hypotheses of this study were analyzed through applying mediation-moderation analysis using PROCESS model.Results: The results revealed that LMX acted as a mediator between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction through converting its negative effect into positive one. The indirect effect of emotional intelligence on emotional exhaustion through leader-member exchange was strongly negative especially at higher levels of leader-member exchange.Conclusions: High quality relationships between nurses and their superiors could improve their job outcomes. The negative relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional exhausting was more significant when leader-member exchange was taken into account. High emotional intelligence in nurses has negative effect on job satisfaction but by mediating role of LMX the effect changed to positive. LMX partially mediated the effect of emotional intelligence on job satisfaction, except when self-efficacy values were quite large. Psychological empowerment did not significantly moderate the relationship between emotional intelligence, leader-member exchange, and job outcome.Implications for nursing managers: It is recommended to analyze the quality of leader-member exchange in the hospitals before using them for measurement of nurses’ satisfaction and their jobs’ outcomes. Managers should also concentrate more on leader-member exchange and try to improve its quality. Future studies are needed to investigate the effects of leader-member exchange quality in longer follow-up periods.

Psychological Empowerment and Job Performance: Examining Serial Mediation Effects of Self-Efficacy and Affective Commitment

“…Contrary to previous studies (Chamberlin et al 2018;Choi 2020;Frazier and Jacezko 2021;Kundu and Kumar 2017;Wang et al 2022;Yao et al 2020), the direct effect of psychological empowerment on task-based job performance was not significant. This study also provides evidence of the positive relationship between self-efficacy and affective commitment, which has been reported in previous studies (Ashfaq et al 2021;Almutairi 2020;Albrecht and Marty 2020;Ardabili 2020).…”

“…Self-efficacy is a motivational construct that improves behaviors, such as goal commitment or persistence, and emotional states, such as affect commitment (Gist and Mitchell 1992). According to Bandura (1986), employees' perceptions of self-efficacy helps them to stay committed to their organizations since a higher feeling of confidence in their abilities helps them to be committed to their goals or tasks (Ardabili 2020). Previous research (e.g., Ashfaq et al 2021;Almutairi 2020;Erum et al 2020;Yogalakshmi and Suganthi 2020) has documented the positive relationship between self-efficacy and affective commitment.…”

“…Moreover, according to the COR theory (Hobfoll 1989;Hobfoll et al 2018), psychological empowerment can be conceived as a valuable resource that reflects other important psychological resources, such as competence and self-determination (Halbesleben et al 2014), which can help employees improve their sense of self-efficacy, resulting in higher performance at work. Based on these frameworks, it can be argued that empowered individuals tend to perceive themselves as more capable (Heslin et al 2017;Heslin 1999;Huang 2017), which subsequently promotes their feelings of commitment (Ardabili 2020;Ashfaq et al 2021); this is ultimately reflected in higher effort on job tasks or different types of positive behaviors (Na-Nan et al 2021;Miraglia et al 2017). Consequently, the following hypothesis was proposed: Hypothesis 9 (H9).…”

Work Flow Experience in the Light of Leader-Member Exchange and Person-Job Fit Theories

“…(2016) highlight the importance of the role of LMX between two extreme job attitudes: job satisfaction (the positive end) and turnover intention (the negative end) in their studies. Similar findings have emerged in numerous studies on organizational psychology conducted in different cultures in the past (Ali et al., 2018; Ardabili, 2020; Aryee & Chen, 2006; Bauwens et al., 2019; Brimhall et al., 2014; Graen et al., 1982; Mardanov et al., 2008; Pellegrini et al., 2010; Soleimani & Einolahzadeh, 2017; Wayne et al., 1997). It can thus be seen that increasing numbers of studies prove the contribution of high quality relationship between leader and employee to employees’ subjective state of well-being and development of positive attitudes towards work in organizational surroundings.…”

The Role of Daily Affect in Leader-Member Exchange: A Multilevel Investigation in Public Health Administration

“…EI is considered as an essential characteristic of leaders as well as followers in leadership research (Dasborough, 2006;Troth et al, 2018;Tse et al, 2018) and, in general, the development of high-quality social exchange between parties. Additionally, LMX has its moderating/mediating effect on EI and job outcomes (Lee et al, 2018;Ardabili, 2020). As EI refers to the capacity to realize and manage one's emotions, employees experiencing negative affect can better adjust and control their feelings to avoid negative interactions or impressions to create better LMX.…”