Psychological empowerment as mediator on perceptions of organizational environment with commitment to change

Abstract

An organization is an open system; consequently, any changes in the external environment will have an impact on the organization. This condition makes the organization must change. However, based on the previous experiences, not every change program had succeeded, and even can be categorized as a failure. In this regard, there are many variables can become the sources of failure namely: factors that lie in the environment, organization, and people, such as individual characteristics. Mostly the researchers pay attention to variables in the organization and personal characteristics, however, only a few their studies regarding to the perceptions of the organizational environment. The research aims to test the effect of employee's perceptions of the external organizational environment about commitment to organizational change, using psychological empowerment as a mediator. Data gathered from 539 employees working in two financial state-owned organizations in Indonesia. Results showed that there are significant effects of all the two variables, namely: organizational task environment and Psychological Empowerment on commitment to change. Results also revealed that the psychological Empowerment as a mediator had an indirect effect on a commitment to change. The implications of this study are for management of change, regarding paying attention to how people perception of their environment as well as developing psychological empowerment to achieve high commitment to change from their employees.

The Impact of Psychological Capital and Psychological Empowerment on Employee's Affective Commitment to Change

“…Findings also showed that psychological empowerment had a positive impact on affective commitment to change. These findings supported Mangundjaya (2014) which suggested that psychological empowerment plays a vital role in developing employee's commitment to change. Results also showed that psychological capital had a more significant influence on affective commitment to change compared with psychological empowerment.…”

“…Data was collected using three instruments as follows: a) Affective Commitment to Change adopted from Herscovith and Meyer (2002) which had been translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Mangundjaya (2013), b) Psychological Empowerment adopted from Spreitzer (1995) which had been translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Mangundjaya (2014), and c) Psychological Capital from Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio (2007) which translated by Mangundjaya (Lizar, Mangundjaya, & Rachmawan, 2015).…”

“…However, previous studies showed that 70-90% of the change programs were not successful (Fulcher, 2013), and people were said as one of the most important factors (Robbins, 2013). In this regard, people should have the commitment to change (Mangundjaya, 2016). Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) describe affective commitment to change in the organization as a desire within the individual to provide support for change on the basis of a belief that change can be good for the organization.…”

“…Individual's commitment to change is inseparable from their characteristics (Mangundjaya, 2014). Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio (2007) described a concept of the positive characteristics that individuals have in achieving target and facing the changing situation, as psychological capital.…”

Examining the Effects of Organizational Learning on Workforce Agility through Psychological Empowerment

“…Furthermore, the Psychological empowerment scale has 12 items and measured by an employee's psychological state related to his job to feel a sense of control, including meaning, competence, impact, and self-determination. This variable was developed by Spreitzer (2007), then modified and translated by Mangundjaya (2014). The Cronbach's alpha of this scale was 0.897.…”