Empowerment in the Job Demands-Resources model. Unfolding the health-promoting and motivational potential of psychological and perceived team empowerment
Author:
Keywords:
Empowerment, Burnout, engagement
Abstract:
SummaryNowadays,organisations require not only motivated and productive workers, but alsoproactive and flexible employees who actively contribute to the organisationsgoals and adapt to changes (Bakker, 2011). To reach these requirements, organisationshave to promote wellbeing and motivation. Therefore, one the current challengesfor occupational psychologists is to find job aspects that keep workers healthyand motivated.In line with this, theJob Demands-Resources model (JD-R) (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007) proposes ahealth impairment process triggered by excessive job demands and a motivationalprocess stimulated by job resources. Though these assumptions have been largelysupported, most of these findings have been obtained from European countries,with some exceptions (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). Surprisingly,research in Latin America is lacking. Accordingly, this PhD project examined the basic assumptions of the health impairment process ofthe JD-R model in a Chilean sample (study 1). Moreover, further developmentsof the model, such as the inclusion of personal resources, have significantlyincreased knowledge on both the health impairment and the motivational process (Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014). Theadvancements on personal resources, however, have been limited to somevariables (Halbesleben, 2010). This PhDproject advocates that research on personal resources can be fuelled byexploring variables from other theoretical frameworks that have shown to bebeneficial for workers wellbeing. Accordingly, thisPhD project introduces the concept of psychological empowerment, defined as agestalt of four positive self-evaluations (meaning, self-determination,competence and impact) in the JD-R model. Specifically, we tested whetherpsychological empowerment, portrayed as a personal resource, was amediator ofthe association between job resources and work engagement (study 2 and 3) and amoderator of the relationship of job demands with burnout (study 4). Furthermore,this PhD project proposes the concept of perceived team empowerment as theindividuals perception of the level of empowerment in his group and examinedits influence on individual wellbeing. More specifically, we tested whetherperceived team empowerment, portrayed as a perceived collective variable,mediated the association of individual job resources with individual workengagement (study 3) and moderated the relationship between individual jobdemands and individual burnout (study 4).Our findings lentsupport to the validity of the JD-R model in the Chilean context. Furthermore,our results revealed that psychological empowerment mediated the association of job resources with work engagement andmoderated the relationship of job demands with burnout. Moreimportantly, these studies showed that, like psychologicalempowerment, perceived team empowerment mediated the paths from individual jobresources to individual work engagement and moderated the paths from individualjob demands to individual burnout. In sum, this PhDproject leads us to conclude that psychological and perceived team empowermentrepresent a valuable contribution to the JD-R model. Our findings demonstratedthat psychological empowerment enhances our understanding of personal resourcesin the health impairment process and motivational process. Furthermore, thestudy of perceived team empowerment demonstrated that the individual perceptionof a collective aspect accounts for results on individual wellbeing.Accordingly, empowerment can be used within the JD-R model to promote wellbeingand motivation in organisations. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE