Psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job insecurity in divisions of a packaging organisation

Abstract

Many organisations globally are in a quest to produce better products (in terms of quality), faster (in terms of time frame) and at less cost. This in turn creates a competitive environment. This competitive environment is characterised by deregulation and converging markets, complex customer needs, corporate restructuring and damsizing. In their quest to achieve their goals, the organisations need to put more emphasis on their employees. They need to recognise that to be winners in this competitive environment the most important factor lies in their employees and how they work. Organisations today are frequently searching for innovative ways to enhance the creative potential of their work force and gain that extra competitiwe advantage. Employees must learn to take initiative, be creative, set objective and be committed to achieve them and accept responsibility for their actions. They need to perceive themselves as empowered and to derive satisfaction from what they are doing. In the business world, what compels organisations to implement the empowerment process is the promise of enhanced operational and financial performance as it results from an increase in employees' job satisfaction, commitment and decrease in job insecurity. Studies have shown psychologically empowered employees to be more effedive and to experience more job satisfaction than their less empowered counterparts. The empirical objective of this study was to determine the relationship between psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job insecunty of employees in a packaging industry and to determine whether psychological empowerment can predii the level of job satisfaction, organisational commitment, job insecurity. The study also focuses on the relationship of these four constructs (psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job insecurity to other variables. The variables being referred to are gender, age, length of service, years in current job position and grade. A correlation design was used to determine the relationship between the constructs of psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job insecurity. Data from the sample population of employees at the packaging industry (n=119) was gathered and explained in terms of descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations). Cronbach alpham coefficients were determined for the measuring instruments. Pearson-product moment correlations and multiple correlations were also calculated. A regression analysis was performed to determine the extent to which sub dimensions of psychological empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) predict job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job insecurity of employees at the packaging industry. Factor analysis was measured to analyse interrelationships within a set of variables. The findings suggested that a relationship exists between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. A significant relationship was found between job satisfaction and sub-dimensions of psychological empowerment. These findings indicate that individuals who experience psychdogical empowerment have a tendency to be more satisfied with their jobs and vice versa. Practically significance and statistical significance correlations were found between psychological empowerment and organisational commitment. Correlation was also found between psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job insecurity. This dearly confirms what is expected that if levels of psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment are high then job insecurity level should be low or vice versa. A practical significant correlation was found between psychological empowerment, organisational commitment and biographical variable (age, years of service and years in current job paeition). There was no correlation recorded between job satisfaction and age and years in current job position. There was correlation found between psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, job insecurity and grade. Regarding the predictive value of the sub-dimensions of psychological empowerment in relation to job satisfaction, the findings indicated that the psychological empowerment subscales predicted 51% of the total job satisfaction, 25 % of organisational commitment and 28% of job insecurity. Lastly limitations for this study as well as recommendations for the organisation and for future research were made.