PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 1

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND STUDIES

2.1 Introduction

Several definitions of empowerment have been produced and they in common involve
offering employees the control, freedom, and information to participate in decision-
making and organizational affairs. Some researchers focus to employees’
psychological aspects (Conger & Kanungo, 1988, Thomas & Velthouse, 1990,
Spreitzer, 1995). They defined empowerment more broadly as increased intrinsic task
motivation manifested in a set of four cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation
to his or her work role: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact
(Spreitzer, 1995).
 Meaning refers to the alignment between one’s work role and one’s own beliefs,
values, and standards. “If a person perceives the tasks to be performed as
something important, then the task becomes meaningful and if the task is
perceived as unimportant, the task becomes meaningless”. Employee will be
committed if they perceive work is important and they will move away, if the job
is considered less meaningful. (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990; Seibert, S. E., G.
Wang & S. H. Courtright, 2011).
 Competence refers to the belief in one’s capability to successfully perform work
activities that is the ability of an individual to perform his/ her job activities with
the needed knowledge and skill (Spreitzer, 1992).
 Self-determination is an individual’s sense of autonomy or control concerning
the initiation or regulation of one’s actions. Where competence refers mastery of
behavior, self-determination refers choice of behavior. Empowered individual
believes that they have personal directions concerning the methods used to
perform their role in the system. (Spreitzer, 1992; Elizabeth, Zakkariya, 2018).
 Impact is the belief that one can make a difference in the managerial process; that
one could influence operational outcomes in the work unit” (Seibert et al., 2011).
Combining organizational and psychological domains, employee empowerment
may be viewed as a cognitive state, a psychologically empowered experience with
power-sharing, competence and value internalization in organizations. A review in
psychological empowerment literature reveals that most of the researchers focus
on the impacts of psychological empowerment on job satisfaction, organizational
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 2

commitment, perceived individual performance and strain (Spreitzer, Kizilos &

Nason, 1997; Liden, Wayne & Sparrowe, 2000; Laschinger, 2001; Chang, Shih &
Lin, 2010).
Whereas Creativity, the production of new and useful ideas by individuals or teams,
can appear in many forms and many functions within firms of all kinds. Creative
performance is a key to the survival of operating organizations (Anderson, 2014).
Creative performance is described as the initiation of firsthand, original ideas that is
potentially valuable and pertinent to the organization. Organizations should be driven
by “human values” which means treating employees equally and manipulate their job
characteristics through adding a sense of empowerment to their tasks (Spector, 1997).
At this point employees can be internally satisfied with their jobs, this satisfaction will
be positively reflected on their behaviors and consequently on their creative
performance (Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K., 2001).

Hulya and Gonul, (2014) mentioned in their study that employee’s creativity is the
starting point and key ingredient for the success of any organization. Psychological
empowerment relates to how competent or capable people feel in an empowered work
environment. Those who feel more competent about their ability to perform their
work successfully should feel more satisfied with their work, be more affectively
committed to their organization, demonstrate more positive work performance and
have lower intentions to quit the organization.

Empowerment also can be particularly important for organizations operating in a team

environment or for organizations that wish to transition to a team environment. The
psychological approach must be viewed as a positive means to enhance productivity
and creativity among employees. (Azlin Ayob , Siti Rohaida Mohamed Zainal, 2011).
Psychological empowerment is conceptualized as an experienced psychological state
or set of cognitions (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). The highest degree of employee
performance caused by impact dimension followed by competence, meaning, and
self-determination. The management of the organization tries his or her best to
increase the empowerment of employees so that organization can survive and improve
performance, (Esayas Degago, 2014).
A study conducted by various researchers (Dina, Dania, Ghalia & Amro, 2018) in
Jordan on Relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Creative
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 3

Performance of employees found that human capital is perceived as one of the main
building blocks to gain a sustainable competitive advantage, which requires Human
Resources Management practices to be aligned with the organization’s overall
strategy .The results further added that a considerable attention is to be paid to what
drives people’s performance and to what fulfills their needs in order to positively
affect organizational performance. There is no doubt that empowerment is a key
driver among employees and, subsequently, organizational performance, as it
energizes employees to fully utilize their skills and capabilities to achieve impactful
results for their organizations.
Empowerment in its general meaning is permitting staff to establish their own goals
and objectives to accomplished, make shared-decisions and overcoming problems that
are faced within their responsibilities’ boundaries (Hempel, Zhang, Z. X., & Han, Y. ,
2012).
The empowerment as a motivational construct (psychological empowerment) deals
with the mind state of employees. Hence, on their side, necessary empowerment
initiatives should be taken in order to positively influence employees’ psychological
state (Menon, 2001). This will, consequently, result in an improved level of
satisfaction (Seibert, 2011).

On the other hand, creative behavior is defined as behavior that results in identifying
original and better ways to accomplish some purpose (Amabile, 1988; Abbey &
Dickson, 1983, Hulya & Gonul, 2014) and developing solutions to job-related
problems that are judged as both novel and appropriate for the situation.

A research on Turkish manufacturing industry by Hulya and Gonul (2014) states that
psychological empowerment comes at a time when global competition and change
require employee initiative, innovation and performance. Empowerment involve
offering employees the control, freedom, and information to participate in decision-
making and organizational affairs. They defined empowerment more broadly as
increased intrinsic task motivation manifested in a set of four cognitions reflecting an
individual’s orientation to his or her work role: meaning, competence, self-
determination, and impact. Combining organizational and psychological domains,
employee empowerment may be viewed as a cognitive state, a psychologically
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 4

empowered experience with power-sharing, competence and value internalization in

organizations.

Many scholars around the world have explored how to drive employee creativity
better. A large body of literature conducted in Asian regions have also highlighted
that the positive psychological state of employees seems to be critically important in
harnessing an employee creative potential also employee creativity plays a significant
role in enhancing organizational overall performance and competitiveness. (Gong, Y.,
Huang, J. C., Farh & J. L., 2009, Ghosh, 2015; Iqbal, N., Anwar, S., and Haider, N.,
2015; Zubair & Kamal, 2015).

Like in Asian country china it is found that the employees working in information
technology enterprise whose work required substantial creativity in order to be
effective. It is concluded that the psychological capital has a positive impact on
employee creativity. That is in order to improve employee creativity, one effective
way is to enhance the psychological state of the employees, whereas the
psychological state of employees is the direct influence of behavior.

A study based on response from several Korean consulting firms discloses that happy
employees are known to be more satisfied with their work, more creative, less
inclined to quit, and exhibit better in-role and extra-role performance. Psychological
empowerment is one of the key constructs for positive psychology as well as human
resources (HR) and organizational behavior (OB) (Peter, Gyumin, Jichul, 2017). This
Korean study further emphasized that we are living in a knowledge-based economy
where a new paradigm highlights the importance of intangible assets such as
knowledge, creativity, and human capital. Employees with knowledge work that
requires application of theoretical and analytical knowledge foster higher levels of
intrinsic motivation than those with relatively simple, routine jobs (Joo, 2010;
Oldham and Cummingss, 1996). As it becomes progressively more difficult to
constantly monitor employees with such complex and challenging knowledge-related
work, it is very important to find ways to support and empower subordinates. In this
manner, psychological empowerment has emerged as a critical leverage point as
job tasks become more complex and work designs include increasing amounts of
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 5

autonomy (Joo and Shim, 2010). Empowered workers are likely to be more engaged
in their jobs and organizations (Baek-Kyoo, Jong Gyu & Jong Gyu, 2015).

In the present economic recession period in Pakistan, organizations are facing many
problems in order to sustain competitive advantage on the worldwide level.
Technology is not stable in today’s environment, therefore, organizations need to
reinvent and have to become more innovative in order to take competitive advantage
optimally. It has been explored that employee creativity plays a significant role in
enhancing organizational innovation, effectiveness, survival, and competitiveness.
(Kahumuza & Schechter, 2008; Gong, Y., Huang, J. C., and Farh, J. L., 2009; Ghosh,
2015; Iqbal, N., Anwar, S., and Haider, N., 2015; Zubair and Kamal, 2015).

According to research analysis by Fozia and Ayesha (2018) on Pakistan’s IT based

organizations, creative approaches should be discovered by the organizations in order
to accomplish their requirements. Proficient organizations ensure presence of
systematic practical approaches that can benefit employees in increasing their
engagement levels and making them feel more empowered in order to achieve the
overall success.
Every individual capability and creativity is different and unique. Some may be
more creative and some may be less. But a good leader or supervisor can influence the
sub-ordinate or employee to work creatively. In this managers can play an important
role in increasing employee creativity specifically in project-based organizations
where meeting deadlines is a huge challenge. Creativity helps in searching the
innovative and improved procedures and ideas. Therefore, stress is being placed on
creative capabilities of employees within an organization.
One of the many fields is the technology sector where creativity studies and
researches have revealed various different concepts. Employees know how they can
tackle with the new challenges of the growth for a winning change (Zegaier, 2012).
For this purpose, ongoing supports to the employees should be provided; upper
management should also be supported in the context of information technology to
improve creativity (Kruse, 2013).
Fozia and Ayesha (2018) further highlighted in their study that “The
psychologically empowered state considered to be a cognitive state characterized by a
sense of perceived control, perceptions of competence, and internalization of the goals
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 6

and objectives of the organization” (Menon, 1999). It is proved by previous studies

that psychological empowerment in turn; make huge involvement to employee’s
creativity (Wong, 2012). Employees who are being motivated and empowered by
their leaders show better results as compared to other employees who are not
motivated and empowered (Afshari, 2011). It was proved that employees who are
more motivated and encouraged by their leaders to perform their goals in a creative
environment are more creative (Hwang, 2012). Also intrinsic motivation positively
relates to creativity of employees because by engaging employees in this creative
process they become fully able to meet their goals in a good manner. This thing in
turn influences the development of employees and makes employees more energetic.
It was identified that when the follower is energized he will work happily (Shin,
2008). Evidence includes that Creativity is favorable for a range of motives.
Creativity assists into considering things with innovative viewpoint and judge
innovative and better procedure. Creativity can boost efficiency and effectiveness
(Hauksdottir, 2011).

In Pakistan, according to study conducted by Azhar, Shafqat, Mubashir & Fahad

(2019) affirms that "Organizations should empower employees to give them that
psychological feeling that they are being committed to the organization. Commitment
towards an organization is a strength because psychological empowerment plays a
vital role in commitment of employees towards every organization. It is a very
common phenomenon that if you want to get something, you will have to invest
something. Empowerment psychologically should be given the perception of
meaningful tasks, autonomy in work; feeling of skillfulness in performing tasks will
lead to high level of organizational commitment. Therefore, organizations must
provide the employees with such a platform that is not only satisfactory but it should
also lead to psychological empowerment. By giving the respective authority to
managers for which they demand for and which is rational for their responsibility and
which fall rightfully in the domain of their working boundaries is a useful tool for the
organization. There is nothing more profitable and competitive advantage for a firm to
have a workforce that is out of the ordinary confident and this confidence is well
immersed on their output and working efficiency.
Hence, the primary objectives of this study is to conceptualize and to explore the role
of psychological empowerment towards promoting creativity among employees and
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 7

to analyze the relationship between psychological empowerment and employee

creativity. This study is aimed at to find out how creative workers in information
technology can grow in a corporate world. The gap can also lead to unawareness,
which may impart to the negligence of creative workers. How creativity could be
improved in creative industries is a main concern for the leaders of the companies. So,
the aim of this study is to build a link between these variables, for a wider range
understanding of psychological empowerment facts, if they relate to creativity or not
an effective way. It is also one of the aimed of this research that it will contribute
towards the knowledge about creative employees in a way that benefits both
employees and organizational performance. This study also investigates separately the
impact of four dimensions of psychological empowerment on individual creativity.

2.2 Empirical Studies

Employee empowerment programs have been widely adopted in the public sector as
well as private sectors as a way to improve employee performance. Empowered
employees improve performance largely by finding innovative ways of correcting
errors in production and service delivery and redesigning work processes. The study
conducted to explores how psychological empowerment influences employee’s
performance in small and medium scale enterprises. The objective of the study is to
present the correlation and impacts or influence of dimensions of psychological
empowerment on employee performance. The study is descriptive type of research
which is basically employed survey method. For the purpose of this study both
qualitative and quantitative research approach were used. The respondents were
stratified based on the activities they are engaged; then Simple random sampling
design was used to collect data that were used to assess the four dimensions of
psychological empowerment variables. Using a sample of 125 employed individuals
of which 102 collected, a 12 item 5point Likert scale of psychological empowerment
measurement was developed with subscale reliabilities as follows: meaning (0.861),
competence (0.754), self-determination (0.868) and impact (0.885). Similarly, an 11
item 5 point Likert scale with reliability test of Cronbatch Alpha 0.911 was used to
measure performance. Primary data is the main source of data and the data were
obtained by using questionnaire. The results showed that the dimension empowerment
meaning, competence self-determination, and impact is positively and significantly
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 8

related performance of employee. The results show a significant effect between the
dimension empowerment impact and employee performance. The highest degree of
employee performance caused by impact dimension followed by competence,
meaning and self-determination.

In the present economic recession, organizations are facing many problems in order to
sustain competitive advantage on the worldwide level. Technology is not stable in
today’s environment, therefore, organizations need to reinvent and have to become
more innovative in order to take competitive advantage optimally (Sofia, 2017).
Another study conducted to investigate the relationships between perceived
psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, creative process engagement and
employees’ creativity by testing a conceptual model of hypothesized relationships
derived from the previous body of knowledge relating to these constructs. A non-
experimental quantitative research design was applied using a sample of IT
professionals in software houses Punjab, Pakistan (n = 281). Participants completed a
mailed questionnaire that measured the perceived presence of the psychological
empowerment, intrinsic motivation, creative process engagement and employees’
creativity. By using the multiple regression analysis, found that there are significant
positive relationships between psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation,
creative process engagement and employees’ creativity. The mediating effects of
creative process engagement and intrinsic motivation are confirmed between the
relationship of psychological empowerment and employees’ creativity, by using
Barren and canny and Sobel’s test. The results of this study highlight the significance
of implementation of psychological empowerment on employee creativity.

Widespread interest in psychological empowerment comes at a time when global

competition and change require employee initiative, innovation and performance
(Hulya and Gonul, 2014). One more study conducted aim to determine empirically the
impacts of four dimensions of psychological empowerment including meaning,
competence, impact and self-determination on individual creativity and its
relationship with firm innovativeness. The purpose a model that four dimensions of
psychological empowerment have significant effect on individual creativity which
turns into firm innovativeness. Hypotheses are tested with data collected from 181
managers at 48 small and medium-sized Turkish manufacturing companies using
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 9

partial least squares method. The results suggest that psychological empowerment
have significant effects on individual creativity and also through their actions, creative
employees may increase firm innovativeness. The results of the study, although
shedding light on the factorization of the constructs and possible relationships, is
specific to a particular geographical region of Turkey and to one industry. This study
was conducted in Turkey which has Eastern society features and found significant
relationship among psychological empowerment, individual creativity and firm
innovativeness. Turkey is regarded as to be relatively collectivistic, hierarchical and
uncertainty avoiding (Hofstede; 1983) but the socio-cultural environment in Turkey is
changing such that the relations between superiors and subordinates tend to be more
participatory and empowering. On the other hand, to compete in the global arena
successfully, it is also crucial for managers to identify the obstacles to create and
innovate. The results of this research would lead to managerial implications to help
raise the innovativeness of the firms of the developing countries.

Related theories of motivation that supports the conceptual model of empowerment

and creativity are as follows, as psychological empowerment itself leads for the
employee motivation and produce creativity on workplace. So here few studies in this
reference are discussed below;

(a) Needs Theories

Maslow’s Pyramid Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow proposed five distinct categories of need, hypothesized to be arranged in a

hierarchical order: (a) Psychological needs (b) Safety needs (c) belongingness needs
(d) Love needs and (e) Self-actualization needs. The hierarchical structure led to the
development of the prepotency process principle. According to this principle,
individual move upward through the hierarchy, satisfy the lower order need, which
leads to increased salience and motivational force for attaining the next higher needs.

Alderfer’s ERG Model

Alderfer’s model condenses Maslow’s five human needs into three categories:
Existence (material and physiological), Relatedness (social and external esteem) and
Growth (internal esteem and self-actualization).
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 10

(b) Adams’ Equity Theory

Equity theory states that people seek to maintain a balance between their inputs and
the outcomes they receive, also in relation to the outputs of others. Fair treatment
creates motivation. It adds a crucial additional perspective to motivation theory, of
comparison with ‘referent’ others (people we consider to be in a similar situation).

(c) Herzberg’s Job Design Model

Herzberg’s model is the most widely replicated and used in business. It splits hygiene
factors from motivation factors. Hygiene factors are related to pain-avoidance and
lead to dissatisfaction when they’re not satisfied. Motivation factors are related to the
ability to achieve and experience psychological growth. The model introduces ‘job
enrichment’ for true motivation, as opposed to ‘job loading’.

2.3 Literature Review

Psychological Empowerment

Empowerment means to give power and energize. Power has a few meanings. Power in
the legal sense means authority; and in this case empowerment also means authorization.
On the other hand, power can also be expressed as energy. Employees who are satisfied
with their jobs will do better their jobs and make less mistakes because of they are
enthusiastic about their job, and they will create businesses with higher performance
(Mehmet, 2018). Employers need to increase employees' empowerment levels to increase
job satisfaction of employees. Following the implementation of empowerment methods,
employees firstly will feel more important themselves, think more freely, act more
independently in their jobs, and participate in business-related decisions (Mehmet, 2018).
Empowerment relates control over material assets, intellectual resources and ideology. It
involves power to, power with and power within. Some define empowerment as a process
of awareness and concretization, of capacity building leading to greater participation,
effective decision-making power and control leading to transformative action (Singhal,
2015).
According to Narayan (2002), empowerment, in general, points to the expansion of
freedom of choice and action in order to shape one's life and also stated that what is built
on empowerment is "to believe in and trust employees".
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 11

As per Mehmet (2018), a Turkish researcher, he thinks that there is a significant

difference between actual power and feeling of being powerful. Strengthening according
to them refers to a psychological situation that allows one to pursue concrete actions
towards the goal of being strong and includes cases of competence, control and
entitlement. Psychological empowerment is defined as a motivational structure that
manifests itself with four concepts. These are concepts of meaning, competence, self-
determination, and impact. Significance refers to the harmony between one's own beliefs,
values and ideals, the purpose of engraving, and the business role that one expects.
Once again in another research Thomas and Velthouse (1990) defined empowerment as
an “increased intrinsic task motivation” and suggested that the concept is multifaceted
and thus should employ several factors to uncover the core concept of empowerment:
sense of impact, competence, meaningfulness, and choice. Building on Thomas et al.
(1990) conceptualized the four components of psychological empowerment that measure
the active orientation of employees’ work roles—meaning, competence, self-
determination, and impact.

Four Elements of Psychological Empowerment defined by Spreitzer, Kizilos & Nason,

1997 is as follows;

Elements Definitions
1. Meaning The individual’s value of the task goal or purpose.
2. Competence The degree of self-efficacy about one’s ability.
3. Self-Determination The autonomy and responsibility for an individual’s
actions
4. Impact The degree to which a person can influence outcomes
at work

(a) Meaning

Meaning is a concept that is unavoidably linked to one’s existence (positive or negative)

and encompasses the workplace as an inevitable part of one’s existence. Defining the
concept of meaning constitutes varying viewpoints. Meaning, according to Seligman
(2002), allows individuals to transcend, either through promoting positive social
relationships or connecting to a higher power. Additionally, individuals are bound to find
meaning in their lives when they view their lives as purposeful, significant and
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 12

understandable (Steger, Oishi & Kashdan, 2009; Geldenhuys, M., Laba, K., & Venter, C.
M., 2014). At best, Csikszentmihalyi (1990), suggests that meaning refers to a purpose or
significance, and the intentions a person holds.
Meaning in life is more likely to constitute positive aspects; meaningfulness is often
described as what individuals lack in their life, what they yearn for and what they seek to
find (Wong, 2010; Geldenhuys et al., 2014). Wong (2010) furthers that meaningfulness is
a determinant of psychological well-being and therefore it is important for individuals to
find meaning in life.
Sofia (2017) defined the concept of “Meaning” in her study that individual experiences
means when he/ she believes that work is meaningful and has given greater
responsibilities. Wong (2012) focused on query what makes life worthy because it is all
about the human nature. In this regard, every human being has his out sets of thoughts
that make his lives meaningful. Some people have said that the money makes them happy
whereas the other believes in reputation. His finding was “the will to meaning” the key to
living a worthy and fulfilling life regardless of private liking and situation.
As part of meaning in life, the concept of meaningfulness highlights two facets, namely
that of the (1) meaning of work (meaningful work) (Carvalho, 2005) and that of (2)
psychological meaningfulness (Olivier & Rothmann, 2007). Meaningful work is defined
by Geldenhuys et al., 2014 as the significance of work to people (meaning); both have
significance and are positive in valence (meaningfulness). Further, Hackman and Oldham
(1975), define meaningful work as ‘the degree to which the employee experiences the job
as one which is generally meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile’. Psychological
meaningfulness is defined as the ‘the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation
to an individual’s own ideals or standards’ (May, Gilson & Harter, 2004).
Similarly, Yunduk, Euisoo, Minhong, & James (2019) also defined the concept of
meaning as “the value of an occupation goal or purpose that is determined based on an
employee’s own ideals or standards or how employees harmonize their values, beliefs,
and behaviors with the given task role within an organization.
Each dimension of psychological empowerment is discovered to have a positive influence
on employees’ creative performance (Spreitzer 1995; Jung & Sosik, 2002; Dina et al.,
2018). Psychologically empowered employees realized that how personally meaningful
their work is, this is likely to reinforce their willingness to accomplish significant
objectives (Sun, L. Y., Zhang, Z., Qi, J., & Chen, Z. X., 2012). Besides, those who
perceive themselves as being able to perform their tasks skillfully tend to be more
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 13

“cognitively flexible” and thus more open to adapt new ideas and solutions (Dina et al,
2018). Additionally, Spreitzer (1995) reported that staff’s intentions to think creatively
are found to boost when they can sense the impact of their work on the organization as a
whole.

(b) Competence

Per-Erik and Henrik (2010) mentioned in their literature that competence is considered as
an attribute of the employee, that is, as a kind of human capital or a human resource that
can be translated into a certain level of performance. According to another widely held
view, competence is defined in terms of the requirements of the tasks that constitute a
certain job. More specifically, the term competence will be used to refer to the capacity of
an individual (or a collective) to successfully (according to certain formal or informal
criteria, set by oneself or by somebody else) handle certain situations or complete a
certain task or job (Ellstrom, 1997). This capacity may be defined in terms of: perceptual
motor skills (e.g. dexterity); intellectual factors (different types of knowledge and
intellectual skills); affective factors (e.g. attitudes, values, motivations); personality traits
(e.g. Self-confidence); and social skills (e.g. communicative and cooperative skills). The
competence that is actually required by the task, and/or is implicitly or explicitly
prescribed, for example, by the employer.
Competence is defined as, “an individual’s feelings of self-efficacy or personal mastery
that he/she can successfully accomplish a task”. According to Bartram (2011)
“Competencies mean a set of behaviors that are influential on the delivery of preferred
consequences”.
According to Yunduk et al. (2019) explains another component of psychological
empowerment ‘competence’, they said Competence involves an individual’s belief in his
or her ability to perform a skillful activity and they describe a positive relationship
between competence and organizational performance. Particularly, inferior job
performance was observed among individuals with low job competence, who tried to
avoid trying new tasks and stuck solely to their routine jobs.

(c) Self-Determination
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 14

It is a sense of choice in initiating and regulating one’s actions (Deci, Connell, & Ryan,
1989). Whereas, Spreitzer (1995) defined it as, one’s feelings of autonomy in making
decisions in areas such as work methods, time, pace, and effort.
Self-determination is an individual's sense of having choice in initiating and regulating
actions Self-determination reflects autonomy in the initiation and continuation of work
behaviors and processes; examples are making decisions about work methods, pace, and
effort. Self-determination refers to a sense of freedom about how individuals do their
activity. (Zara Mallam Musa1, Aminah Ahmad2, Siti Zobidah Omar3, Abubakar musa,
2017).

(d) Impact
Impact is the degree to which an individual believes that his/her work makes a significant
difference in achieving the purpose of the task, and the extent to which the individual
believes that he or she can influence organizational outcomes (Spreitzer, 1995; Sofia
2017).

Employee Creativity

In today’s world organizations are much more focused on helping employees/workers to

enhance job performance rather than controlling and dominating them and for
organizations to gain competitive advantage, creativity is a treasured source.
Organizations have to advance creativity with an aim to endure and flourish along with
ever-advancing technology, extreme internal and global competitive pressures, vague and
very much stormy economic environment. Organizations also need to discover creative
approaches to accomplish their own requirements. Organizations need leaders who can
provoke positive behavior in their employees by motivating them. These behaviors are
not necessarily part of their job requirement officially but they play a vital role in giving
productive outcomes in organizations (Fozia Mubarak & et al, 2018, Katz, 1964).

Creativity has become increasingly valued across a variety of tasks, jobs, and industries.
In a dynamic work environment, more and more managers are realizing that they need
their employees to be actively involved in their work and exhibit creative behaviors in
order to remain competitive (Mumford et al., 2002). Nowadays, understanding the
dynamics of creativity in organizations is a high priority in organizational behavior
research. By making creativity a pre-requisite condition for any job, employee creativity
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 15

can be reinforced by leaders. Creativity can also be improved by showing positive

response and rewards to employees when they accomplish creative outcomes (De
Stobbeleir & Ashford, 2011). Motivated employees exhibit elevated levels of creativity
(Amabile, 1988; Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996; Zhou & Ren, 2011).
(Zhou &Shalley, 2008; Fozia Mubarak & Ayesha Noor, 2018).
Organizational creativity studies stand that the driving engine of innovation in any
organization is its employees, and it is through its employees' creativity that an
organization is able to create and produce novel, potentially useful ideas about
organizational products, practices, services or procedures (Shalley, Zhou and Oldham,
2004). They represent its creative capital and its most important asset, its arsenal of
creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services (Florida
and Goodnight, 2005).

In recent years, a notable amount of studies has focused on the significant effect of the
creative performance of employees has on the overall effectiveness of organizations.
psychological empowerment has demonstrated a positive influence on creative
performance (Al-Madadha, Amro, 2016).
Many scholars have explored how to drive employee creativity better. (Zhengwei
Li, Lihua Dai, Tachia Chin and Muhammad Rafiq, 2019).  In the context of creativity at
work, an idea or product which only displays novelty or usefulness is not enough; a novel
idea that has no potential value cannot be regarded as creative, nor can a useful product
that is not significantly different from already available ones (Chang, J. H., Chen, H. C.,
Hsu, C. C., Chan, Y. C., and Chang, Y. L., 2015).

Psychological Empowerment & Employee Creativity

Employee’s psychological empowerment has an influence on their creativity.
According to Sofia, 2017, she highlights the significance of implementation of
psychological empowerment on employee creativity. Competence, meaning, self-
determination and impact also affect the employee’s creativity these should be considered
for improving psychological empowerment of employees. Creative process engagement
influences the employee’s creativity greater than psychological empowerment, Creative
employees are considered to be a key player to achieve institutional goals and are viewed
the most valuable assets of organizations. Therefore, it is important to develop the
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 16

empowerment of employees in order to gain increased employees and organizational

performance that may lead to win sustainable competitive advantage.
Empowerment is defined as increased intrinsic task motivation, and their model identifies
four cognitions as the basis for employee empowerment: impact (the ability to affect or
influence organizational outcomes), competence (sense of confidence in abilities that is
similar to Conger and Kanungo’s (1988) concept of self-efficacy,) meaningfulness (value
and meaning of the task) and choice (self-determination with experienced sense of
responsibility). In parallel both Conger and Kanungo (1988) and Thomas and Velthouse
(1990), Spreitzer (1995) validated a measure of psychological empowerment manifested
in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact.
In the current era of ongoing dynamic business developments and advancements, any
company that wishes to succeed needs to sustain an innovative culture in order to keep its
position in the front line of competition (Amabile, 1998) as the variable that mediates the
effect between Psychological Empowerment and Creative Performance. “Creative and
satisfied staffs are the most important asset of an organization and the most competitive
advantage and the scariest supply in today's organizations economy” (Taherkhani, 2015).
Thus, it is important to scrutinize the mentioned relationship for managers to enrich their
understanding on the practices that boost staffs’ satisfaction and thus their creative
performance.
Psychological well-being has two facets: eduaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being
(Ryan and Deci, 2000). The eduaimonic well-being refers to the purposeful aspect of
psychological well-being (Johnson et al., 2018). Psychological well-being physical and
mental capacity (Harris et al., 2017). Singhal (2015) stated empowerment is a process that
enables person to gain access to, and control of, material, intellectual and human
resources. Empowerment is the re-distribution of power that challenges patriarchal
ideology (Singhal, 2015).
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 17

2.4. Conceptual Framework

Psychological Empowerment is the experience of employees on empowerment at work.
This empowerment focuses on the beliefs that employees have about their role in relation
to the organization. Psychological empowerment had its roots in early work on employee
alienation and quality of work life. Psychological empowerment has four components:
meaning, competence, self-determination and impact (Spreitzer, 1995). Lashley (1999)
states that employee empowerment has been hailed as a management technique which can
be applied universally across all organizations as a means of dealing with the needs of
modern global business.
As per Esayas, 2014, empowered employees become active problem solvers who
contribute to the planning and execution of tasks. Lee and Koh (2001) state that employee
empowerment is the result of behavior on the part of a leader who empowers his or her
subordinates. One study conducted by Nortje (2001) states that disempowered workforce
suffers from poor self-esteem, lack of personal vision and feeling of hopelessness. She
argues that these attitudes and beliefs form inner barriers that limits growth and proactive
development while manifesting in the workplace in a form of reluctance to accept
responsibility, hesitance to communicate openly, lack of commitment and ultimately
below average performance. In small and medium enterprises empowerment is deemed
important as it thrives in a fast growing industry that demands quality products and
customer satisfaction. Hence, worker need to take responsibility for their roles, and
sometimes even for that of other people, to make sure that they can deliver the best
quality product and service first.

In study of Esayas, 2014 states that, “if employee’s empowerment is managed correctly,
can cause organizational commitment and reduction of employee’s replacement.
Empowerment with confidence making, participation in decision making, and elimination
of the border line between management and employee, cause increase of productivity,
performance and job satisfaction. Psychological empowerment evokes employees’
organizational commitment because: A meaningful job provides a suitable fit between the
requirements and purposes of one’s organizational work roles and one’s personal value
system. A sense of competence gives workers the belief that they are able to perform their
work roles with skill and success, stimulating them to exert considerable effort on behalf
of the organization. Self-determination gives workers control over their work and a voice
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 18

in work-related decision processes, leading to enhanced involvement in the organization.

Having impact facilitates workers’ possibilities to participate in shaping the
organizational system in which they are embedded.

Meaning

Competence
Psychological Employee Creativity
Empowerment
Self- Determination

Impact

The conceptual framework developed from Hulya and Gonul, (2014)

2.5 Formation on constructs/Hypothesis

Conger & Kanungo, one of the researcher analyzed the propose of empowerment that it
should be viewed as a motivational concept that means “to empower” rather than simply
“to delegate”. Also claimed the various other conditions of empowering besides
delegation, resource sharing or participation.

Thomas and Velthouse (1990) and Hulya and Gonul, (2014) described empowerment
using motivational assumptions of the job design literature. Empowerment is defined as
increased intrinsic task motivation, and its model show four perceptions consider it as the
basis for employee empowerment: meaningfulness (value and meaning of the task),
competence (sense of confidence in abilities that is similar to Conger and Kanungo’s
(1988), (self-determination with experienced sense of responsibility), impact (the ability
to affect or influence organizational outcomes). Psychological empowerment established
in four thoughts: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact (Spreitzer, 1995).

H1: Psychological empowerment is positively related with individual creativity.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 19

Meaning was described as “the value of a work goal or propose, judge in relation to an
individual’s own ideals or standards “(Spritzer, 1999; p.40). It involves the individual's
intrinsic caring about a given task. This use of meaningfulness is analogous to Hackman
and Oldham's (1980) term, as a necessary psychological component of intrinsic task
motivation (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). This enhanced interest in a task itself would
enable followers to search for new and better ways of doing things, which is likely to lead
to high levels of creativity (Amabile, 1996; Woodman et al., 1993; Oldham & Cummings,
1996). On the other hand, job design literature concluded that employees working on
complex and demanding jobs are expected to arouse higher levels of intrinsic motivation
than working on relatively simple and routine jobs (Hackman and Oldham 1980; Oldham
and Cummings 1996). Furthermore, when an employee perceives that his or her job
requirements are meaningful and personally valuable, the employee will persist in
carrying out the assigned role and spend more effort on understanding a problem from
various perspectives, searching for a solution using a wide variety of alternatives by
connecting diverse sources of information (Gilson & Shalley,2004; Zhang & Bartol,
2010) that could be linked to generation of new ideas and creativity. Thus, we expect
meaning dimension of psychological empowerment to be positively related to individual
creativity.

H2: Meaning dimension of psychological empowerment is positively related with

individual creativity.

Competence, the second cognition was equated with self efficacy, and described as “an
individual’s belief in his or her capability to perform activities with skill” (Spritzer, 1999;
p.40). According to Bandura (1989, p. 408), self-efficacy involves ‘beliefs in one’s
capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action needed
to meet given situational demands. The higher an individual’ s level of self-efficacy, the
more committed to achieve difficult goals and the more persistent to succeed. They also
exhibit initiative, high effort, and persistence when they encountered difficulties
( Bandura,1977), a necessary trait in creative process. On the other hand, Morrison and
Phelps (1999) found that self-efficacy was positively related to taking charge at work (an
important extra role behavior) and individuals with higher levels of self-efficacy are
likely to receive expanded role expectations from their supervisors. Individuals who are
the most skilled and competent at the technical aspects of work are the most likely to
broaden their roles and engage in expanded jobs. The higher levels of job-related
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 20

competence will broaden their roles, leading to receptivity to new ideas and creativity
since employees learn about and introduce ideas applied successfully in enriched tasks
and roles (Morgeson, Klinger & Hemingway, 2005, p.400). Enriched jobs enhance
creativity since they are more challenging and thus require more complex mental
activities and also expose employees to a broader rainbow of ideas that can be
antecedents of Business Management Dynamics Vol.3, No.10, Apr 2014, pp.01-13
©Society for Business and Management Dynamics innovations. Thus, we expect
competence dimension of psychological empowerment to be positively related to
individual creativity.

H3: Competence dimension of psychological empowerment is positively related with

individual creativity

Third, self-determination was described as “an individual’s sense of having choice in

imitating and regulating action” (Spritzer, 1999, p.41). Self-determination that bears close
resemblance to the ‘choice’ dimension of Thomas and Velthouse leads to ‘greater
flexibility, creativity, initiative, resilience and selfregulation’ (1990: 673). When an
employee has a certain degree of autonomy and can shape desired outcomes through his
or her behaviors, the employee is likely to focus on an idea or a problem longer and more
persistently (Deci & Ryan,1991; Spreitzer, 1995). It is clear from the creativity literature
that participation in decision making and perceptions of autonomy are vital antecedents
for creative outcomes (Amabile, 1988; Amabile et al., 2004). A sense of ownership and
control over their own work may make employees feel more responsible for developing
creative ideas in order to solve problems, stimulate to take risks, explore new cognitive
pathways, and be playful with ideas. Autonomy, as opposed to supervisory control,
relates to higher levels of intrinsic motivation, higher degrees of interest in work,
flexibility and increased persistence of behavior change (Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham &
Cummings, 1996; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Therefore an empowering leader should provide
appropriate autonomy and control, give positive and informational feedback, set
inspirational and/or meaningful goals and facilitate employee skill development in order
to promote employees' feelings of self-determination and personal initiative at work,
which should then boost levels of interest in work activities and enhance creative
achievement (Conger and Kanungo,1988 ; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Thus, we expect
self determination to be positively related to individual creativity.
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 21

H4: Self-determination dimension of psychological empowerment is positively

related with individual creativity.

Finally, impact was defined as “the degree to which an individual can influence strategic,
administrative or operating outcomes in the organization or larger environment” (Spritzer,
1999, p.43). Impact is seen as control over one’s environment or the belief that his/her
actions are influencing the system (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Many researchers have
observed that creativity is encouraged when individuals and teams operate in a relatively
autonomous environment, experience a sense of ownership and perceive control over
their ideas and work processes (e.g., Amabile et.al., 1996) When employees believe they
have influence on organizational processes, they are more likely to put effort into
generating, promoting, and realizing creative ideas for innovation than when they feel
they are unlikely to make a difference due to a lack of impact (Janssen, 2005; 574). As
such, this sense of having some control over the outcomes of organizational processes
differentiates between impact and other aspects of empowerment distinguished in the
literature such as competence and self-determination (Spreitzer, 1995). In sum, before
engaging in an innovative and creative activity willingly, employees may need to feel that
they have the power to influence their jobs and work environments in meaningful ways.
Hence, we expect impact dimension of psychological empowerment to be positively
related with individual creativity.

H5: Impact dimension of psychological empowerment is positively related with

individual creativity.

Summary of the chapter

In this chapter the conceptual framework and hypothesis are developed. The conceptual
framework is taken from the research of Hulya and Gonul, (2014). As the framework
shows the independent variable psychological empowerment have the relationship with
the dependent variable employee creativity. Also the four dimensions of psychological
empowerment have their impact on employee creativity, i.e. meaning dimension is
positively in relationship with employee creativity. Competence factor have the positive
relationship with the employee creativity, self-determination dimension has the positive
relationship with the employee creativity, whereas the employee creativity is also
positively influenced by the impact sub variable of psychological empowerment. In
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY 22

further chapters I shall test the hypothesis with the statistical software SPSS to generate
results and test the hypothesis.