Orientation: The psychological empowerment of employees might affect their engagement. However, psychological empowerment and employee engagement might also be influenced by job insecurity.

Research purposes: The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between psychological empowerment, job insecurity and employee engagement.

Motivation for the study: Employee engagement results in positive individual and organisational outcomes and research information about the antecedents will provide valuable information for the purposes of diagnosis and intervention.

Research design, approach and method: A correlational design was used. Survey design was conducted among 442 employees in a government and a manufacturing organisation. The measuring instruments included the Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire, the Job Insecurity Inventory, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale.

Main findings: Statistically significant relationships were found between psychological empowerment, job insecurity and employee engagement. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that affective job insecurity had a main effect on three dimensions of psychological empowerment (viz. competence, meaning and impact) and on employee engagement. Affective job insecurity moderated the effect of psychological empowerment on employee engagement.

Practical implications: The implication of the results is that interventions that focus on the psychological empowerment of employees (viz. meaningfulness, competence, self-determination and impact) will contribute to the engagement (vigour, dedication and absorption) of employees. If job insecurity is high, it is crucial to attend to the psychological empowerment of employees.

Contribution: This study contributes to knowledge about the conditions that precede employee engagement, and shows that the dimensions of psychological empowerment (namely experienced meaningfulness, competence, impact and self-determination) play an important role in this regard.

Tremendous pressure is put on organisations to improve their performance and increase their competitiveness in the continuously changing world of work (Ndlovu & Parumasur, 2005). The changing world of work is characterised by life-long learning, risk taking, speed and change, networking and measuring outputs (Wentzel & Geldenhuis, 2005). Employee engagement (May, Gilson & Harter, 2004) and psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995) are important concepts to consider when dealing with changes at work and improving performance. Psychological empowerment increases employees’ sense of personal control and motivates them to engage in work, which in turn results in positive managerial and organisational outcomes (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997).

Conger and Kanungo (1988) describe empowerment as a process whereby conditions that foster powerlessness are identified and removed by providing efficacy information, thereby enhancing an employee’s self-efficacy. According to Spreitzer (1995), psychological empowerment refers to an individual’s experience of intrinsic motivation that is based on cognitions about himself or herself in relation to his or her work role. These cognitions are related to the psychological states identified by Hackman and Oldham (1980) and Kahn (1990) that impact on the intrinsic motivation of employees. Greco, Laschinger and Wong (2006) state that it is reasonable to expect that, if employees experience an empowering workplace that fosters a fit between their expectations and their working conditions, they would be more engaged in their work. Engaged employees have a sense of energetic and effective connection with their work activities and see themselves as able to deal completely with the demands of their jobs (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzáles-Romá & Bakker, 2002).

As organisations focus on competition and profit margins, workers are confronted with threats of real or anticipated job loss, causing many to feel insecure about their jobs and their future work life (Holm & Hovland, 1999). The research of Sparks, Faragher and Cooper (2001) suggests that perceptions of job insecurity correlate negatively with employee well-being. Since job insecurity is experienced as a threat and implies uncertainty, it has been described as a stressor, which is often associated with powerlessness (De Witte, 1999; De Cuyper & De Witte, 2005; Näswall, Sverke & Hellgren, 2005). Employee perceptions of job insecurity may cause organisations to suffer financially due to the associated costs of absenteeism and lowered employee well-being (Sparks et al., 2001). Other organisational concerns caused by perceived job insecurity include the increased turnover of employees, a decrease in worker productivity, and lower levels of commitment, employee engagement, satisfaction, loyalty, and trust in employers (De Cuyper, Bernhard-Oettel, Berntson, De Witte & Alarco, 2008; Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984; Holm & Hovland, 1999; Smithson & Lewis, 2000).

According to Kahn (1990, p. 700), employee engagement entails ‘the simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s preferred self in task behaviours that promote connections to work and others, personal presence (physical, cognitive, and emotional), and active full role performances’. Specific psychological conditions contribute to engagement (Kahn, 1990). Kahn (1990) distinguished three such psychological conditions – namely, psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety and psychological availability. Two studies have been found that reported on the relationship between psychological conditions and employee engagement – namely, the study by May et al. (2004) and that by Olivier and Rothmann (2007). The study by May et al. (2004) confirmed that psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety and psychological availability predict employee engagement. In a South African study, Olivier and Rothmann (2007) confirmed that two psychological conditions – namely, psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability – predict employee engagement.

Empowerment exists because of the personal convictions that employees have about their roles in the organisation (Knol & Van Linge, 2009). From a psychological empowerment perspective, Spreitzer (1995) refers to four personal psychological determinants that might affect organisational behaviour – namely, meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. These four determinants can also be regarded as psychological conditions that lead to employee engagement. The experience of being empowered has been proposed to be a mediator between empowering managerial practices and the outcomes expected from empowered workers, such as engagement, organisational commitment and job performance (Spreitzer, 1995; Stander & Rothmann, 2008). However, no studies have been found that focus on the relationship between psychological empowerment and employee engagement. Furthermore, although research findings show that job insecurity leads to low work engagement (De Cuyper et al., 2008), little is known regarding the relationship between job insecurity and psychological empowerment.

The above discussion suggests that a need exists to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and employee engagement in South African organisations. Furthermore, it is necessary to assess whether job insecurity affects psychological empowerment and employee engagement. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment, job insecurity, and employee engagement.

Psychological empowerment and employee engagement

According to Conger and Kanungo (1988, p. 474), empowerment refers to a

‘process of enhancing feelings of self-efficacy among organizational members through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by both formal organizational practices and informal techniques of providing efficacy information’. (Conger et al., 1988)

Thomas and Velthouse (1990) extended Conger and Kanungo’s (1988) model and identified four dimensions of task cognitions that affect intrinsic task motivation – namely, choice (i.e. the degree to which individuals perceive that they have choice in initiating and regulating actions, [also called self-determination]), meaningfulness (i.e. the perceived value of the task or goal), competence (i.e. self-efficacy) and impact (i.e. the degree to which behaviour accomplishes the purpose of the task).

Using the four cognitions of Thomas and Velthouse’s (1990) model, Spreitzer (1995) developed and empirically validated a multidimensional measure of psychological empowerment in the workplace. Spreitzer (1995) defines empowerment as intrinsic motivation manifested in four cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation to his or her work role. The four cognitions are meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Meaning refers to a sense of purpose or personal connection to work (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998). Empowered people feel that their work is important to them and they care about what they are doing (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997). Competence reflects individuals’ beliefs that they have the necessary skills and abilities to perform their work well (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998). Self-determination refers to a sense of freedom about how individuals do their work (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998). Impact describes a belief that individuals can influence the system in which they are embedded (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998). Quinn and Spreitzer (1997) state that impact is the accomplishment one feels in achieving goals. Employees fear and tend to avoid situations that they believe exceed their skills, whereas they get involved in activities and behave confidently when they judge themselves capable of handling situations that would otherwise be intimidating (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998). The four dimensions of empowerment could help people to feel more in control (Spreitzer, 1995).

Macey and Schneider (2008) distinguish between three broad conceptualisations of employee engagement – namely, state, trait and behavioural engagement. State engagement, which is relevant for the purposes of this study, can be seen as an extension of the self to a role (Kahn, 1990). According to Kahn (1990, p. 694), engagement refers to ‘the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles’. Employee engagement consists of three dimensions – namely, vigour, dedication and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Vigour is characterised by high energy levels and mental resilience when working, the willingness to invest effort in one’s work, not easily becoming fatigued, and persistence even in the face of difficulties. Dedication refers to strong involvement in one’s work, characterised by enthusiasm and pride in one’s job, and feeling inspired and challenged by it. Absorption is characterised by concentrating fully on one’s work. It refers to a pleasant state in which one is totally immersed in one’s work, forgetting about everything else.

Kahn (1990) and May et al. (2004) note that, in order for the human spirit to thrive at work, individuals must be able to engage themselves cognitively, emotionally and physically. The three dimensions of employee engagement that were distinguished by Schaufeli et al. (2002) overlap conceptually with the three dimensions of engagement according to Kahn (1990), namely a physical dimension (vigour), a cognitive dimension (absorption), and an emotional dimension (dedication).

Spreitzer (1995) found that satisfaction, managerial effectiveness, innovative behaviour, and decreased stress were moderately related to empowerment. Given that empowered employees believe in themselves and the work that they do, they are more engaged. Studies by May et al. (2004) and Olivier and Rothmann (2007) found that three psychological conditions contribute to individuals engaging in their work roles – namely, psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety and psychological availability. The current study focuses on the four dimensions of psychological empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact) as possible conditions that will contribute to individuals’ engaging themselves in their work roles. Based on the definitions of the four dimensions by Mishra and Spreitzer (1998), employees could ask themselves four questions when engaging in role behaviour:

• How meaningful is it for me to adopt this behaviour?

• How competent am I to do so?

• How autonomous am I to do so?

• How strong is my impact when I bring myself into this behaviour?

Meaningfulness
Applied to the work context, meaningfulness is defined as ‘the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an individual’s own id’ (May et al., 2004, p. 14). Meaningfulness results from the feeling that job tasks are valuable and make a difference. People are self-expressive and creative and therefore they will seek out work roles that allow them to behave in ways that express their self-concepts. Work roles and activities that are aligned with individuals’ self-concepts should be associated with more meaningful work experiences. Empowered employees derive a greater sense of meaning from their work (Avolio, Zhu, Koh & Bhatia, 2004). The restoration of meaning in work is seen as a method to foster an employee’s motivation and attachment to work, thus resulting in engagement (May et al., 2004; Nelson & Simmons, 2003; Olivier & Rothmann, 2007).

Competence
According to Ryan and Deci (2001), research has shown that feeling competent and confident with respect to valued goals is associated with enhanced intrinsic motivation and well-being. Engaged employees see themselves as able to deal completely with the demands of their jobs (self-efficacy) (Llorens, Salonova, Bakker & Schaufeli, 2007). Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter (2001) found a strong correlation between self-efficacy and engagement.

Self-determination
Self-endorsed goals will enhance employee engagement, while heteronomous goals, even when introduced efficaciously, will not (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Goals that are selected through self-determination are well-internalised and autonomous (Ryan, Huta & Deci, 2008). According to Ryan et al. (2008), one cannot be following one’s true self and not be autonomous.

Impact
Impact implies organisational involvement and reflects whether individuals feel that they are making a difference in their organisation (Spreitzer et al., 1997). Impact implies a sense of progression towards a goal and individuals’ belief that their actions are making a difference in their organisations, which contributes to employee engagement.

The following hypothesis is formulated based on the above-mentioned discussion:

Hypothesis 1: Psychological empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact) predicts employee engagement.

Job insecurity

The information reflected in Table 2 indicates that acceptable Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were obtained on all the scales (Bless & Higson-Smith, 1995). It can be concluded that the results obtained from the measuring instruments are reliable.

Table 2 shows that cognitive job insecurity correlates statistically negatively with meaning, self-determination and impact. Affective job insecurity correlates statistically negatively with impact. Affective job insecurity correlates statistically negatively with employee engagement. The sub-scales of psychological empowerment were statistically significantly related to employee engagement. Meaning showed the highest correlation with employee engagement (r = 0.48; practically significant, medium effect). Competence and impact were also practically significantly related to employee engagement (both medium effects). No practically significant correlation was obtained between any of the job insecurity sub-scales and employee engagement.

Main and interaction effects

As indicated by Table 3, there was a significant effect of affective job insecurity on the combined dependent variables psychological empowerment and employee engagement (F _{(5, 448)} = 5.61, p < 0.01; Wilk’s Lambda = 0.94; partial h² = 0.06). This effect was small (6% of the variance explained). An analysis of each individual dependent variable (not reported in Table 3) showed that the groups differed in terms of the level of competence (F _{(1, 452)} = 7.47, p < 0.01, partial h²= 0.02), meaning (F_{(1, 454)} = 10.14, p < 0.01, partial h²= 0.02), impact (F_(1,454) = 5.34, p < 0.01, partial h²= 0.01), and employee engagement (F_{(1, 454)} = 25.95, p < 0.01, partial h²= 0.05). Individuals who scored high on affective job insecurity (compared to those with low scores) experienced significantly less competence, meaning, impact, and employee engagement. Therefore, a small main effect of affective job insecurity on three dimensions of psychological empowerment and employee engagement was confirmed.

Next, the hypothesised structural model (unconstrained) for low and high negative affectivity groups was tested using structural equation modelling as implemented by AMOS (Arbuckle, 2006). According to Byrne (2001), the primary focus of the estimation process in SEM is to yield parameter values such that the residual between the sample covariance matrix and population covariance matrix implied by the model is minimal.

One of the two dimensions (namely psychological empowerment) was covered by at least two scales. For this dimension, a latent variable was specified on which the corresponding scales loaded, separating random measurement error from true score variance. For employee engagement there was only one indicator, meaning that in these cases there was a one-to-one correspondence between the manifested variables (scales) and the underlying latent dimensions. Usually no distinction is made in these cases between random error variance and true score variance, so that the correlations among these one-indicator latent variables and other latent variables may be biased (Little, Cunningham, Shahar & Widaman, 2002). This problem was overcome by means of a procedure proposed by Bagozzi and Heatherton (1994). First, a one-factor model was fitted for all items belonging to the scale. Second, separate indicators for the scale were formed by selecting items on the basis of their loadings, alternating items with high and low loadings. Thus, two parcels of items were created for employee engagement.

Figure 1 shows the structural model for the low and high job insecurity groups.

Figure 1: Structural model of employee engagement

Upon inspecting the path coefficients from the observed variables to psychological empowerment, it is evident that individuals categorised as falling within the high and low affective job insecurity group experienced psychological empowerment differently. Table 4 shows that the standardised regression coefficients of meaning, competence, impact and self-determination were different for the high and low affective job insecurity groups. Therefore, it is possible that the structure of psychological empowerment differs for groups measuring low and high on affective job insecurity.

In the unconstrained model (see Figure 1), psychological empowerment predicted 9.6% of the variance in employee engagement in the low affective job insecurity group. In the high affective job insecurity group, psychological empowerment predicted 42.4% of the variance in employee engagement (c² = 203.97, df = 16, p < 0.01). The fit statistics for the unconstrained model are shown in Table 5.

Table 4 shows that the standardised regression coefficients of psychological empowerment on employee engagement were different in the low and high affective job insecurity groups. In the unconstrained model, psychological empowerment predicted 40% of the variance in employee engagement in the high affective job insecurity group. In the low affective job insecurity group, psychological empowerment predicted 9.6% of the variance in employee engagement (c² = 30.65, df = 14, p < 0.01). Hypothesis 1 is accepted. It seems that psychological empowerment predicts employee engagement.

To test for possible interaction effects between affective job insecurity and psychological empowerment, the path from psychological empowerment to employee engagement was constrained equally for the low and high affective job insecurity groups. The constrained model was statistically significantly different from the unconstrained model (Dc² = 14.79; Ddf = 1; p < 0.01).). This result suggests that affective job insecurity interacted with psychological empowerment in affecting employee engagement. Hypothesis 2 is therefore accepted.

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between psychological empowerment, job insecurity and employee engagement. Psychological empowerment (consisting of competence, meaning, impact and self-determination) predicted employee engagement in a statistically significantly way. The results showed that affective job insecurity had a main effect on three dimensions of psychological empowerment (viz. competence, meaning and impact) and employee engagement. Psychological empowerment interacted with affective job insecurity to affect employee engagement.

The Pearson correlations showed that three dimensions of psychological empowerment – namely, meaning, competence and impact, were practically significantly related to employee engagement, while self-determination was statistically significantly related to employee engagement. Therefore, individuals who experience a sense of purpose in their work, who believe they have the skills and abilities to do their work, who believe that they can influence the system in which they are embedded, and who have self-endorsed goals (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998; Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997) are more engaged in their work.

The correlations between the dimensions of psychological empowerment and job insecurity were not practically significant. Furthermore, none of the dimensions of job insecurity were practically significantly related to employee engagement. Affective job insecurity predicted 5.76% of the variance in employee engagement. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that affective job insecurity had a statistically significant negative effect on psychological empowerment and employee engagement. This effect was small (6% of the variance explained). More specifically, affective job insecurity had a small effect on competence, meaning, impact and employee engagement. These findings confirm the findings of De Cuyper et al. (2008) that job insecurity impacts negatively on the engagement of employees.

Employees who fear that they will lose their jobs might experience a loss of meaning (i.e. their experiences of a sense of purpose are affected), competence (i.e. their belief that they have the skills and abilities to do their work is affected), and impact (i.e. their belief that they can influence the system in which they are embedded is affected). Greasley et al. (2005) found that workers who perceive themselves as empowered experience reduced levels of job insecurity (emotional strain). The loss of meaning, competence and impact might have resulted in lower levels of engagement.

The structural model confirmed that psychological empowerment (consisting of meaning, competence, impact and self-determination) predicted employee engagement. The standardised regression coefficients showed that meaning, competence and influence (consisting of impact and self-determination) were predictors of employee engagement in both high and low affective insecurity groups. However, the effect of psychological empowerment on employee engagement was stronger when affective job insecurity was high (40% of the variance explained) compared to when affective job insecurity was low (10% of the variance explained). It can thus be concluded that affective job insecurity moderated the effect of psychological empowerment on employee engagement.

Under conditions of high affective job insecurity, meaning, competence and influence (i.e. impact and self-determination) contributed strongly to employee engagement. It seems that the experience of meaningful work contributes to the engagement of employees when they fear that they might lose their jobs. Previous studies showed that, when opportunities are created to experience meaning in work, employees’ attachment to work is stimulated, thus resulting in engagement (May et al., 2004; Nelson & Simmons, 2003; Olivier & Rothmann, 2007). Feeling competent at work also contributes to engagement when employees fear that they might lose their jobs. According to self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2001), feeling competent and confident with respect to valued goals is associated with enhanced intrinsic motivation. Influence (including self-determination and impact) also has a strong effect on the engagement of employees when they fear that they might lose their jobs. Self-determined goals are well-internalised and autonomous (Ryan et al., 2008). Impact reflects whether individuals feel as though they are making a difference in their organisation (Spreitzer et al., 1997). This study showed that psychological empowerment contributes strongly to employee engagement, especially under conditions of high job insecurity.

In the current business environment it is crucial that managers empower their people. It is recommended that organisations implement interventions to increase the psychological empowerment of employees. Supervisors and managers play an important role in creating engaging work environments (Greco et al., 2006). Interventions should focus on meaningful work, competence, self-determination and impact. Supervisors and managers must create work environments in which people experience their work as meaningful and where they feel that they can influence events (May et al., 2004). They should also build the competence of the employees. Furthermore, they could create autonomy-supportive work climates by taking employees’ perspectives into account, providing greater choice, and encouraging self-initiation (Gagne & Deci, 2005). Influence (self-determination and impact) is stimulated when managers and supervisors provide a meaningful rationale for performing an uninteresting task, acknowledge the perspective and feelings of employees about tasks, and structure work to allow interdependence among employees.

This study had various limitations. First, a cross-sectional design was used and therefore it was not possible to control for confounding variables. It was not possible to establish the causality of relationships. Future studies should employ longitudinal designs to study the relationships between psychological empowerment, job insecurity and employee engagement. Second, at least one item of one of the scales of the PEQ (i.e. meaning) shows overlap with one item of the UWES. This could have inflated the relationship between meaning and employee engagement. Third, self-reports were used, which limit the responses of the participants to the items used in the scale and do not capture the richness and variety of the responses that are possible.

Future studies should focus on the relationship between psychological empowerment, job insecurity and employee engagement in a longitudinal design. Such studies should investigate the effects of psychological empowerment and employee engagement on staff turnover, absenteeism, performance and safety.

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