The relationship of psychological empowerment and work autonomy of employees in a door-to-door forwarding company and a manufacturing/retailing company

Abstract

This study aims to determine the relationship of psychological empowerment and work autonomy of employees in a door-to-door forwarding company and a manufacturing/retailing company and whether self-efficacy moderated the relationship between the two. The study used a one shot survey and a total of 85 respondents were obtained through convenience sampling scheme. This included 43 (51%) employees of the door-to-door forwarding company and 42 (49%) employees of the manufacturing/retailing company. The researcher administered Speitzer's (1996) Psychological Empowerment Survey, Beraugh's (1985) Work Autonomy Scale, and Bandura's (1997) Self-efficacy Scale in this study. Findings indicated that there is a correlation between psychological empowerment and work autonomy of employees in a door-to-door forwarding company and a manufacturing/retailing company and self-efficacy moderated the relationship between the two. Results also showed that there is no significant difference in psychological empowerment among employees of the two companies. No significant difference was also found in the work autonomy between the two sets of respondents. Both groups scored highest in the method autonomy. Respondents from the door-to-door forwarding scored highest in selfdetermination dimension while respondents from the manufacturing/retailing scored highest in the impact dimension of psychological empowerment.