اثر تعدیل جمع گرایی در توانمند سازی روان شناختی و ارتباط رضایت شغلی

This study examines the moderating effect of collectivistic value on the relationship between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. Specifically, we propose that the multi-dimensional psychological effects of empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) on job satisfaction differ between high and low collectivistic employees. Data collected from hotel employees in Canada (n = 193) and China (n = 371) revealed that collectivistic orientation elevated (attenuated) the effect of self-determination (impact) on job satisfaction. However, no significant results were found with respect to meaning and competence. Research and practical implications for the findings as well as directions for future research are suggested.

Empowerment that provides employees with greater decision-making ability and discretionary power over how they perform their work and serve customers is considered an important management tool in the quality of service provision (Spreitzer, 1995 and Hancer and George, 2003). In the hospitality industry, frontline employees act as boundary spanners and are often torn between a myriad of supervisor's and customers’ demands, affording them with considerable latitude, flexibility, and power over the content of their interactions with customers and how work is accomplished can induce a sense of personal achievement and job satisfaction, subsequently reduce the potential for stress (Chiang et al., 2009, Chow et al., 2006 and Hancer and George, 2003). Despite its potential benefits, studies of psychological empowerment are rather limited in the hospitality industry (Hancer and George, 2003). While the idea of providing employees with flexibility, autonomy, and discretion to serve customers is intuitively appealing, empowerment is an approach which is not universally embraced by all countries (Hui et al., 2004a and Randolph and Sashkin, 2002). Cross-cultural studies (e.g., Hirst et al., 2008, Hui et al., 2004a and Robert et al., 2000) have established that congruence between employees’ cultural values and management practices is fundamental to their successful implementation. For example, the unique norms and values inherent in different cultures affect the way employees are motivated (Chiang and Birtch, 2007). In Western cultures (typically highly individualistic), theories about performance tend to focus on the individual dispositional attributes and competencies (Betancourt and Weiner, 1982 and Staw, 1980). By contrast, Asian cultures (typically collectivistic) tend to value harmonious working relationships and view performance a result of joint responsibility and team effort (Hofstede, 2001). Moreover, previous cross-cultural studies have alerted us the potential impacts of cultural values on the effectiveness of empowerment. Hui et al.’s (2004a) study found that the effects of empowerment on job satisfaction vary according to an individual's power distance value. Robert et al. (2000) similarly found a negative effect for empowerment in India versus other countries sampled. These studies highlight the fact that empowerment practices considered as effective in one country may not be suitable in another cultural setting. Some authors (e.g., Kirkman and Shapiro, 2001 and Robert et al., 2000) have therefore called for additional work that explicates and extends earlier efforts to the cross-national setting. Our purpose is to address these calls for the empirical examination of empowerment under the moderation of the collectivistic values. Since the seminal work of Thomas and Velthouse (1990) and Spreitzer (1995), psychological empowerment is defined as consisting of four components: meaning (perceived work value), competence (feeling of self-efficacy), self-determination (sense of control), and impact (ability to influence). While research supports this multi-dimensional conceptualization (Fulford and Enz, 1995 and Hancer and George, 2003), inconsistent results were found between the individual dimensions of empowerment and job satisfaction. For example, Liden et al. (2000) investigated the mediating effects of empowerment on the relationship between job characteristics and satisfaction among service employees. Only the dimensions of meaning and competence were found to be significant. Fulford and Enz (1995) reported in their study of service employees that self-determination had no effect on job satisfaction while meaning and impact were significant predictors. Ambivalent findings imply that the four dimensions of psychological empowerment exhibit differential influences on employees’ job satisfaction and, hence, merit further investigation. In addition, inconsistent findings may be due to the moderating influence of employees’ value orientation (Robert et al., 2000). Given that empowerment's conceptualization has been acknowledged as being bounded by cultural differences (Hui et al., 2004a and Kirkman and Shapiro, 2001), examining its dimensions independently is likely to improve our understanding of which specific component(s) of empowerment that is/are (not) motivating. These findings are particularly important to international hotels as they attempt to empower employees across different cultural settings. They also allow hotels to tailor their programs to suit different cultural requirements.

This study examined the moderating effect of collectivistic value on the relationship between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. Evidence from a two-country survey confirmed our hypotheses that influences of individual empowerment dimensions on job satisfaction were not uniform and that their relationships were contingent upon employees’ value orientation. We therefore submit that for empowerment to achieve their intended utility necessitates understanding how employees with different value orientations perceive individual dimensions of empowerment and which dimensions are most relevant and effective for achieving desirable outcomes in its contexts. Future research pursuing this line of inquiry is warranted. Our regression analyses indicated that the collectivistic orientation of employees elevated the effect of self-determination (Hypothesis 3) but attenuated the effect of impact (Hypothesis 4) on job satisfaction. To high collectivistic employees, psychological empowerment was more pertinent to satisfaction stemming from choice of work (self-determination) than to outcomes of work (impact). These moderating effects may in part explain the inconsistent effects of self-determination and impact found in previous empowerment studies (e.g., Fulford and Enz, 1995 and Spreitzer et al., 1997). We found the stress relief effects of self-determination were more pronounced for high collectivists but irrelevant to low collectivistic employees. This differential outcome likely stems from employees’ collectivistic interpretation of the relative importance of task and relationship at work. Shaped by their interdependent and interconnected orientations, high collectivistic employees are more willing to suppress their personal opinions and conform to organizational norms. A heightened sense of self-determination derived from psychological empowerment helps release their suppression of individual judgments and compromise of their role (in- versus out-groups) fulfillment, thereby alleviating their stress in a boundary-spanning role. As a result, their satisfaction is markedly elevated (Hypothesis 3). On the contrary, influenced by their independent self-construal without affording much consideration to others’ views, the pressure to suppress their professional role (out-group) and to conform to others (in-group) is relatively limited for low collectivists. Another possible explanation may be that low collectivists consider autonomy and freedom at work as a norm and a basic right rather than an exception. Hence, additional self-determination does not motivate behavior significantly, although its absence may lead to job dissatisfaction (Herzberg et al., 1959). The law of diminishing returns provides a case in point. After the optimal level is reached, as the level of self-determination increases eventually the corresponding increase in job satisfaction will diminish. Hence, the effects of self-determination on ameliorating job satisfaction become less prominent for low collectivists. These results provide new insight into Herzberg's two-factor model. It may indicate that whether a job factor is a hygiene/maintenance and/or motivator is perceived as a matter of degree rather than a two-factor dichotomy. Too much of even a motivator may receive diminishing return. This notion warrants further studies and opens the research agenda in a promising new direction. A reverse moderation pattern was apparent in our findings relating to the impact dimension (Hypothesis 4). Our results showed that the effect of impact was more relevant to job satisfaction for employees with a low collectivistic orientation than to those with a high collectivistic orientation. As argued earlier, although satisfaction derived from a desirable work outcome is commonly regarded as personal accomplishment by employees, this outcome may be interpreted differently by employees with a high collectivistic orientation. High collectivistic employees would not interpret work impact as an important source of satisfaction because they tend to believe that successful work outcomes are attributable to their group as opposed to themselves (Morris and Peng, 1994). Taking too much personal credit (impact) for a job outcome may be detrimental to group relationship, especially when it is difficult to differentiate personal effort from situational influences. Hence, the effect of the impact was less obvious among high collectivists. Although being able to make an impact is important to many people, the attributional causes of such impact may be perceived differently. Further exploration of these differences could inform both theory and practice. While self-determination and impact were shown to be contingent upon collectivistic orientation, our results revealed mixed and non-significant results of the other two dimensions, i.e., work meaning (Hypothesis 1) and competence (Hypothesis 2) of empowerment. For the former, we found a significant negative interaction effect in Canada but not in China. This result may be partly due to the different level of economic development. Unlike Canada, the salary and work conditions of hotel employees in China are more favorable than other occupations. Hotel employees enjoy a higher social and economic status in Chinese society (Leung et al., 1996). Work meaning is more associated with the extrinsic aspects of the job as opposed to the intrinsic job values. Such work meaning of a social nature, though extraneous to the work motivation of psychological empowerment, fulfills Chinese individuals’ desired values obtained from a job and enhances their job satisfaction independent of their collectivistic orientation (Locke, 1976). Thus, the negative moderation effect of collectivistic orientation may be counteracted and rendered non-significant. As Thomas and Velthouse (1990) purported, an individual's cognition and interpretation of work meaning can be shaped by and result from its interaction with contextual factors, in this case, level of economic development. In case of competence, contrary to our expectation, we found that both high and low collectivists are likely to interpret competence similarly, a finding consistent with previous empowerment literature (e.g., Silbereisen and Wiesner, 2002 and Siu et al., 2005). That is, competence is considered as a universal dimension of empowerment irrespective of their collectivistic orientation. To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first to offer evidence that collectivistic orientation has a moderating effect on individual dimensions of psychological empowerment. We found that collectivistic orientation weakened the influence of impact and heightened that of self-determination whereas it exerted little/no influence on work meaning and competence. The exploration of collectivistic orientations has therefore added and extended our knowledge of empowerment and its effects on job satisfaction. The interpretative perspective put forward, combining both empowerment (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990) and cultural value research (Triandis et al., 1988), has proven to be versatile in providing a theoretical framework and an explanatory mechanism for the results. Such a perspective may be used to advance our understanding of cross-cultural studies on empowerment as well as guiding future research.