Are Bank Employees Psychologically and Structurally Empowered? an Assessment from the Indian Banking Sector.

Abstract

The main purpose of our research is to seek insight into the antecedents of employee empowerment at both organizational and individual levels. We also address the outcomes of empowerment at the individual level. Subsequently, the research discusses the mediation effect of psychological empowerment on structural empowerment and its outcome as job satisfaction. A total of 400 samples were collected from the employees of public and private sector banks in India using an online questionnaire, during the Covid-19 pandemic period. To test the hypotheses, Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and path analysis were used. The study proved that the antecedents such as psychological and structural empowerment have a positive and significant effect on job satisfaction, while psychological empowerment partially mediates between structural empowerment and job satisfaction. This research attempts an integrative approach as suggested by the Social Cognitive Theory for predicting empowerment. We have used unidimensional constructs of psychological empowerment, structural empowerment, and job satisfaction in the Indian banking sector. This study contributes to both theory and practice by providing insights into the benefits of public and private sector bank employees which is gained through the implementation of empowerment policies during the Covid-19 period.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10672-021-09393-z.