Analyzing the relationship between structural empowerment and perceived supervisor support*

Abstract

Abstract During the last decade, organizational and strategic management theories have exponentially concentrated on the concept of structural empowerment and organizations have prioritized to work with the employees who take the initiative and respond creatively to the challenges of the job to struggle in an increasingly competitive external environment. In this sense, structural empowerment represents organizational policies, practices, and structures that grant employees greater latitude to make decisions and exert influence regarding their work and refers to a formal horizontal decentralization of authority that decisional power flows to employees from the formal structure. Additionally, it is assumed that structural empowerment helps to create a positive perception and has an impact on employees’ perceived supervisor’s support that denotes the degree to which employees’ shape impressions that their supervisor appreciates their contributions in work and is caring about their well-being. From this point of view, owing to intense competition within the private healthcare sector in Turkey, employees’ structural empowerment and perceptions related to their supervisor’s support play a vital role in providing high-quality services and care for patients. In this respect, the present study aimed at examining the relationship between structural empowerment and perceived supervisor’s support in the private healthcare sector’s employees who have especially close interactions with patients as customers. In this regard, the questionnaire has been applied to 240 employees working at the five private hospitals and the data obtained from the questionnaire has been analyzed through the “SPSS 26.0” program. As a result of the analysis, it has been signified that there is a strong positive correlation between structural empowerment and the perceived supervisor’s support. Also, it has been seen that the structural empowerment’s sub-dimensions that are opportunity, formal power, and informal power have a statistically significant relationship with the perceived supervisor support’s sub-dimensions, tangible and intangible.