Psychological empowerment for the future of work: Evidence from Portugal

Abstract

In the competitive global marketplace, it is becoming important for organizations to empower employees for productivity reasons. One of the organizational empowerment models with greater support and consistency in the various studies in which it has been used is Spreitzer's Model of Psychological Empowerment in the Workplace, published in 1995. The model is composed of four dimensions that allow the measurement of the components of meaning, competence, self-determination and the impact of work on individual empowerment. The present study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties, in the Portuguese context, of the referred model. After the translation and adaptation of the psychological empowerment scale, the questionnaire was applied to a sample of 545 workers from Portuguese industrial organizations. The results of the application of structural equation modeling allow identifying the same components defined by the Spreitzer model, so it can be considered a reliable and valid instrument to measure organizational empowerment in the Portuguese context. However, we consider that complementary studies are necessary to analyze the psychometric properties of the scale and to further advance the research. The results obtained allow us to affirm that empowerment will be a basic strategy to improve the organizational transformations that companies constantly face. It is therefore important for Portuguese organizations to analyze the level of psychological empowerment of their employees, in order to find solutions to problems such as turnover, talent attraction, performance, work demotivation and improve human resource management practices. This is particularly important following the COVID-19 pandemic in which the psychology of employees was tested due to working from home and social distancing requirements.