Linking organizational trust with employee engagement: The role of psychological empowerment

Abstract

Purpose
– This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational trust, psychological empowerment, and employee engagement. In addition, the study seeks to test the moderating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between trust and engagement.

Design/methodology/approach
– Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out on a sample of 715 employees from seven commercial banks and four pharmaceutical companies in south-eastern Nigeria who participated in the survey.

Findings
– The results showed that organizational trust and psychological empowerment were predictors of work engagement. There was a moderating effect of empowerment on the relationship between trust and engagement.

Research limitations/implications
– The findings show that organizational trust and psychological empowerment that predict positive job behaviour in Western cultures are also critical in understanding Nigerian workers ' positive organizational behaviour such as work engagement.

Practical implications
– For practical purposes, the results suggest that organizational trust may be a significant component of organizational interventions. Given that psychological empowerment is strongly related to work engagement, empowerment intervention programs is therefore important in building employees that would be engaged in their work.

Originality/value
– This study was one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the direct relationship among organizational trust, psychological empowerment and employee work engagement. Additionally, most previous studies on engagement have been conducted in developed economies of North America and Europe. This study was carried out in a Nigerian business environment where organizational behaviours have been scarcely investigated and comparing these findings with earlier studies may help further clarify the emerging work engagement concept.

Full text

Linking organizational trust with
employee engagement: the role of
psychological empowerment
Fabian O. Ugwu
Department of Psychology, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria
Ike E. Onyishi
Department of Psychology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, and
Alma M. Rodrı
´guez-Sa
´nchez
Department of Business and Management, Universitat Jaume I Castellon,
Castellon, Spain
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational trust,
psychological empowerment, and employee engagement. In addition, the study seeks to test the
moderating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between trust and engagement.
Design/methodology/approach – Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out on a sample of
715 employees from seven commercial banks and four pharmaceutical companies in south-eastern
Nigeria who participated in the survey.
Findings – The results showed that organizational trust and psychological empowerment were
predictors of work engagement. There was a moderating effect of empowerment on the relationship
between trust and engagement.
Research limitations/implications – The findings show that organizational trust and
psychological empowerment that predict positive job behaviour in Western cultures are also critical
in understanding Nigerian workers’ positive organizational behaviour such as work engagement.
Practical implications – For practical purposes, the results suggest that organizational trust may
be a significant component of organizational interventions. Given that psychological empowerment is
strongly related to work engagement, empowerment intervention programs is therefore important in
building employees that would be engaged in their work.
Originality/value – This study was one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the direct
relationship among organizational trust, psychological empowerment and employee work
engagement. Additionally, most previous studies on engagement have been conducted in developed
economies of North America and Europe. This study was carried out in a Nigerian business
environment where organizational behaviours have been scarcely investigated and comparing these
findings with earlier studies may help further clarify the emerging work engagement concept.
Keywords Trust, Organization, engagement, psychological empowerment, Quantitative
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
One of the major challenges that management researchers and professionals have to
face is how to gain organisational competitive advantage in the rapidly changing
business environment (Ferres et al., 2000). To rise to this challenge, organisations
operate under constant pressure to produce more with less. Thus, it is in this
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
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Received 27 November 2012
Revised 3 June 2013
Accepted 9 November 2013
Personnel Review
Vol. 43 No. 3, 2014
pp. 377-400
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-11-2012-0198

demanding situation that employee contribution becomes an important business issue.
In fact, companies have no choice but to try to make the best of each employee’s skills
and capabilities (Ulrich, 1997). Therefore, organisations need a core of employees who
are engaged in the organisation’s values and goals, and who show their maximum
potential (Cauldron, 1996; Meyer and Allen, 1997). Employee engagement has been
linked with many positive job outcomes such as job satisfaction and performance
(e.g. Gruman and Saks, 2011; Koyuncu et al., 2006; Schaufeli and Salanova, 2007),
active coping style (e.g. Storm and Rothmann, 2003) and creativity (e.g. Bakker and
Xanthopoulou, 2013). Given these important contributions to organisational success, it
is critical for researchers and practitioners to understand the factors that lead to
engagement.
Despite the fact that engagement has been linked to a wide range of positive job
outcomes, fewer studies have been carried out on antecedents of engagement.
Antecedent variables associated with engagement include authentic leadership
(e.g. Roux, 2010), need for achievement (e.g. Burke and El-Kot, 2010), efficacy beliefs
(e.g. Llorens et al., 2007), organisational justice (e.g. Inoue et al., 2010), and
organisational tenure (e.g. Burke et al., 2009). However, studies have not focused on the
contributing roles of trust, and psychological empowerment on employee engagement,
even when trust on the organisation and empowerment have been found to be vital in
many positive job attitudes (Fedor and Werther, 1996; Fukuyama, 1995;
Shockley-Zalabak et al., 1999). So, understanding the role of trust and empowerment
is a key issue to generate positive job attitudes such as engagement. Hence, in the
present study we try to explore these relationships since, to our knowledge, it seems
that no study has empirically examined the relationship between organisational trust,
psychological empowerment and work engagement until now.
The present study is also significant for research in African countries because no
study has been done on employee engagement in the Nigerian business culture.
Although employee engagement as a positive job behaviour has attracted researchers’
interest globally, and empirical studies on engagement are beginning to emerge
internationally, including studies in North America (e.g. Wefald, 2008; Wildermuth,
2008), Europe (e.g. Xanthopoulou et al., 2008), Asia (e.g. Inoue et al., 2010; Shimazu et al.,
2008) and South Africa (e.g. Storm and Rothmann, 2003), it should be noted that these
countries are developed significantly more economically than Nigeria. Most of these
business environments have been viewed to differ from business cultures in
developing economies such as Nigeria (Hofstede, 1984) and employee behaviour may
also differ in these countries.
Research context: organizational settings in Nigeria
Nigeria has witnessed a wide range of changes in organisational structures in the last
decades. These changes need to be analysed from the organisational behaviour
point-of-view. Moving from a typical traditional agro-based society to a somewhat
industrial society has led to the emergence of new way of life which influences work
behaviours. In most Nigerian work environments, the general attitude to work has
been described as poor (Onyishi and Ogbodo, 2012). Nigerian employees seem to care
less about their organisations and focus more on their personal gains. In fact, some
recent events in the country, including economic pressures caused by the global
economic meltdown, privatisation of public enterprises, consolidation of financial
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sectors, bureaucratic corruption and increased government regulations, have all
resulted in retrenchment and disengagement of workers. Moreover, this situation
brings about an increase in feelings of uncertainty and anxiety among workers due to
increase in cases of salary cuts and high unemployment rates (Onyishi and Ugwu,
2010). For these reasons, investigating the variables that contribute to work
engagement in Nigerian organisations despite this demanding context is highly
relevant.
Theoretical background
Work engagement defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind
characterised by vigor, dedication and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2002), has been
primarily articulated as a function of job and personal resources as most of the
empirical studies done on its antecedents have revolved around the job
demands-resources model (Demerouti et al., 2001; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). The job
demands-resources model focuses on the role of job demands and lack of resources
(e.g. lack of support from co-workers and supervisors, lack of control) on engagement
and burnout at work (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). This has dominated literature over
time such that variables other than job resources relating to quality relationship of
co-workers or supervisors and job control have received little research attention.
However, leaving the understanding of the antecedents of work engagement to the
job-demands resources model only will certainly forge a myopic view of the construct.
To gain a broader and better understanding of the engagement construct, other
potential antecedents of work engagement such as organisational trust should be given
empirical consideration. The present study, therefore, attempts to respond to a call that
Wright and Goodstein (2007) made that there is urgent need to examine trust in
organisations. Due to unprecedented, economic, and in fact overall global changes,
organisations are becoming more responsive to these changes to survive, and
consequently organisational trust has been regarded as one of the effective tools
behind positive organisational outcomes. Gillespie and Mann (2004) asserted that the
fundamental importance of interpersonal trust for sustaining team and organisational
effectiveness is daily gaining increasing recognition. To explain this, Gillespie and
Mann further stated that employees’ trust in their superiors has been related to various
productivity-related processes and outcomes that include quality of communication
and problem-solving, discretionary effort, organisational citizenship behaviour, which
has conceptual resemblance with work engagement (see Babcock-Roberson and
Strickland, 2010), organisational commitment and the degree of employee turnover.
Recently, researchers have demonstrated that there has been high level of mistrust
among various organisational members (Rego et al., 2010) and this has strengthened
the need for organisations to begin to renew and redirect their energy towards paying
closer attention to this construct. To buttress this argument Atkinson and Butcher
(2003) posit that early theorists have acknowledged the usefulness of co-operation to
organisation but recently it has attained a new status that has focused more on
relationships and less on authority and consequently, trust as a phenomenon becomes
a vital component of organisational social capital necessary for growth.
Although there is widespread agreement among scholars about the importance of
trust in the smooth functioning of organisations, surprisingly there is no uniform
agreement on its definition (Chughtai and Buckley, 2008). Kramer (1999) concluded
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that a concise and universally accepted definition of trust has remained elusive.
Therefore, for the purpose of the current study, we adopted Mishra’s (1996)
multi-dimensional view of trust, defined as one party’s (employees) willingness to be
vulnerable to another party (organisation) based on the belief that the later party is
competent, reliable, open and concerned. To this operationalisation of trust,
Shockley-Zalabak et al. (1999, 2000) added one dimension called identification, which
also acknowledges that these dimensions of trustworthiness appear most frequently in
the literature and explain a major portion of perceptions of trustworthiness (e.g. Clark and
Payne, 1997; Dietz and Den Hartog, 2006; Ellis and Shockley-Zalabak, 2001). Trust is
conceptualised in this study as a “state”, describing an employee’s perception of the
trustworthiness of employers, supervisors, and co-workers (Chughtai and Buckley, 2008).
A possible theoretical explanation for the proposed relationship between
organisational trust and work engagement is that of the Social Exchange Theory
(Blau, 1964). The social exchange theory posits that employees will reciprocate positive
job attitudes and behaviours (Gouldner, 1960) when their relationship with employers
is established on social-exchange principles. Thus if employees perceive the
organisation as trustworthy, it is likely that they will reciprocate trust by becoming
more engaged in their work.
Apart from enabling environment that trust provides, individuals’ perception of
their ability to contribute positively to the organisation may also be important in the
engagement process, especially now that most organisations have been under
increased pressure to meet the demands of customers and competitive environment
(Hashmi and Naqvi, 2012). For organisations to be able to meet these demands there is
a need to have employees who are eager to take initiative, embrace risk, stimulate
innovation and cope with high uncertainty (Spreitzer, 1995). Business organisations in
Nigeria and elsewhere, are striving to become viable to meet the ever-changing
customer demands and the global financial pressures.
In such a situation, among other techniques, employee empowerment has been
recommended in literature to enhance organisational performance (Lashley, 1999;
Pfeffer and Viega, 1999). It is noteworthy that the attainment of organisational goals
may not be feasible without empowering employees psychologically. There is need to
understand the role of the psychological state of the individuals that propels them to
action. The conceptualisations of empowerment by Thomas and Velthouse (1990) and
further clarification by Spreitzer (1995) is relevant in understanding the link between
empowerment and work engagement. They emphasised the relevance of the
psychological component of empowerment in bringing about the necessary motivation
for positive job behaviour. Although Conger and Kanungo (1988) defined
empowerment as the motivational concept of self-efficacy, it was Thomas and
Velthouse (1990) who argued that empowerment is multifaceted and that its essence
cannot be captured by a single concept. They offered a broader definition of
empowerment as increased intrinsic task motivation manifested in a set of four
cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation to his or her work role. The four
cognitions include: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Meaning
refers to the value or importance of the task goal or purpose, judged in relation to the
individual’s own ideas or standards reflecting a fit between the requirements of a work
role and a person’s beliefs, values and behaviours (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990).
Competence or self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s belief in his or her capability to
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successfully perform activity with skills (Spreitzer, 1995). Self-determination is an
individual’s sense of having a choice or freedom in initiating and regulating actions
(Deci and Ryan, 2000). Self-determination reflects authority over the initiation and
continuation of work behaviours and processes, making decision about work methods,
pace and efforts (Spreitzer, 1995, Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). Impact refers the
degree to which an individual can positively influence organisational outcomes.
Spreitzer (1995) used these cognitions (or components) to define psychological
empowerment. She argued that the four cognitions combine additively to create an
overall construct of psychological empowerment. This means that the lack of any
single dimension will deflate, but will not completely eliminate, the overall degree of
the empowerment felt (Spreitzer, 1996).
Several researchers have investigated the role of psychological empowerment in
many positive job behaviours including proactive behaviours and commitment
(Anderson and Williams, 1996; Spreitzer et al., 1999). It is believed that the
psychological state that empowerment provides, enables empowered employees to
engage more in extra-role efforts, act independently and have high commitment to the
organisation (Spreitzer, 1995; Aviolo et al., 2004). We suggest that since employees who
are empowered tend to find meaning in what they do, feel they are in control of their
work, feel they have the required capacity to perform their job, are determined to
perform their job roles and believe that they can as well influence job outcomes,
psychological empowerment will help employees to also become more engaged in their
work.
It is also expected that in addition to the direct effect of empowerment on work
engagement, psychological empowerment could as well moderate the relationship
between trust and engagement in such a way that employees who are psychological
empowered will be work engaged irrespective of the level of organisational trust.
Various components of psychological empowerment (e.g. self-efficacy,
self-determination) have been linked with positive job outcomes even in the presence
of adverse work conditions. Bandura (1997) maintains that individuals high in
self-efficacy will be more resilient to adversity. Luthans et al. (2007) further posit that
employees who are efficacious and resilient are more likely to overcome difficulties and
challenges at work. We therefore propose that the construct of psychological
empowerment (meaning, self-determination, competence and impact) will moderate the
relationship between trust and work engagement.
In summary, this study attempts to explore the possible relationships among
organisational trust, psychological empowerment and work engagement in Nigeria.
More specifically, it aims to investigate the moderating role of psychological
empowerment in the relationship between organisational trust and work engagement.
Hypothesis development: organizational trust and work engagement
Researchers have investigated the relationship between organisational trust and
several positive work outcomes such as organisational effectiveness (Laschinger et al.,
2000), productivity (Musacco, 2000), interpersonal citizenship behaviour (Dolan et al.,
2005; Lester and Brower, 2003; Settoon and Mossholder, 2002), proactive behaviour
(Parker et al., 2006), and job satisfaction (Lee and Teo, 2005). In addition, trust has also
been linked to better team processes ( Jones and George, 1998) and superior levels of
performance (Dirks, 2000). Trust is also related to profits, innovation, organisational
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survival and a variety of crucial worker perceptions and behaviours (Shockley-Zalabak
et al., 1999). For example, trust has been found to explain why some employees
effectively complete their jobs and also go above and beyond the call of duty in their
work with no notable reward. This effect is very close to the concept of ‘employees
going the extra-mile’ which is a characteristic of engaged employees (Schaufeli and
Bakker, 2010), so, this is logic that trust and engagement are related, but why?
The link between trust and engagement could be explained by the social exchange
theory. The social exchange theory is premised on the belief that the social context of
the organisation, including the perception of trust by its members, shapes the
relationship that exists between the organisation and the employees. Employees tend
to reciprocate the treatment they receive from the organisation in a manner they
perceive to be fair (Blau, 1964). Blau suggested that the basis of any exchange
relationship could be described in terms of either social or economic principles.
According to Blau, social exchange just like economic exchange generates an
expectation of some future return for contributions, but unlike economic exchange, the
exact nature of such return is unspecific. Thus, employees form a global belief
concerning the extent to which the organisation values their well-being. Hence, trust, is
therefore necessary for maintaining social exchange, since trust create obligations
within individuals to repay the organisation, and employees can do this by exhibiting
several positive job attitudes including being more engaged in their work. For instance,
in the case of a bank employee that perceives he/she may tell to his/her supervisor
things are going wrong, or feel connected with the organisation, in other words an
employee that trusts his/her organisation, will be more willing to work harder during
difficult times, and also to “go the extra mile” at work than other who does not feel this
trust. Therefore, this engagement appears as a way of exchanging or “refund” the trust
the organisation “offers” to the employees.
This example can be extended with the existing literature, when employees
recognise that the leadership has good insight and the ability to augment the
organisation’s growth and productivity by making competent decisions, being open,
concerned and reliable, it will give them increased assurance of a more profitable future
for the organisation (Spreitzer and Mishra, 2002). In this situation, employees are
bound to concentrate on the work that needs to be done rather than feeling concerned
about other issues, such as the sustainability of their future employment (Mayer and
Gavin, 2005). Thus, organisational trust may become necessary in motivating
employees to be work engaged.
On the whole, and as mentioned previously, there is enough empirical evidence to
show how trust positively affects various indicators of motivation such as job
satisfaction, organisational citizenship behaviour and organisational commitment (Dirks
and Ferrin, 2002, Wat and Shaffer, 2005). Since work engagement is also an indicator of
motivation and bears a conceptual resemblance with organisational commitment
(Roberts and Davenport, 2002), it is therefore proposed that trust in organisation could
also be related to work engagement. Besides, in their initial conceptual analysis of the
relationship between trust and work engagement, Chughtai and Buckley (2008)
suggested that future studies should empirically investigate the role of trust in work
engagement in different research contexts. Therefore, we hypothesise that:
H1. Organizational trust will have a main effect predictive value on work
engagement.
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Psychological empowerment and employee work engagement
Reasoning from the job demands-resources model of work engagement (Schaufeli and
Bakker, 2004), psychological empowerment could be seen as a resource that could
enable an individual to become work engaged. Theoretically, Conger and Kanungo
(1988) conceptualised empowerment as the motivational concept of self-efficacy and
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) views psychological empowerment as intrinsic
motivation manifested in four cognitions (meaning, self-determination, competence
and impact). According to Spreitzer (1995) these cognitions combine additively to
produce an overall feeling of empowerment and reflect an active orientation to work
role – an orientation in which an individual wishes and feels able to shape his or her
work role and context. Since, empowerment has been seen as internal motivational
construct, of individuals to march on despite the odds, the Self-determination Theory
(SDT), which started off with the empirical examination of the interplay between
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Deci, 1975) could also be very essential in explaining
this relationship. SDT maintains that individuals are endowed with an innate striving
to actualize their potentials, that is, to elaborate their knowledge, cultivate their
interests, seek challenges and explore the world. The theory suggested that individuals
are growth-oriented organisms who actively interact with their environment (Deci and
Ryan, 2000). Employees with self-determination have some control over what they will
do, how much effort they will put (Spector, 1986). Arguing from a motivational
perspective, psychological empowerment could therefore become a resource that
enables individuals to be work engaged.
There is enough evidence that psychological empowerment is positively related to
various positive job outcomes such as organisational citizenship behaviour (Onyishi,
2006), organisational commitment (Manz and Sims, 1993), innovative behaviour
(Spreitzer, 1995; Spreitzer et al., 1999) and job satisfaction and performance (Dickson
and Lorenz, 2009; Hechanova et al., 2009; Kirkman et al., 2004; Mohd et al., 2009).
Meaningfulness (a component of psychological empowerment) has also been found to
be related with engagement (May et al., 2004) and positive job behaviour (Dewettinck
and van Ameijde, 2010). Hence, it is easy to think that, for instance, a bank employee
who finds he/she has a good sense of confidence in his/her abilities to perform well and
also that his/her job has an impact on his/her department, it may be plausible that
he/she feel more engaged with his/her job. Therefore, Stander and Rothmann (2010)
also discovered significant relationships between the components of psychological
empowerment and employee engagement. However, their study did not directly
examine the relationship between psychological empowerment as a construct
(comprising the components) and engagement even when earlier studies (e.g. Spreitzer,
1995; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990) demonstrated that psychological empowerment is
a sum of these components. In order to better understand the role of the psychological
state that empowerment provides on work engagement, there may be need to
investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment as a construct
(comprising meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) and work
engagement. Furthermore, since psychological empowerment is positively related to
these positive job behaviours, it is plausible to think that it could also be directly
related to work engagement. Therefore we hypothesise that:
H2. Psychological empowerment will have a main effect predictive value on
employee work engagement.
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Moderating effect of psychological empowerment
Research has shown that leader empowering behaviours predict psychological
empowerment (Greco et al., 2006) and that psychological empowerment predicts work
engagement (Stander and Rothmann, 2010). Hence, the intrinsic motivation implicated
in psychological empowerment (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990), may serve as booster in
a situation where employees perceive the organisation as less trustworthy.
Besides, some scholars (e.g. Liden et al., 2000) examined the agency effect of
different dimensions of psychological empowerment to the relative variables and
found that the dimension of meaning in the psychological empowerment had the
function of agency between the work characteristic and work satisfaction with
organisational commitment. Since psychological empowerment is an agency construct
that enhances difficult and challenging experiences, it could be assumed that the
construct will play a moderating role between organisational trust and work
engagement.
In fact, many studies have observed that self-efficacy (a component of
empowerment closer to competence) moderates work-related variables such as
performance (e.g. Finn and Frone, 2004). It has also been discovered that self-efficacy
acts as a buffer by ameliorating the negative effects of work stressors on employee
psychological well being ( Jex and Bliese, 1999). Since psychological empowerment has
conceptual resemblance and is often linked with self-efficacy, it makes sense to propose
that it could also moderate the relationship between organisational trust and positive
job outcomes, such as employee work engagement. Moreover, personal resources have
also been found to moderate the relationship between adverse working conditions and
well being (Makikangas and Kinnunen, 2003; Pierce and Gardner, 2004). Specifically,
studies have demonstrated that psychological empowerment moderates the
relationship between organisational variables such as social exchange relations and
positive job outcomes. For instance, Harris et al. (2009) found that psychological
empowerment moderated the relationships among leader-member exchange, job
satisfaction, turnover intentions, supervisor-rated outcomes of job performance and
organisational citizenship behaviours. Therefore, we argue here that psychological
empowerment moderates the relationship between organisational trust and employee
work engagement in such a way that the relationship between trust and engagement
will be more obvious when empowerment is poor. We therefore hypothesise that:
H3. Psychological empowerment will moderate the positive relationship between
organizational trust and employee work engagement; specifically when
employees perceive poor organizational trust, those employees with greater
psychological empowerment will show higher levels of work engagement
than those with lower levels of psychological empowerment.
Method
Participants and procedure
A total of 715 (n¼715) employees from organisations in the banking and production
sectors in Enugu, South-Eastern Nigeria participated in the study. Seven banks and
four pharmaceutical companies were sampled. A total of 566 participants were enrolled
from the banking sector, while 149 worked in the production sector. In the banking
sector, the distribution of the participants was 103, 79, 71, 97, 73, 68, and 75 in the seven
banks surveyed. In the production sector, the distribution of the participants in the four
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firms was 40, 47, 34 and 28. Of the 715 employees who participated in the study, 53.1
per cent were females. Respondents’ age ranged from 21 years to 50 years, with a mean
age of 36.4 years. The average job tenure was 3.57 years, while average tenure in the
organisation was 5.39 years. The participants’ educational qualifications were as
follows: 13.8 per cent of the respondents had postgraduate degrees; 37.3 per cent had
their first university degree; 27.0 per cent had their higher national diploma; and 21.8
per cent of the employees had ordinary national diploma certificates. In the banking
sector, the heads of operations (operations managers) gave approval for the study to be
conducted. Besides in each bank, they assigned one of their staff to assist in the
distribution and collection of the completed questionnaires. In the pharmaceutical
companies, managers gave their consent for the study to take place; similarly, an
assistant was appointed to help the researchers reach out to employees. All the
participants were employees who are yet to attain the rank of manager/supervisor. A
total of 819 copies of the questionnaires were administered (653 in the banking sector
and 166 in the production sector), and 715 copies were completed and returned, which
is a response rate of 91.81 per cent. The instruments were presented in English and no
interpretation was given since all the participants were literate enough to clearly
understand the items in the questionnaires and for research purpose we consider not to
change the validated instruments to Nigerian language in order not to bias the validity
of the scales. Moreover, English is the common language used in business and official
transactions in all Nigerian organisations. Respondents were ensured of the
confidentiality of their responses, and were asked to complete the questionnaire at
their convenience and to return it in a sealed envelope to an appointed supervisor or
manager. All the participants volunteered to participate in the study.
Measures
The Organisational Trust Index (OTI): The Organisational Trust Index, developed by
Shockley-Zalabak et al. (1999), was used to measure organisational trust. It is a 29-item
scale that addresses five dimensions of trust, built from Mishra’s (1996) model for
organisational trust. The authors of the OTI tested and validated the scale by
conducting confirmatory factor analyses. Rigorous statistical testing demonstrated
that the instrument was valid for use in international settings (Shockley-Zalabak et al.,
1999). The Cronbach’s alpha for the present study was 0.89. The OTI was designed in a
five-point Likert-type response format in terms of “how much the statement describes
my organisation” ranging from “1 ¼very little” to “5 ¼a great deal.” Sample items
include: “I am greatly satisfied with the capacity of the organisation to achieve its
objectives” (competence). “I can tell my immediate supervisor when things are going
wrong” (openness). “My immediate supervisor speaks positively about subordinates in
front of others,” (concern). “My immediate supervisor follows through with what
he/she says” (reliability). “I feel connected with my organisation,” (identification).
Psychological Empowerment Scale: Spreitzer’s (1995) Psychological Empowerment
Scale (PES) was used to measure psychological empowerment. It is a 12-item scale that
measures the four dimensions of empowerment: meaning, competence,
self-determination and impact. The psychological empowerment scale is a
self-assessment scale, with a five-point Likert-type response format where
1¼strongly disagree with the statement and 5 ¼strong agree with the statement.
The instrument has four subscales of three items each. Each scale measures one
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dimension. Sample items included: “The work I do is very important to me” (meaning),
“I am confident about my ability to do my job” (competence), “I have significant
autonomy in determining how I do my job” (self determination), and “My impact on
what happens in my department is large” (impact). The Cronbach’s alpha for the
present study was 0.73.
The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES): For the present study, we used the
short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) (Schaufeli et al., 2002;
Schaufeli and Bakker, 2010), which measures three dimensions of work engagement:
vigor, dedication and absorption. Although the original UWES-9 scale was a
seven-point Likert-type one, a five-point Likert-type response format ranging from 0 to
4 (“Never” to “Very often”) was adopted in the present study to make responses easier.
Many researchers (e.g. Halbesleben et al., 2009; Bakker and Xanthopoulou, 2009) also
used five points as opposed to seven points in their separate studies. The UWES-9 has
long been advocated for research purposes. For example, Schaufeli et al. (2006) utilized
data from ten different countries (n¼14521), and the results indicated that the original
15-item UWES could be shortened to nine items. The scale had a reliability coefficient
(Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.85. Sample items included: “At my work, I feel bursting with
energy” (vigor), “I am enthusiastic about my job” (dedication), and “I feel happy when I
am working intensely” (absorption).
Statistical analyses
First, we calculated internal consistencies (Cronbach’s a), descriptive analyses and
intercorrelations among the variables in the study using SPSS 19.0. Second, we
computed a procedure to test for bias due to common method variance. Different
methods to test for common factor bias are shown in Podsakoff et al. (2003). Since all of
them display potential problems, we used the simplest and one of the most widely
utilized techniques: Harman’s single factor test (Iverson and Maguire, 2000; cf.
Podsakoff et al., 2003) with CFA using the AMOS (Analysis of MOment Structures)
software package (v 19.0). The most important limitation is that Harman’s single-factor
test is a diagnostic technique for assessing the extent to which common method
variance may be a problem, but it does not actually control for method effects
statistically. In order to get round this limitation, we also computed an alternative
multiple factor test with CFA and finally we checked for significant differences
between this multiple factor model and Harman’s single factor model. Later we tested
our hypothesis using hierarchical regression to assess the amount of incremental
variance explained by each type of predictor variable.
The data were controlled for the impact of demographic variables: gender, age,
marital status, organisational tenure, job tenure, employment status, job position, and
education. Studies have demonstrated that these demographic variables are related to
work engagement (Fan and Williams, 2010; Green et al., 2008; Otwori and Xiangping,
2010). The demographic variables were coded as follows: gender (1 ¼male,
2¼female); Age (1 ¼young, 2 ¼old), marital status (1 ¼single, 2 ¼married),
employment status (1 ¼contract, 2 ¼permanent), job position (1 ¼junior staff,
2¼senior), education (1 ¼below degree certificate, 2 ¼degree certificate and above).
Raw scores of other variables were entered as they were collected.
Following the procedure suggested by Aiken and West (1991), we first entered the
control variables (gender, age, marital status, organisational tenure, job tenure,
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employment status, job position, education). Next, we entered the predictor
(organisational trust), followed by psychological empowerment. Finally, we
introduced the product terms for the interaction of organisational trust and
psychological empowerment. We assessed the significance of each step with the R
2
change and evaluated the significance of the slope (standardised beta) of the individual
parameters. We used the computational procedures for testing any interactions in the
regression analyses, as suggested by Hayes and Matthes (2009) to test the moderation
effect of psychological empowerment on the relationship between organisational trust
and work engagement.
Results
The descriptive statistics and intercorrelations are reported in Table I. All the alpha
values meet the 0.70 criterion (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994), as they range from 0.78
to 0.91. Results for the hierarchical regression analyses are summarised in Table II.
The results of the correlational analysis showed, as expected, that organisational
tenure had significant positive relationship with work engagement (r¼0.12, p¼,
0.001). Employment status was related to engagement (r¼0.19, p,0.001); employees
in permanent employment reported higher scores on engagement than those in
contract employment. Job position was negatively related to engagement (r¼20.07, p
,0.05); junior members of staff reported higher scores on engagement than senior
staff members. Level of education was also positively related to engagement (r¼0.36,
p¼,0.001). Organisational trust was positively related to work engagement
(r¼0.64, p¼,0.001). Psychological empowerment was also related to engagement
(r¼0.62, p¼,0.001).
The results of Harman’s single factor test with CFA for the variables involved in the
study (i.e. organisational trust, psychological empowerment and engagement) reveal a
poor fit to the data [
x
2
(54) ¼1213.29, RMSEA ¼0.17, CFI ¼0.81, GFI ¼0.75,
AGFI ¼0.65, IFI ¼0.81, AIC ¼1261.29]. To avoid the problems related to the use of
Harman’s single factor test (see Podsakoff et al., 2003), we compared the results with an
alternative model which included multiple latent factors which a good model fit
[
x
2
(49) ¼229.01, RMSEA ¼0.07, CFI ¼0.97, GFI ¼0.95, AGFI ¼0.92, IFI ¼0.97,
AIC ¼287.03]. Results show a significantly lower fit of the model with one single
factor when compared to the model with multiple latent factors [Delta
x
2
(5) ¼984.282,
p,0.001]. Hence, one single factor could not account for the variance in the data.
Consequently, we may consider common method variance not to be a serious
deficiency in this dataset.
The results of the hierarchical regression analyses reveal that all the control
variables explained a significant 29.3 per cent of the variance in work engagement
behaviour, FChange (8,706) ¼36.65, p,0.001. The following control variables
predicted the criterion variable (work engagement): gender (b¼20.18, p,0.001),
marital status (b¼20.14, p ,0.001), organisational tenure (b¼0.43, p,0.001), job
tenure (b¼20.35, p,0.001), employment status (b¼0.11, p,0.01); job position
(b¼20.37, p,0.001) and educational attainment (b¼0.39, p,0.01). Age did not
predict work engagement.
Organisational trust explained 21.7 per cent of the variance in the criterion variable
over and above the control variables. In the regression equation, organisational trust
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387

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Engagement 3.15 0.55
2. Gender 1.52 0.50 20.21
3. Age 31.53 5.39 0.04 20.16 *
4. Marital status 1.49 0.50 20.03 20.20 *** 0.13 *
5. Org. Tenure 3.57 2.57 0.12 *20.32 *0.28 *0.45 *
6. Job tenure 2.77 1.92 20.04 20.36 *0.19 *0.30 *0.77 *
7. Employ. status 1.60 0.46 0.19 *20.31 *0.09 ** 0.27 *0.37 *0.34 *
8. Job position 1.39 0.49 20.07 *** 20.24 *0.12a 0.21 *0.39 *0.29 *0.36 *
9. Education 1.62 0.49 0.36 *20.28 *0.07 *** 0.08 ** 0.17 *0.07 *** 0.42 *0.45 *
10. Org. Trust 3.05 0.65 0.64*20.17 *0.08 *** 20.00 0.10 *0.03 0.22 *0.01 0.38 *
11. Empowerment 3.59 0.64 0.62 *20.17 *0.07 *** 0.10 *0.11 *0.02 0.33 *0.11 *0.29 *0.59 *–
Notes: *p,0.001; **
p,0.01; ***
p,0.05. A total of 715 employees completed the questionnaires. Gender (1 ¼male, 2 ¼female); Age (1 ¼young,
2¼old); Marital status (1 ¼single, 2 ¼married); Employment status (1 ¼contract, 2 ¼permanent); Job position (1 ¼junior staff, 2 ¼senior);
Education (1 ¼below degree certificate, 2 ¼degree certificate and above). Raw scores of other variables were entered as they were collected
Table I.
Means, standard
deviations and
intercorrelations among
the study variables
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positively predicted the criterion variable (b¼0.52, p,0.001), which is consistent
with H1 in that organisational trust will be positively related to work engagement.
Psychological empowerment explained 5.3 per cent of the variance in the criterion
variable over and above the control variables and organisational trust [F Change (1,
704) ¼86.01, p,0.001)]. In the regression equation, psychological empowerment
positively predicted work engagement (b¼0.37, p,0.001), which is consistent with
H2 in that organisational trust will be positively related with work engagement.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that psychological empowerment will moderate the positive
relationship between organisational trust and employee work engagement so that in
situations of low organisational trust, those workers with high levels of psychological
empowerment will show higher levels of engagement. As shown in Table II (step 4), the
interaction was statistically significant ( p,0.001), showing that psychological
empowerment moderated the relationship between organisational trust and work
engagement (b¼20.19, p,0.001). In addition, the fourth step model, which included
the interaction term between organisational trust and psychological empowerment,
revealed from the standardised coefficients that the strongest predictor of work
engagement was psychological empowerment (b¼0.36, p,0.001), followed by
organisational trust (b¼0.27, p,0.001).
Regarding the socio-demographic variables, we also found that strong predictors of
work engagement were: gender (b¼20.15, p,0.001), marital status (b¼20.16,
p,0.001), organisational tenure (b¼0.36, p,0.001), job tenure (b¼20.28,
p,0.001), job position (b¼20.26, p,0.001) and education (b¼0.18, p,0.001).
However, age and employment status were not predictors of work engagement.
Figure 1 illustrates the moderation effects of psychological empowerment on the
relationship between organisational trust and work engagement.
Steps
Variables 1 2 3 4
Gender 20.18 *20.14a 20.13 *20.15 *
Age 20.02 20.04 20.04 20.07
Marital status 20.14 *20.10 *** 20.13 *20.16 *
Org’l tenure 0.43 *0.36 *0.35 *0.36 *
Job tenure 20.35 *20.30 *20.26 *20.28 *
Employment
status
0.11 *** 0.05 20.03 20.05
Job position 20.37 *20.24 *20.27 *20.26 *
Education 0.39 *0.18 *0.23 *0.18 *
Org’l trust 0.52 *0.25 *0.27 *
Empowerment 0.37 *0.36 *
Org’l trust £
Empowerment
20.19 *
R
2
0.29 0.51 0.56 0.59
R
2
change 0.29 0.22 0.05 0.03
F-change F(8,706) ¼36.65 *** F(9,705) ¼312.22 *** F(10,704) ¼86.02 *** F(1,703) ¼51.76 *
F-values F(8,708) ¼36.65 *** F(9,705) ¼81.63 *** F(10,704) ¼90.93 *** F(11,703) ¼93.33 ***
Notes: Total adjusted ¼0.27; *p,0.001; **
p,0.01; ***
p,0.05
Table II.
Hierarchical regression
results and test of
moderation (n¼715
employees)
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Discussion
In this study, we empirically investigated the relationship between organisational
trust, psychological empowerment and work engagement. Moreover, we also examined
the relationship between the construct of psychological empowerment and employee
work engagement. In addition, we tested the moderating effect of psychological
empowerment on the relationship between organisational trust and work engagement.
We tested our assertions with the three hypotheses, and the findings supported our
predictions. More specifically, this study reveals that organisational trust (H1) and
psychological empowerment (H2) are positively related to work engagement.
Furthermore, psychological empowerment moderates the relationship between
organisational trust and employee work engagement (H3), in that sense, employees
who perceive both good organisational trust and great psychological empowerment
will show higher levels of engagement. Moreover, in situations where employees
perceive poor organisational trust, those employees with greater psychological
empowerment will show higher levels of work engagement than those with lower
levels of psychological empowerment.
The reason for this result could be explained by the fact that when employees trust
their employers/supervisors, or perceive themselves as being able to influence job
outcomes, then employees will accordingly respond with positive job behaviours
(Anderson and Williams, 1996; Wat and Shaffer, 2005).
Organizational trust and work engagement
The results found in the present study corroborate Robinson’s et al. (2004) description
of engagement as a two-way relationship between the organisation and the employees,
and also the idea of Saks (2006) that one way for individuals to repay their organisation
is through their level of engagement. In other words, employees choose to engage
themselves to varying degrees and in response to the resources they receive from their
organisation. Exhibition of strong engagement behaviour with work can be viewed as
a relationship that evolves over time into trusting, loyal and mutual commitments
(Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). The results of the present study are consistent with
earlier studies which found a positive relationship between organisational trust and
Figure 1.
Moderation effect of
psychological
empowerment on work
engagement
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positive job outcomes (e.g. Dolan et al., 2005; Lester and Brower, 2003; Musacco, 2000;
Ning et al., 2007; Parker et al., 2006; Settoon and Mossholder, 2002; Yilmaz, 2008).
Psychological empowerment and work engagement
Psychological empowerment was also found to have a significant positive relationship
with work engagement. Psychological empowerment explains 5.3 per cent of the
variance in work engagement, thus confirming Hypothesis 2 in that psychological
empowerment positively related with work engagement. Psychological empowerment
has been compared to a motivational concept such as self-efficacy (Conger and
Kanungo, 1988). This might be the reason why Randolph (2000) defined the concept as
recognising and releasing into the organisation the power that people already have in
their wealth of useful knowledge and internal motivation. It makes sense to say that
psychological empowerment draws from two different resources: from the individual
on the one hand, and from the organisation in which one works on the other hand. As a
result, psychological resources should be a powerful predictor of positive work
outcomes. Hence, the present research observes the construct as a strong predictor of
work engagement.
Moreover, our findings are also consistent with previous studies that linked
empowerment with positive job behaviours, such as productivity, proactivity,
customer service, job satisfaction, emotional and organisational commitment (Avolio
et al., 2004; Bordin et al., 2006; Dickson and Lorenz, 2009; Hechanova et al., 2009;
Kirkman and Rosen, 1999; Manz and Sims, 1993; Mohd et al., 2009; Spreitzer, 1995;
Ugboro, 2006). Our results also agree with recent studies (e.g. Stander and Rothmann,
2010) that found a positive relationship between the components of psychological
empowerment and employee engagement.
The moderating role of psychological empowerment
Another intriguing result is the moderating effect of psychological empowerment on
the relationship between organisational trust and work engagement. The hierarchical
regression analyses results reveal that psychological empowerment moderates the
relationship between organisational trust and work engagement. The positive
relationship between organisational trust and work engagement is stronger for
workers who perceive poor psychological empowerment than those who perceive great
empowerment.
Our findings are consistent with previous studies regarding the moderating role of
personal resources. Specifically, personal resources partially mediated the effects of job
resources (autonomy, social support, and opportunities for professional development –
resources closely related to psychological empowerment-) on worker engagement,
suggesting that job resources promoted the development of personal resources which,
in turn, augment employees’ work engagement (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). Results are
in line with results related to self-efficacy literature, which is highly related to the
self-determination component of psychological empowerment. In fact, post-training
self-efficacy mediates the relationship among training and job satisfaction,
commitment and turnover intentions (Saks, 1995). Further research showed that
self-efficacy played a mediating role between task resources (i.e. method and time
control) and work engagement (Llorens et al., 2007). Moreover self-efficacy was a
partial mediator of the relationship between managers’ rated effectiveness and
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engagement (Luthans and Peterson, 2002); and that psychological empowerment
mediates the effects of transformational leadership on followers’ organisational
commitment (Avolio et al., 2004). Results of our study are in line with these
meditational empirical works because a moderation analysis explains where and how a
possible mediator (i.e. psychological empowerment) may have an effect on the
relationship between a predictor and a criterion (Baron and Kenny, 1986). Employees
with great psychological empowerment are ordinarily work-engaged irrespectively of
the level of trust they have in their organisations.
Study implications
The results of this study have implications for cross-cultural analyses. This study was
conducted in a peculiar environment; a developing nation where organisational
behaviour has been scarcely investigated. As a unique environment for this study,
Nigeria employees have had to grapple with ugly experiences in terms of uncertainty
which often lead to lay-off and anxiety due to the different strategies either introduced
by the government or adopted by organisations to remain in competition. Since the
future of every organisation depends on the work behaviours of their employees,
managers of organisations need to create an atmosphere of trust and empower their
employees psychologically for them to bring out their best in favour of their
organisations. Interestingly, the findings seem consistent with earlier findings from
developed economies of North America and Europe (e.g. Kirkman et al., 2004; May et al.,
2004). The findings, therefore, show that, despite the context, employees in Nigeria can
also be engaged in their work. Moreover, we also found that organisational variables
(organisational trust) and psychological resources (such as psychological
empowerment) that predict positive job behaviour in Western cultures are also
important in understanding Nigerian workers’ positive organisational behaviours.
Theoretically, and in line with the social exchange perspective, our findings relating
to the positive relationship between organisational trust and work engagement imply
that employees engage in their work as a way of reciprocating the good gesture that
the organisation has extended to them (Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960). Since engagement
has replaced control in modern organisations, and the close supervision and
monitoring of employees are no longer required for improved performance, it becomes
relevant for organisations to adopt a strategy that facilitates its workforce’s
engagement. This is crucial because engagement holds the premise of exceptional
financial returns (Huselid, 1995).
The relationship identified between organisational trust and work engagement
opens up opportunities for management practitioners. For practical purposes, the
results suggest that organisational trust is a significant component of organisational
interventions. Thus, it is proposed that organisations and their employees understand
that the only way to remain viable is to support each other; while the organisation tries
to create an atmosphere of trust, employees reciprocate this by becoming
work-engaged. They should indulge in a give-and- take form of relationship. These
behaviours not only help both parties feel confident, but also create a positive work
environment that enhances work performance.
Moreover, since the employees who perceive great psychological empowerment do
not differ in work engagement regardless of the organisational trust’s atmosphere, it is
recommended that employees be empowered via psychological empowerment
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procedures and interventions. Given that psychological empowerment is strongly
related to work engagement, it is suggested that organisations should study how to
design empowerment intervention programs to help their employees show their
maximum potential. Management might even set this program as the organisation’s
mini goal to help the organisation fulfill its main goal in the long term. In other words,
empowerment intervention programs may play a crucial role in understanding
employees’ adaptation in their work environment.
Limitations and suggestions for further research
Despite its contributions, this study is not without limitations. First of all, it was not
possible to address causality questions in this study since the data were collected at
only one point in time (a cross-sectional survey design). Longitudinal studies are
needed to determine causality (Randall et al., 1999). Specifically regarding reverse
causality since, according to Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005), relationships alter the
nature of exchanges. Although the form of the transaction seems capable of altering a
relationship, the reverse also can be the case. Therefore, additional research with
longitudinal design should be used in the future to test the causal relationships.
Moreover, a social desirability bias may have led participants to answer questions
about socially desirable attitudes, states and behaviours (Bowling, 2005) in the
direction perceived as “fair”. This might have artificially inflated the work engagement
scores. However, the anonymity ensured and the assurance that participants’
responses would be used for academic purposes only may have diminished this risk.
Furthermore, all the participants in the current study were sampled from the
services and production sectors according to their job descriptions, which also vary.
Such variability may have hindered us from finding a stronger relationship among
organisational trust, psychological empowerment and work engagement. This is in
accordance with Khan’s (1990) assertion that the congruence between an individual’s
self-image and his or her key professional role may positively impact on work
engagement. In order to solve this problem, the variability in the organisation and the
participants’ job descriptions would need to be more strictly limited in future studies.
Further research should involve a broader spectrum of homogeneous workers in order
to authenticate the generalisation of its findings.
In spite of these limitations, the present study should be seen as one of the first
attempts to empirically examine the relationship among organisational trust,
psychological empowerment and employee work engagement. Therefore, new
avenues of research on how to facilitate engagement through trust and
empowerment (using longitudinal designs) should be addressed. Then it would be
desirable to investigate these relationships with intervention studies. Furthermore,
fostering employee work engagement through trust and psychological empowerment
is a highly viable organisational goal because of its impact on important organisational
outcomes. It is, therefore, understood that by developing a climate of trust within their
respective organisations, and by providing an environment that fosters psychological
empowerment; organisational leaders can increase work engagement, which, in turn,
boosts their organisations’ chances of competing favourably in the marketplace, even
in developing countries.
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Corresponding author
Ike E. Onyishi can be contacted at: ernest.onyishi@unn.edu.ng
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