Empowering leadership behaviors and work outcomes: mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of need for achievement

This research focused on the impact of empowering leadership behaviors on employees’ work outcomes, including in-role behaviors, organizational citizenship behaviors directed toward the organization (OCBO), and affective commitment. This impact is proposed to be mediated by psychological empowerment. Also, I propose the association between empowering leadership behaviors and psychological empowerment will be moderated by the presence of employees’ need for achievement, such that the association is stronger when need for achievement is high. The hypotheses were tested using survey data collected from 160 full-time employees in different organizations in Hong Kong. Results showed that the hypotheses were supported, except that of the mediating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between empowering leadership behaviors and OCBO, and the moderating role of need for achievement. The report concluded with a discussion of the managerial implications of the findings.