A Study on the Correlations among Empowering Leadership, Organizational Identification, and Team Performance in Medical Industry

Once the service satisfaction of medical personnel is reduced and the enthusiasm cannot be acquired from work, the turnover rate would be increased to further affect medical manpower. Not only is the quality of services influenced, but patient safety would also be seriously affected further to harm the operation of a hospital. Aiming at Kaohsiung Municipal Min-Sheng Hospital, the medical personnel are distributed 350 copies of questionnaires in this study. Deducting invalid ones with incomplete responses, 214 effective copies are collected, with the retrieval rate 61 percent. The research results presented significantly positive effects of Empowering Leadership on Organizational Identification, remarkably positive effects of Organizational Identification on Team Performance, and notably positive effects of Empowering Leadership on Team Performance. The tests of such relationship are expected to contribute to the theory and the practice in medical industry. Address for correspondence: Dr. Chich-Jen Shieh Department of International Business, Chang Jung Christian University, Taiwan No.1, Changda Rd. Gueiren District, Tainan City 71101, Taiwan, ROC E-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION In addition to the focus on services, the achievement of service satisfaction, and on-period attention and concern similar to other service industries, the service objects in medicine industry are “patients” being taken care of by physicians and nurses, rather than healthy people. Especially, resident patients require 24 hour care and services of three-shift medical staff. Empowering leadership therefore is applied in medicine industry, allowing medical staff working more independently. Task autonomy is regarded as a key factor in the service motivation of medical staff. Once medical staff reduces the service satisfaction and is not enthusiastic at work, the increasing dismission rate would further affect medical manpower, the quality of service, patient safety, and hospital operation. Favorable team interaction could induce the employee motivation to work positively. Medical staff identifying himself/herself as a member in the employed organization, perceiving distance from the organization, and being supported the organizational objective by organizational members are important for the organizational identification. The more identification of medical staff with the organization, the larger contribution would be made, the higher evaluation to the organization is presented, and the more harmonious work with other organizational members is performed. In this case, serving patients with teamwork would enhance the quality of service and team performance with the high service motivation and personal strength of medical staff. Furthermore, the more prestigious and respectable medical organization in the society would enhance the organizational commitment, self-esteem, and self-value of medical staff and further motivate the self-promotion. Accordingly, empowering leadership could reinforce task autonomy and teamwork, allow medical staff to have and exercise decision-making power, independently do well on the tasks, and favorably interact with team members to commonly achieve the tasks. Based on above motivation, medical staff in domestic medicine industry is studied to understand the perceived empowering leadership and the relationship among empowering © Kamla-Raj 2015 Ethno Med, 9(1): 9-17 (2015) 10 HSIOU-HSIANG LIU AND CHICH-JEN SHIEH leadership, organizational identification, and team performance. The verification of the relationship is expected to contribute to the theory and practice in medicine industry. Literature and Research Hypothesis Empowering Leadership Defined in Management Psychology, Empowering Leadership is a motivation structure including two different views. (1) Empowering Leadership as “enable” defines empowerment as self-efficacy or self-determination (Akhtar et al. 2013). (2) Empowering Leadership as to enhance intrinsic task motivation has a person actively and continuously completes the organization objectives through personal evaluation or awareness of the task meaning (Çalýskan et al. 2010). Management scientists explained Empowering Leadership as sharing power and authority or enabling to achieve the objectives and regard empowerment as a process and a linear state, but not the state of spots. Sharing power or authority refers to providing sufficient information and skills, opportunities, resources, and the power to participate in decisions so that the employees could achieve the organizational objectives (Grant et al. 2011; Lin et al. 2015). Apparently, Empowering Leadership is divided into two points of views. First is the leaders’ behavior of sharing power, giving autonomy, and responsibility to the employees (Lambert et al. 2010). Second, the employees responding to empowerment as special encouragement (Lorinkova et al. 2013). Referring to Sluss et al. (2011) Empowering Leadership is divided into five dimensions in the present study. Leading by Example: A leader influences the team members with personal work performance. Participation in Decision-Making: A leader would make decisions by taking the team members’ information into account. Instruction: A leader would instruct and help the team members become confident. Informing: A leader would deliver the company tasks and philosophy to the team members. Expressing Concerns: A leader would express the general concerns to the welfare of the team members. Organizational Identification Organizational Identification means an organizational member defining the relationship between oneself and the organization (Bezuijen et al. 2010; Abalasei and Cojocariu 2012). Four concepts are classified for Organizational Identification. (1) Identification is personal perceived concept without any special behaviors (Chen et al. 2011; Molina et al. 2013). (2) Identification is generated when an individual appears comparison and relationship with others (Heponiemi et al. 2011). (3) Based on the second statement, individual identification proposed in social identification theory is to enhance the dignity (Liang et al. 2012) that an individual would normally present self-value and positive social identification when establishing an identification concept (Lowry et al. 2013). (4) An individual reveals strong identification because he/she considers the identification would offer him the status. Parker and Collins (2010) pointed out Organizational Identification as individual perception of tight connection between organizational members and the organization, including the success and failure experiences of the company. According to Zhang et al. (2012), Organizational Identification is divided into three dimensions in this study. (1) Centripetal Force: A team-centered selfconcept. (2) Group Influence: The dignity generated from team contribution. (3) Group Relationship: The interpersonal relationship with other team members.