Research On The Influence Of Empowered Leadership On Employees' Work Engagement And Work Performance

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how empowering leadership influences employees' work engagement and in-role performance via job crafting(increasing job resources,increasing job demands and reducing job demands).Empowering leadership is defined as leader behaviors directed at individuals or entire teams and consisting of delegating authority to employees,promoting their self-directed and autonomous decision making,coaching and sharing information.A large body of studies has examined the effects of empowering leadership on employees' attitudes,behaviors and performance in the workplace.Yet few studies have examined the role of job crafting in the links between empowering leadership and work-related outcomes.To address this limitation,we propose the links between empowering leadership and work enagegement and in-role performance via job crafting(increasing job resources,increasing job demands and reducing job demands).More specifically,we argue that empowering leaders encourage their followers to optimize their job demands and resources,and craft their jobs such that the jobs are better aligned with employee personal needs,abilities,and preferences,and in turn influences work engagement and performance.On the basis of the literature on on empowering leadership,job crafting,work engagement and in-role performance,we developed a thorough understanding of the definitions,dimensions,and measurement of these constructs as well as the relationships among these constructs.Then,we traced the development of our conceptual model by discussing the role of empowering leadership in facilitating employee job crafting,work engagement and in-role performance and the mediating roles of separate job crafting dimensions in links between empowering leadership and work engagement and in-role performance.Based on the extensive data from 733 Chinese employees across a variety of organization located predominantly in Chongqing and Xian,China,we carried out different types of statistic analysis such as confirmatory factor analysis(CFA)and structural equation modeling(SEA)to examine the relationships among empowering leadership,specific job crafting dimensions,work engagement and work performance,test our hypothesis and our conceptual model.The results from structural equation modeling(SEA)suggested that empowering leadership was positively related to employees' work engagement and in-role performance;empowering leadership was positively related to employees' job crafting(increasing job resources,increasing job demands and reducing job demands);increasing job resources,increasing job demands and reducing job demands were positively related to in-role performance,and increasing job demands and reducing job demands were positively related to work engagement;increasing job resources played a mediating role in the links between empowering leadership and in-role performance,increasing job demands played a mediating role in the links between empowering leadership and work enagegemt and in-role performance and reducing job demands played a mediating role in the links between empowering leadership and work enagegemt and in-role performance.