Need for Growth, Achievement, Power and Affiliation

Abstract

Empowerment is giving frontline employee discretion to take decisions instantly, keeping in mind the organizational consequences. In service organizations attracting and retaining customer is a daunting task. Empowering employees psychologically will help them in taking proactive actions to serve customers better. The objective of the present article is to study the influence of motivational needs on psychological empowerment. The independent variable is motivational needs (need for growth, achievement, power and affiliation). Psychological empowerment, a dependent variable, in the present study, has been studied by intrinsic task motivation (which is measured by meaning, competence, self-determination and impact). It is hypothesized that the four motivational needs that is, need for achievement, power, affiliation and growth will positively influence psychological empowerment. Standard instruments are administered to measure different variables and to investigate the influence of chosen variables on psychological empowerment. Several statistical techniques like correlation, multiple regression and canonical correlation are used to measure the significance and strength of relationship between identified independent and dependent variables. The main conclusion is that all motivational needs, other than the need for affiliation, are significantly and positively related to psychological empowerment (intrinsic task motivation). The positive relationship between psychological empowerment and need for affiliation was hypothesized thinking five star hotels as the source of sample where employees are required to demonstrate high degree of need for affiliation.