Psychological Empowerment and Organisational Commitment among Academic Staff of Public Universities in Malaysia

Abstract

The study examined the level of the Three-Component Model of organisational commitment (TCM) and its relationship with psychological empowerment. The sample was selected through a three-stage cluster random sampling among academic staff from three public universities in Malaysia. Cross-sectional survey research questionnaires were used as instruments of data collection. All variables under study have met the testing standard of reliability, validity and normality. SPSS version 22 was used to analyse the data obtained from 225 respondents of the study. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the levels of organisational commitment, and inferential statistical techniques such as Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression were used to examine the relationship between organisational commitment and psychological empowerment. The levels of organisational commitment of respondents were reported to be generally moderate but variations exist across its three different components namely the affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. The results of Pearson’s correlation indicated a significant and positive relationships between all these three components of organisational commitment and overall organisational commitment with overall psychological empowerment and its four-dimensional components. The strongest relationship was identified between overall organizational commitment and psychological empowerment’s dimension of impact. The multiple regression analyses indicated that more than 20% of the variance in the overall scores of organizational commitments could be predicted by the overall psychological empowerment and its four-dimensional components. In addition, the multiple regression analyses indicated that the two strongest predictors of organisational commitment were the dimension of meaning and impact. Overall, the study has provided evidence of a significant relationship between excellent empowerment practices with organisational commitment among the academic staff in public universities in Malaysia. The study has its implications towards enhancement of policies and administration in higher education in Malaysia.