Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
The Relationship between Structural Empowerment and Job
Satisfaction: Case Study of a Thai Auto Mobile Company
Wannapa Luekitinan *
This study aimed to explore level of structural empowerment and level of
job satisfaction in a Thai auto mobile company, including investigate the
relationship between structural empowerment and job satisfaction. The
questionnaire was used to gather the data for empirical analysis. The
sample was 226 first-line employees in an auto mobile company and
systematic random sampling was used to select sample. For measurement,
the structural empowerment variable consisted of information, support,
resources, and opportunities, and the job satisfaction consisted of work
itself, advancement, recognition, responsibility, and opportunity for growth.
To collect data, the electronic mailing was used and the response rate was
86.28%. The finding revealed the structural empowerment positively related
to employee job satisfaction. Especially, support factor strongly relate to job
satisfaction. Further research should consider psychological empowerment
impact on job satisfaction and employed qualitative method to gather indepth data.
Name of Track: Management, Human Resource Management
1. Introduction
Empowerment is a modern management technique that essential to organizational
change, learning, and transformation as the global business environment becomes ever
more competitive (Dimitriades, 2005) according to employee empowerment is commonly a
fundamental and explicit part of the prescriptions offered to improve business
performance (Division and Martinsons, 2002).
Considering benefits of empowerment, it can be divided into two areas that are benefits
for the organization and benefits for the individual. Specially, organizations have sought
improvements in cost control, flexibility, and quality improvement. While benefits for the
individual are reducing conflict, ambiguity, and emotional strain in their role, including
empowered employees will have a great sense of job satisfaction, motivation, and
organizational royalty (Greasley and King, 2005).
Regarding empowerment in industry, empowerment in manufacturing organization is part
of the general move toward greater task flexibility and the need for employees to take on
increase initiative and responsibility (Yusoff and Abdullah, 2008). Especially, front-line
workers are best placed to make decision about what to do and how to do it (Kuo, Ho, Lin,
and Lai, 2010). Thus, organization have to delegated decision power, provided
appropriate training for them, gave the relevant strategic information and rewarded
employee for achieving results (Boudrias, Gaudreau, Savoie and Morin, 2009). Moreover,
*Dr. Wannapa Luekitinan, Human Resource Manangement Program, Faculty of Management and Tourism,
Burapha University, Thailand. Tel. +668 3112 4070 Address : 169, Long Had Rd., Sean Suk, Mueng, Chonburi,
20130, Thailand. Email: Wannapa.w236@yahoo.com,
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Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
the organization should support employees; such as time off from regular duties, clerical
support and budgetary support (Wooddell, 2009). However, understanding difference
dimensions of empowerment will enable managers to design and implement a successful
empowerment program (Yang and Choi, 2009).
This study aimed to explore level of structural empowerment and level of job satisfaction
in a Thai auto mobile company, including investigating the relationship between structural
empowerment and job satisfaction. The paper divided into five parts; the first part is
introduction, the second part is literature review, the third part is methodology, the fourth
part is findings and the last part is conclusion and limitation.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Empowerment
In the 1990s, empowerment was considered and advocated as a means to liberate
workers, encourage them to be more innovative, and make them both happier and more
productive (Division and Martinsons, 2002). The meaning of empowerment has tended to
be associated with the concept of power, thereby inferring that power is redistributed by in
a senior position to subordinate position (Greasley and King, 2005). Remarkably, many
proponents of employee empowerment seem to assume that employees will eagerly
accept the responsibility for managing their own work and making decisions related to
their work (Division and Martinsons, 2002; Greasley and King, 2005). These will enrich
employees' work experience and directly affect to work-related outcome (Kuo, Ho, Lin,
and Lai, 2010).
In addition to the process of empowerment is a social exchange-driven process which
requires managers to reduce power and control, and instead use cooperation and
facilitation with their subordinate. Thus, subordinates' trust and organizational support;
such as structure, social politic, resource, information and culture, are very critical in this
process (Chan, Taylor, and Markham, 2008). Wooddell (2009) stated the four components
of empowerment in organization level that support employee empowerment as follow:
 Shared vision – the vision should originate with the directors. The individual or team
was delegated by authority to identified its goals and design its own process to
achieve its goals. Moreover, developing leadership skill of key employees and
facilitated at staff meetings in every major weeks would be help department to
address an organizational problems.
 Organizational support – the organization should support employee including time
off from regular duties, clerical support and budgetary support.
 Knowledge and learning – employees have to improve their skill in project
management, such as brainstorming, facilitated discussion, time management, and
problem solving.
 Institutional recognition – organization must recognize employee’s skills in
implementing a complex task under difficult condition.
Considering empowerment supporting, Kanter’s theory of structural empowerment have
well known that described four environment social structures necessary for effective
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Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
employee empowerment. The theory indicated that structural empowerment must be in
place by leader and then channeled through the employee. The components of structural
empowerment are (Kanter, 1993):
 Information – leaders can give employees the sense of purpose of work meaning,
and enhance ability to make decision that contributes organizational goals.
 Support – can be described as feedback, guidance, emotional support, helpful
advice, or hand-on assistance, which can all be very beneficial to employees.
 Resources – leaders must allow employee to access material, supplies, time, and
equipment to achieve organizational goals.
 Opportunities – leaders must concern employee growth, professional development,
and the chance to increase skills and goals.
2.2 Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction refers to the degree which individual feels positive and negative aspects
of the job (Schermerhorn, 1996). Nowadays, job satisfaction is an important issue to
organization because it not only related to employee performance; such as work
efficiency, absenteeism and turnover that lead to higher labor cost, but also related to
organizational performance; such as quality of product and customer satisfaction. If
companies want to manage corporate performance, managers must develop an
understanding of factors that affect employee satisfaction (Droussiotis and Austin, 2007)
To evaluate job satisfaction, researcher tried to find factors contributing to job
satisfaction, but traditional theory was popular and was employed to measure job
satisfaction. According to Herzberg (1966), the evaluation of job satisfaction divides job
situation factors into those that lead to job satisfaction and those that lead to job
dissatisfaction. Herzberg’s job satisfaction factors include the work itself achievement,
advancement, recognition, responsibility, and opportunity for growth, while Locke (1976)
determined seven work issues associated with job satisfaction. These include: mentally
challenging work, personal interest in the specific job, work that is not too physically tiring,
perceived equitable rewards, appropriate working conditions, employee self-esteem,
management assistance in managing the workplace by minimizing conflict and ensuring
that work is interesting and good pay/promotions are available.
2.3 The Relationship between Structural Empowerment and Job Satisfaction
The relationship between worker empowerment and job satisfaction is much more
complex. Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, and Wilk (2004) stated change in perceived
structural empowerment had direct effect on changes in psychological empowerment and
job satisfaction due to the fostering environment can enhance employee perception of
empowerment, as well as, Kruja and Oelfke (2009) noted in their work that empowerment
strongly impact on job satisfaction.
Mushipe (2011) reported empowerment is positively associated with job satisfaction.
Besides decision making embraced several areas such as self-governance, freedom, and
self-control, and information sharing facilitated the whole empowerment exercise.
Furthermore, authority granting has an impact on employee attitude, job satisfaction and
job commitment (Kazlauskaite, Buciuniene, and Turauskas, 2012) that the most positive
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Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
aspects related to job satisfaction are relations with the colleagues and physical
conditions(Pelit, Öztürk, and Arslantürk, 2011).
Fig. 1: Conceptual Framework
Structural
Empowerment
- Information
- Support
- Resources
- Opportunities
Job Satisfaction
- Work itself
- Advancement
- Recognition
- Responsibility
- Opportunity for growth
3. The Methodology
The study employed quantitative method and questionnaire was used to gather the data
for empirical analysis. The population was 518 first-line employees in an auto mobile
company. The 226 sample size was calculated by using Taro Yamané formula and
systematic random sampling was used to select samples. To collect data, the electronic
mailing was employed and the total number of returns was 195; the response rate was
86.28%.
For measurement, the structural empowerment variable consisted of information, support,
resources, and opportunities based on Kanter’s Theory, and the job satisfaction consisted
of work itself, advancement, recognition, responsibility, and opportunity for growth based
on Herzberg’s Theory. Further, Likert scale ranging from 1 (fully disagree) to 5 (fully agree)
was used to measure both variables.
4. The findings
Most respondents were male (n = 123), age between 31-40 years (n = 94) and 34.35% of
employees stayed with the organization between 1-5 years as show in table 1.
Table 1 Sample Distribution
Topics
Gender
Male
Female
Age
20-30 Years
31-40 Years
41-50 Years
Work Period
0-1 Years
1-5 Years
6-10 Years
More than 10 Years
Number of Employees
Percentage
123
72
63.07
6.93
59
94
42
30.25
48.20
21.55
25
67
55
48
12.82
34.35
28.20
24.63
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Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
Considering total structural empowerment, means was 3.18 and the employee ranged the
support and opportunity in the higher rate (xˉ = 3.37, SD = 0.30), followed by the
information (xˉ = 3.36, SD = 0.41), and the resource was ranged in lower rate (xˉ = 2.62, SD
= 0.32).
Table 2 Means and Standard Deviation of Structural Empowerment
Factors
Information
Support
Resource
Opportunity
Total
Means
3.36
3.37
2.62
3.37
3.18
SD
0.41
0.30
0.32
0.30
0.33
Considering total job satisfaction, means was 3.57 and the employee ranged the
responsibility in the higher rate (xˉ = 3.71, SD = 0.96), followed by the work itself (xˉ = 56.3,
SD = 1.00), opportunity for growth (xˉ = 56.4, SD = 0.96), advancement (xˉ = 56.0, SD =
0.99), and the recognition was ranged in lower rate (xˉ = 3.39, SD = 0.93).
Table 3 Means and Standard Deviation of Job Satisfaction
Factors
work itself
advancement
recognition
responsibility
opportunity for growth
Total
Means
3.65
3.60
3.39
3.71
3.64
3.57
SD
1.00
0.99
0.93
0.96
0.96
0.39
The structural empowerment was positively significant correlated with job satisfaction (r =
0.61, p≤0.05) and all factors were significant correlated with job satisfaction. The variable
that closely relate to job satisfaction was support (r = 0.65, p≤0.05). The later variable that
positively significant relate to job satisfaction were opportunity (r = 0.52, p≤0.05) and
resource (r = 0.43, p≤0.05). Finally, information was positively significant correlated with
job satisfaction at lower level (r = 0.11, p≤0.05).
Table 4 Relationship between Structural Empowerment and Job Satisfaction
Structured Empowerment
Information
Support
Resource
Opportunity
Total
Job Satisfaction (r)
0.41*
0.65*
0.23*
0.52*
0.61*
* p ≤0.05
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Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
5. Conclusions and Limitations
This study aimed to explore level of structural empowerment and level of job satisfaction
in a Thai auto mobile company, including investigating the relationship between structural
empowerment and job satisfaction. As the findings in previous section, the structural
empowerment positively relate to job satisfaction. Especially, support factor strongly relate
to job satisfaction that can described base on social exchange-driven process which
require managers to reduce power and control, and instead of cooperation and facilitation
with their subordinate [10]. For leader role, manager should be supportive leader that
encourage employees to use their decision-making authority and manager must trust
employee abilities, commitment and judgment. Further, giving employees guidance how to
use their increased authority, and support them in performing new role successfully
(Klidas, Berg and Wilderom, 2007). This can create employees' trust and reduce their
stress from their decision associated with subordinate’s work (Chan, Taylor, and
Markham, 2008)
According to this study is a pilot research, the author have not concern in another type of
empowerment, such psychological empowerment, including job attitudes that would
impact on employee performance. Besides the time limitation and population is a single
company, the results is not quit complete and reliability. Therefore, further research should
increase population, compare with other industry, and emphasize on other variables as
mentioned. Moreover, the qualitative method might gather the hidden issues or causal
relation about empowerment and job satisfaction.
6. References
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Proceedings of 26th International Business Research Conference
7 - 8 April 2014, Imperial College, London, UK, ISBN: 978-1-922069-46-7
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