Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in Business
ISSN: 2046-7141
Vol. 2, Issue. 6, (pp.10- 24) | 2012
Analyzing the relationship between organizational structure and employee
empowerment in Eastern Azerbaijan
Hossein Vazifedoust
Department of Business Management, Science and Research Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Mohammad Nasiri
Department of Business Management, Science and Research Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Abdollah Norouzi
Department of Business Management, Science and Research Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
e-mail: Abdollahnorouzi63@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Current study is aimed at analyzing the relationship between organization's structure and employees'
empowerment of Eastern Azerbaijan. For this reason, organizational structure has been defined based on Robins'
theory in three dimensions of formality, complexity, and centralization, and empowerment is according to
Spreitzer theory in five dimensions of competency, autonomy's sense, the sense of trust, the sense of
meaningfulness, and the sense of effectiveness and in this regard one main hypothesis and three sub-hypotheses
have been arranged. Research population is employees of Eastern Azerbaijan's governorship in which they are
375 people. According to Morgan's table, 190 people have been selected as the sample size. In this research, data
collection instrument is questionnaire, which provided statistical sample after assessing its validity and reliability.
After gathering questionnaires, by means of descriptive statistics methods, obtained information was summarized
and classified and Pearson test was used for testing research hypotheses. Results indicate that a significant
relationship exists between organizational structure and its dimensions with employee empowerment of Eastern
Azerbaijan's governorship.
Keywords: organizational structure, formality, complexity, centralization, empowerment
1. INTRODUCTION
Organization is a social phenomenon, which is coordinated consciously and has distinct boundaries and for
achieving goal or objectives, operates based on a sequence of permanent bases. Term "conscious" often
indicates management and social phenomenon implies that organization has been composed of individuals and
groups that interact with each other. Interactive patterns that people inside organization follow them don’t come
into existence accidentally but also has been already thought about them. Hence, since organizations are social
phenomena, so interactive patterns of their members must be level and harmonized so that ambiguity and
confusion is minimized and consequently ensuring that main organizational tasks are performed.
Organization has relatively certain boundaries to be able to distinguish organization's members from nonmembers. Being specified such boundaries are carried out by means of concluding formal or informal contracts
between members and organization. "Organizational structure stipulates how tasks are assigned, who does
reports whom and which are formal coordination mechanisms as well as organizational interactive patterns that
must be observed?" (Robbins, 2005: 21-22). Organizational structure is among indicators, which is considered
in the study of any organization. Organizations with various structures will be having different outputs; in the
age of various and quick environmental changes, having a mechanical and inflexible structure can't be
responsible to organizations' needs, organizations with such characteristics are condemned to decline and
annihilation. In today's world, organizations must be designed so that can adapt organization to environmental
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ISSN: 2046-7141
Vol. 2, Issue. 6, (pp.10- 24) | 2012
changes. In sum, it must be designed a structure that provides all employees' involvement in organizational
affairs, only by this procedure can be assured the sustainability and survival of organization in today's turbulent
world.
Governing situation on the country's administrative system is obvious for the public specially people who are
engaged in administrative system and its mazes. This situation is in a manner that has been presented numerous
problems including staff's disguised underemployment, unnecessary administrative bureaucracy, lingering
clients etc for society and users of government services. These problems are in a manner that have been in
practice questioned the efficiency of governmental organizations. Although the reason of all these problems
can't be summarized only in one case and several reasons can be involved in creation and continuance of status
quo, one reason of such problems is lack of employee's involvement in planning, decision making, and policy
making of public organizations, which in a way this appears in the lack of implementation or incomplete and
improper implementation of rules and regulations.
Employee involvement in organization affairs is one of important issues that today has been felt and considered
more than any other time. Because every day, quick and various changes in environmental factors increase the
amount of ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity of organizations' environment and the competitive advantages
of organizations is swamped basic change. To achieve sustainable competitive advantages and dynamic balance
in this turbulent environment, equipping to empowered employees has been become a critical principle. Since
employees are as only resources which can be exclusive in one organization than other organization and have
the capability of upgrading knowledge, skill, and motivation. Such capability not only is possible by staff
training but also must be prepared a situation so that employees themselves also forerun in this context using
their creativity. Therefore, as Roy and Sheena (2005) believe that not only managers must enjoy leadership
skills but also employees must learn methods which proceed towards leadership itself (Roy & Sheena, 2005, p.
41). To achieve these characteristics, organization must empower its most important competitive resource and
tool i.e. human resource (Davoudi & Rezaee, 2002, p. 49).
Employee's intellectual ability and thoughts in organization are provided organization as latent capitals.
Thinkers of change management and organization's improvement introduce empowerment models of human
resource, a strategic and effective approach on human resource performance. They believe that human resource
empowerment is a comprehensive approach, which can be effective in organization's change and improvement
path, also create or maintain organization's competitive advantage. For human resource empowerment,
organizations must extend their leadership ability aimed at compiling and shedding comprehensive strategy of
human resource empowerment. These goals should be flown in empowerment processes so that human
resources enjoy necessary knowledge and skill for solving problem in the organization, also hold them
motivated and satisfied by means of encouragement and persuasion in the path of individual and organizational
common interests. This process will feature the output of human resource performance in the degree of
involvement, creativity, innovation and other key performances.
Several factors can be effective in employees' empowerment which in this study, organizational structure has
been examined. For this purpose, according to Stephen Robbins's theory organizational structure has been
defined in three dimensions include:
 Formality
 Complexity
 Centralization
And based on Spreitzer theory, employees' empowerment is defined in five dimensions:
 Feeling of competency
 Sense of autonomy
 Sense of trust
 Sense of meaningfulness
 Feeling of effectiveness
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Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in Business
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In order to the relationship between organizational structure and employee empowerment of Eastern
Azerbaijan's governorship is examined. In general, this study is sought to answer following question:
What type of relationship is there between organizational structure and employee empowerment of Eastern
Azerbaijan's governorship?
2. RESEARCH LITERATURE AND BACKGROUND
Bernz and Stalker (1961) could take important steps to offer a model which has several structures. They
identified a mechanical structure which was much similar to ideal type of bureaucracy and called another type of
it organic structure which was approximately the counterpart of this structure. Hence, organic organization has
the network structure of control rather than has hierarchy of authority, works must be adjusted and changed
continuously and permanently rather than is specialized, and information must be exchanged constantly and
offered recommendations rather than the presence of supervisor who is at the top of organization.
Tom Bernz and G. M Stalker examined 20 British and Scottish companies in order to identify how structures
and managerial activities of these organizations may be different according to environmental conditions. What
they found was that the type of structure which existed in environments with sequential and dynamic changes
compared to a structure which organizations choose in a stable environment was completely different. Bernz
and Stalker named these two structures as organic (biological) and machine structures respectively.
According to Bernz and Stalker, the most effective structure is a structure which adapts itself to environmental
requirements i.e. machine design is usable in a stable and safe environment and organic structure serves in a
turbulent and with large changes environment. Therefore, they recognized that machine and organic structures
are ideal types of organizational structures which place on the two ends of a continuum. No organization has
pure machine structure but normally each organization moves in the direction of one of these two structures.
Furthermore, they emphasized that none of them doesn’t prefer to each other. It is the nature of organizational
structure which determines what structure must be used (Robbins, 2006, p. 181).
Cruzier (1964) studied two large organizations in two points of France. First organization was an administrative
entity which had a very simple structure regarding division of labor and works were very specialized, repeated,
and monotonous and there wasn’t large difference between units. Also, with regard to size or magnitude of
organization, organizational pyramid was short. If we look at this organization over two vertical and horizontal
axes (in organizational chart), it isn’t complex. When this researcher studied France Tobacco Company, third
axis (dispersion of units) was added to this research. The system was composed of 40 production units. These
units were relatively large which the number of employees in any one of them reached 350 to 400 people but
there were only 6 workers or employees in each production unit. Unit's supervisors undertook employees'
supervision and administration whether worker or administrative employee. Even specialized tasks were much
similar. He offers documents and evidences based on that structure simplicity doesn’t mean that mentioned
organization isn’t dealt with problems, also these problems are on the basis of internal and external conditions of
organization which don’t have any relationship with its structure. In summary, we can assume that if specialized
tasks (technology) alter in a manner that caused more effectiveness of organization, it will be more complex.
Alfred Chandler carried out a classic research about relationship between organization's strategy and its
structure and published in the early 1960s. He examined hundreds companies of American largest companies
and concluded that modifications in the strategy of these companies had been led to changes in their structure.
Therefore, whenever organizational structure doesn’t follow strategy, results will be unfavorable. Chandler
realized that his studied firms had been first launched with centralized structures. This case reflects this reality
that they first had limited production lines. They extended by increasing demand for their products, increased
their production lines and were forced to apply different structures to follow new strategies and conform firm to
these strategies. Essentially, he argues that organizations initiate operation by a product with a single production
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line, they perform only one task. In this situation, strategy simplicity of organizations is compatible to simple
and non coherent structure. Decisions can be centralized under the authority of one senior manager, because
organization's strategy is focused here and a structure which can implement this strategy must have little
complexity and formality.
According to Chandler's view, when organizations take up diversification, they must employ a different
structure compared to firms that follows single- product strategy (Robbins, 2006, p. 115).
In 2006, a study titled by "analyzing the relationship between organizational structure and employee
empowerment", a MA thesis, has been carried out by Majid Horabadi Farahani in school of management,
Tehran University. In this research, main topic is that why structural variables have more power for influencing
on the behavioral variables. Besides, analysis of organization's factors and structures imposes people a
framework that specifies the direction of people's behavior and their attitudes about organization and even
themselves, which recognizes the effect of these structures on our states, dispositions, and behaviors and thus
has been addressed to improve status quo (Horabadi Farahani, 2006).
In 2007 a research, "empowerment measurement of Tehran public firms' employees by emphasizing managers'
behavior", in the research framework, was carried out by Ali Baniasadi, Aliakbar Baniasadi, Simin Hosseinian,
and Seyedeh Monavar Yazdi, in the department of Alzahra University. This study aimed at constructing a plan,
change and improvement, the emphasis on the goals and remedy of human resource to remove and solve
problems and the main role of organization's management which is ensuring factor for improvement is
considered the mobilization of human forces to achieve organization's goals; by stressing the evaluation of
managers behavior on employee empowerment they achieve Tehran public companies so that offer solutions to
remove problems of Tehran companies' employees (Baniasadi et al., 2007).
In 2007, a research, "the study and analysis of relationship between empowerment and organizational
commitment of bank's staff", a MA thesis, had been performed by Nasser Yavari in Tehran Management
University. The study examined this issue that first, is there empowered and committed employees in the Melli
Bank or not? Second, if so, what relationship is there between them? So, he studied this research about south
Tehran administration of branches' employees in order to enhance employees' empowerment and organizational
commitment (Yavari, 2007).
In 2001, a research, "the evaluation of empowerment methods of Birjand University's employees", a MA thesis,
was carried out by Mohammad Mohammadi in Tarbiat Moddaress University. In fact, this study is sought
methods that provide the causes of competitive advantage for employees by generating motivation in employees
thus this research has been addressed to describe and analyze empowerment which in this era identifies as an
appropriate manner of motivation (Mohammadi, 2001).
Figure 1- Research analytic model
Independent variable

Organizational structure

Formality

Complexity

centralization
Dependant variable
Employee empowerment
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Figure 2- operational model of independent variable
Index
Dimensions
Concept
Conformity of employee's
performance with existing
standards (existence of job
description)
Observance of regular task
procedures
Formality
Existence of annual policies and
instructions for different tasks
Being determined job
procedures
Compliance of administrative
regulations, instructions, and
standards
Observance of administrative
formal rules and regulations
and standards in
displacements
Organizational
structure
Observing standards by
employees
Surveying employees about new
issues
Employee involvement in
organization's decision makings
Centralization
Information distribution
between low ranks
Survey of employees about new
plan or project
Management levels between the
lowest rank and the highest rank
Number of existing department in
the organization
Total number of labor who are
involved in the dispersed units
Communication with high ranked
management of organization
Complexity
Number of job titles
Number of physical locations
(units' dispersion)
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Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in Business
ISSN: 2046-7141
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Figure 3- operational model of dependent variable
Index
Dimensions
Concept
High control over task unit
Feeling of being effective at work
Effectiveness
Sense of being able to apply its
capacity
Task meaningfulness
Being important doing work
Meaningfulness of business
activities
Meaningfulness
Accuracy about doing work
Confidence on capabilities for doing
works
Sense of necessary capability and
expertise in the task scope
Empowerment
The sense of being able to do work
Competency
Independence about decision
making concerning work
The sense of necessary expertise and
initiative for doing work
Feeling of being able to do tasks
Autonomy
Feeling of latitude and experience for
doing work
Sense of being experience to do work
Sense of trust between employees
and upstream officials
Trust
Feeling of success in personal
skills
Employees' confidence for fair
treatment with them
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Organizational structure
"Organizational structure is a method or manner which organizational activities are divided, organized, and
coordinated by it" (Aarabi, 2006, p.15).
Formality
Formality is applied to regulations, methods, and written documents whereby are defined tasks description,
instructions, and commands which employees and organization's members must observe and implement them
(Daft, 2006, p.285). It is rules and regulations that organization enacts for doing works and is a part of thing
which is named formalization (Hall, 2005, p.107).
Centralization
Centralization is called the hierarchy of authority levels which can make decisions. In centralized organizations,
senior managers and those who are at the head of organization have decision making right and in decentralized
organizations, such decisions are made at lower levels.
Centralization can be described as a measure which individuals of units or organizational levels themselves have
formal authority for choosing decision making solutions and thus employees have minimum power to exercise
their views (Robbins, 2006, p.100).
Complexity
Complexity refers to the degree of separation which exists in the organization; in fact complexity means the
number of tasks or sub-systems which are performed or existed inside an organization.
Empowerment
Enabling is a process that managers allow employees to gain power by it and influence inside of organization.
To overcome complexity and the acceleration of challenges which we deal with them in today's environment,
the success of an organization is depended on to what extent all employees can be empowered (Irannezhad
Parizi, 2006, p.459).
Operational definition of research variables
Organizational structure
According to Stephen Robbins's theory, the dimensions of organizational structure include:
1. Formality
2. Complexity
3. Centralization
Formality
The indices of formality dimension of organizational structure are:
 Conformity of employee's performance with existing standards (existence of job description)
 Observance of regular task procedures
 Existence of annual policies and instructions for different tasks
 Being determined job procedures
 Compliance of administrative regulations, instructions, and standards
 Observance of administrative formal rules and regulations and standards in displacements
 Observing standards by employees.
Complexity
The indices of complexity dimension of organizational structure include:
 Surveying employees about new issues
 Employee involvement in organization's decision makings
 Information distribution between low ranks
 Survey of employees about new plan or project.
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Centralization
The indices of centralization dimension of organizational structure are:
 Management levels between the lowest rank and the highest rank
 Number of existing department in the organization
 Total number of labor who are involved in the dispersed units
 Communication with high ranked management of organization
 Number of job titles
 Number of physical locations (units' dispersion).
Empowerment
Based on Spreitzer theory, empowerment dimensions are in five aspects as follows:
1. The feeling of effectiveness
2. The sense of meaningfulness
3. The sense of competency
4. The feeling of autonomy
5. The sense of trust
Feeling of effectiveness
The indices of effectiveness feeling are:
 High control over task unit
 Feeling of being effective at work

Sense of being able to apply its capacity
The sense of meaningfulness
The indices of meaningfulness sense include:
 Task meaningfulness
 Being important doing work
 Meaningfulness of business activities

Accuracy about doing work
 Confidence on capabilities for doing works
The sense of competency
The indices of competency sense are:
 Sense of necessary capability and expertise in the task scope
 The sense of being able to do work
 Independence about decision making concerning work
 Authorities proportionate to task responsibility
The feeling of autonomy
The indices of autonomy sense include:
 The sense of necessary expertise and initiative for doing work
 Feeling of being able to do tasks
 Feeling of latitude and experience for doing work
 Sense of being experience to do work
The sense of trust
The indices of trust sense include:
 Sense of trust between employees and upstream officials
 Feeling of success in personal skills
 Employees' confidence for fair treatment with them
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3. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
1.
2.
There is a significant relationship between organic organizational structure and employee
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
1.1 There is a significant relationship between low organizational formality and employees'
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
1.2 There is a significant relationship between organizational decentralization and employees'
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
1.3 There is a significant relationship between low organizational complexity and employees'
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
The relationship of organic organizational structure dimensions differs from employee empowerment
of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Regarding method, this study is a survey research and in terms of goal is applicable. Research population is the
employees of eastern Azerbaijan governorship. According to received information from governorship, in the
time interval of doing research the number of them is 375. Sample size has been selected 190 based on Morgan
method. Stratified random sampling is used to select statistic sample from population. Population is used for
data collection and in order to test research hypotheses, a questionnaire has been used which is adjusted with
regard to research variables and operationalising them.
In this research, face validity is used to determine validity of data collection tool, to estimate questionnaire's
reliability is used Cronbach alpha method. With a pilot study on 25 employees of governorship, for organizational
structure's items and empowerment's items of questionnaire, the value of Cronbach alpha was obtained 0.861
and 0.823 respectively. The values of these statistics show that first questionnaire's items have a high correlation
together and second, research questionnaire has a high reliability.
Reliability test of organizational structure items of questionnaire
frequency
percent
Valid
25
100.0
Excluded
0
0
total
25
100.0
Cronbach Alpha
Number of items
0.861
17
Reliability test of empowerment items of questionnaire
frequency percent
Valid
25
100.0
Excluded
0
0
total
25
100.0
Cronbach Alpha
Number of Items
0.823
18
In order to analyze obtained data from collected questionnaires, the methods of inferential statistics is used.
Pearson's r-test and Freidman test will be used to test H1 and its sub-hypotheses.
5. RESULTS
Hypothesis 1 test:
There is a significant relationship between organic organizational structure and employees' empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
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H1:
There is a significant relationship between organic
organizational structure and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
H0:
There isn’t a significant relationship between organic
organizational structure and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
Table . Pearson's r-test to determine correlation between organizational structure and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship
organizational
employee
structure
empowerment
Pearson correlation
1
0.614
organizational
Sig.(2-tailed)
0
0.000
structure
N
190
190
Pearson correlation
0.614
1
employee
Sig.(2-tailed)
0.000
0
empowerment
N
190
190
As noticed above, in 2-tailed significance level, significance level of Pearson's r-test is 0.000 and it is lower than
minimum level of significance 0.05, also regarding calculated Pearson's value which in confidence level 0.95
and degree of freedom 189 is 0.614 and it is higher than Pearson's critical value, 0.113, so there is a significant
relationship between organic organizational structure and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan
governorship.
Hypothesis 1-1 test
There is a significant relationship between low organizational formality and employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship.
H1:
There is a significant relationship between low organizational
formality and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan
governorship.
H0:
There isn’t a significant relationship between low
organizational formality and employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship.
Table . Pearson r-test to determine correlation of low organizational formality and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship
low organizational
employee
formality
empowerment
Pearson correlation
1
0.601
low organizational
Sig.(2-tailed)
0
0.000
formality
N
190
190
Pearson correlation
0.601
1
employee
Sig.(2-tailed)
0.000
0
empowerment
N
190
190
As observed in table 9-4, in 2-tailed significance level, significance level of Pearson r-test is 0.000 and it is
lower than minimum significance level 0.05, and also given calculated Pearson value which is 0.601 and it is
higher than Pearson critical value, 0.113, in confidence level 0.95 and degree of freedom 189, then a significant
relationship exists between low organizational formality and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan
governorship.
Hypothesis 1-2 test
There is a significant relationship between organizational decentralization and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
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H1:
There is a significant relationship between organizational
decentralization and employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship.
H0:
There isn’t a significant relationship between organizational
decentralization and employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship.
Table . Pearson r-test to determine correlation of organizational decentralization and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship
organizational
employee empowerment
decentralization
Pearson correlation
1
0.489
organizational
Sig.(2-tailed)
0
0.000
decentralization
N
190
190
employee
empowerment
Pearson correlation
Sig.(2-tailed)
N
0.489
0.000
190
1
0
190
As noticed in table 10-4, in one-tailed significance level, significance level of Pearson r-test is 0.000 and it is
lower than minimum level of significance 0.05 and with regard to calculated Pearson value which is 0.489, in
confidence level 0.95 and degree of freedom 189, it is higher than Pearson critical value 0.113, therefore a
significant relationship exists between organizational decentralization and employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship.
Hypothesis 1-3 test
There is a significant relationship between low organizational complexity and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
H1:
There is a significant relationship between low organizational
complexity and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan
governorship.
H0:
There isn’t a significant relationship between low organizational
complexity and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan
governorship.
Table . Pearson r-test to determine the correlation of low organizational complexity and employee
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship
employee
low complexity
empowerment
Pearson correlation
1
0.280
Sig.(2-tailed)
0
0.000
low complexity
N
190
190
Pearson correlation
0.280
1
employee
Sig.(2-tailed)
0.000
0
empowerment
N
190
190
As observed in table 11-4, in 2-tailed significance level, the significance level of Pearson's r-test is 0.000 and it
is lower than minimum level of significance 0.05, also considering computed Pearson's value which is 0.280 and
in confidence level 0.95 and degree of freedom 189, it is higher than Pearson's critical value 0.113,
consequently, there is a significant relationship between low organizational complexity and employee
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
Hypothesis 2 test
The relationship degree of organic organizational structure dimensions differs from employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
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H1:
The relationship degree of organic organizational structure
dimensions differs from employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship.
H0:
The relationship degree of organic organizational structure
dimensions doesn’t differ from employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
Table . Freidman test to determine the rating of organizational structure dimensions and employee
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship
Dimensions need to be
successful
formality
Average
rating
2.42
centralization
complexity
1.12
2.46
Test Statistic
N
Chi- Square
Df
Asymp.Sig
190
221.928
2
0.000
As shown in table 19-4, since calculated X2 which is 221.928, is higher than X2 with degree of freedom 2 and
  0 / 05 which equals 7.815 and significance level of Freidman test is lower than minimum level of
significance 0.05. H1 is approved and H0 is rejected. Therefore, we can conclude that a significant difference
exists between the relationship degree of organizational structure dimensions and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship. Given above table, we can rank the relationship of organizational structure
dimensions and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship as follows:
1. Low organizational complexity
2. Low organizational formality
3. Organizational decentralization
6. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
In this section, regarding carried out analysis of statistical data in section 4, we first discuss conclusion and then
offer recommendations.
Obtained results from analyzing and testing research hypotheses show:
Hypothesis 1: this hypothesis has been measured by means of 35 items which are combinations of 17 items
related to independent variable of organizational structure in the form of three formality, centralization, and
complexity components, and 18 items related to dependent variable indices of employee empowerment. Given
obtained results that significance level of Pearson's test is lower than minimum level of significance, so the
existence of significance relationship between organizational structure and employee empowerment of eastern
Azerbaijan governorship is proved.
Hypothesis 1-1: it has been measured using 25 items which are the mixtures of 7 items relating independent
variable of low organizational formality and 18 items associated with dependent variable indices of employee
empowerment. Considering results that significance level of Pearson's test is lower than minimum level of
significance, thus the presence of significant relationship between low organizational formality and employee
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship is confirmed.
Hypothesis 1-2: this hypothesis is measured via 22 items which are the mixes of 4 items related to independent
variable of organizational decentralization and 18 items associated to dependent variable indices of employee
empowerment. Regarding obtained results that significance level of Pearson's test is lower than minimum level
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of significance, so, it's proved that there is a significant relationship between low organizational formality and
employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
Hypothesis 1-3: it has been measured by 24 items which are the combinations of 6 items about independent
variable of low organizational complexity and 18 items about dependent variable indices of employee
empowerment. Given results that significance level of Pearson's test is lower than minimum level of
significance, as a result, it's confirmed that there is a significant relationship between low organizational
complexity and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship.
Hypothesis 2: this hypothesis has measured the difference degree of relationship between organizational
structure dimensions and employee empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship. Freidman's test shows
that a significant difference exists between the relationship of organizational structure dimensions and employee
empowerment. Rating the relationship between organizational structure dimensions and employee
empowerment of eastern Azerbaijan governorship has shown in table 1.5:
Table 1-5. Rating the relationship between organizational structure dimensions and employee empowerment of
eastern Azerbaijan governorship
organizational structure dimensions
rating
low organizational complexity
1
low organizational formality
2
organizational decentralization
3
7. RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS
In this research, we have offered recommendations as follows:
As results show that there is a significant relationship between organic organizational structure and employee
empowerment, that is, the more organizational structure is organic, the more employee involvement is in the
organizational affairs; therefore, it's suggested that managers make arrangement to transform organizational
structure from mechanic state into organic state. To achieve this, managers need to consider following solutions:
1. Reduce organizational complexity
Complexity with mean 2.46 has the most relationship with employee empowerment, i.e. whatever organizational
structure has low formality, and employee empowerment is higher. Therefore, it's suggested that in complex
organizations, particularly space type, organization's managers make preparations that employees of any
deputies have more freedom in decision makings of their operational area. As much as possible, they decrease
the number of existing departments and job titles in the organization and reduce managerial levels between the
lowest rank and the highest rank, in other words they try organizational to become more flattened.
2. Decrease organizational formality
After formality, centralization with mean 2.24 has the most relationship with employee empowerment. It means
that the more organizational structure is centralized, the less employee empowerment gets. Therefore, managers
must avoid offering job standards about how to do work, don’t force employees to perform regular work
standards and procedures; in organizations which their employees have high expertise, they abstain issuing
frequent instructions and circulars about how to do work and adapting employees performance to job standards,
don’t compel employees to observe formal administrative rules and regulations.
3. Reduce organizational centralization
In this research, complexity with average rating 1.12 has the least relationship with employee empowerment. Of
course, it doesn’t mean that this variable must be ignored. Hence, to lower organizational centralization, it is
suggested that deputy's director must survey employees about new organizational plans, participate them in their
decision makings and also about new plans and projects and allow to provide low ranks with organization's
information.
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Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in Business
ISSN: 2046-7141
Vol. 2, Issue. 6, (pp.10- 24) | 2012
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