Linking organizational trust with employee engagement: The role of psychological empowerment

Abstract

The present study investigated the moderating effect of psychological empowerment on the relationship between organizational trust and employee work engagement in a Nigerian business environment. Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out on a sample of 715 employees from seven commercial banks and four pharmaceutical companies in south-eastern Nigeria who participated in the survey. The results showed that organizational trust and psychological empowerment were predictors of work engagement. Besides, and as we expected, we found a moderating effect of psychological empowerment on the relationship between organizational trust and work engagement. Therefore, the positive relationship between organizational trust and engagement was stronger for those employees with low psychological empowerment. This study was one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the direct relationship among organizational trust, psychological empowerment and employee work engagement. Additionally, most previous studies on engagement have been conducted mainly in developed economies such as North America and Europe. This study was carried out in a peculiar Nigerian business environment where organizational behaviors have been scarcely investigated. Comparing findings from different cultures may help further clarify the emerging work engagement concept.