Facilitating Change Engagement: The Roles of Psychological Empowerment and Leadership Support and Skill Development Opportunities

The problem under study is the lack of employee engagement during organizational change initiatives, which often leads to the failure of these initiatives. The objectives of this study were 1) to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and employee change engagement, and 2) to explore the mediating influence of leadership support and skill development opportunities on this relationship. The research method involved collecting data from 100 employees of Arshia Petro Sanat Company, which is undergoing a major organizational transformation. This change happened in the operational teams department, which included changing the size and internal levels of the operational teams. Psychological empowerment was measured using Spreitzer's (1995) 12-item scale. Change engagement was assessed with Herscovitch and Meyer's (2002) 6-item scale. Leadership support was measured using a 6-item scale adapted from Podsakoff et al. (1990), and skill development opportunities were assessed with a 5-item scale developed by Bartlett (2001). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the hypothesized relationships. The key findings of the study were: 1) The four dimensions of psychological empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) were significant positive predictors of employee change engagement; 2) Leadership support and skill development opportunities partially mediated the relationship between psychological empowerment and change engagement. These results suggest that fostering a psychologically empowered workforce, while also providing strong leadership support and skill development resources, can enhance employees' willingness to engage with and embrace organizational change initiatives. Organizations should consider these factors when implementing change management strategies.