Understanding employee empowerment in the Arab world: Evidence from Abu Dhabi’s government sector

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of psychological empowerment (PE) and of leader empowering behavior (LEB) on the empowerment of employees (EE) in the government sector of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE has overhauled government sector decision-making and oversight capacity with a view to increasing performance and contributing to private sector development. We applied a quantitative research design using Hayes’s 5-item scale (1994) to measure employee empowerment; Spreitzer’s 12-item scale (1995) to measure psychological empowerment; and Konczak et al.’s (2000) 17-item scale to measure leader empowering behavior. We collected survey information from government sector employees and used a structural model to analyze the data. We demonstrate a significant positive effect of psychological empowerment and leader empowering behavior on government sector employee empowerment in the UAE. We also find significant differences in the results among men and women respondents, thereby documenting a gender effect. We contribute to an understanding of how PE and LEB operate as empowerment transmission mechanisms in the largely unexplored government sector within a culturally and organizationally different environment (Arab world) as well as how the organizations’ HRM function can improve organizational performance in an emerging market context.

Keywords: Psychological empowerment; Leader empowering behavior; Employee empowerment; government sector; UAErnment sector of the United Arab Emirates