EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT LEADING TO FLEXIBLE ROLE ORIENTATION: A DISPOSITION BASED CONTINGENCY FRAMEWORK

A rapidly changing business environment has redefined the employment relationship in the modern organisational context. Employment is no longer viewed as a mere transactional engagement between employees and employers where terms of the contract are rigidly outlined. Rather, employees are expected to go beyond the routine call of duty and hold a broader outlook while defining their job elements, which is defined as flexible role orientation (FRO). In other words, employees are expected to shun the “that’s not my job” attitude and adopt FRO in order to help their organisation become more responsive to the unpredictable external environment.

In this paper, we empirically test the notion that certain employee empowerment initiatives, such as participative decision making and job autonomy, may lead to development of FRO. Additionally, we probe the moderating effect of a couple of individual dispositions, namely internal locus of control and role breadth self-efficacy.

Three field studies were conducted in Indian service-based organisations (N=824) from the banking, telecom and software sectors. Results confirmed that relationships of participative decision making and job autonomy with FRO were fully mediated by psychological ownership. Also, these relationships were attenuated by high internal locus of control. And finally, role breadth self-efficacy strengthened the relationship between psychological ownership and FRO. Theoretical and practical implications of results are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.