Abstract
Background: Organizational commitment is a critical element for employee retention, and poor commitment is highly associated with turnover. Healthcare workers commitment is influenced greatly by their perceived empowerment in the workplace. We aimed in this study to examine the workplace structural empowerment factors in predicting organizational commitment among healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic.
Method: A cross-sectional self-administered survey, paper and pencil were used to collect data from the respondent healthcare workers. A total of 913 questionnaires were distributed and 739 (80.9%) response rate was obtained. PLS-SEM model was applied for data analysis and estimation of construct measurement in terms of multiple and interrelated dependent relationships between latent and indicator variables.
Results: The results showed significant influence of information empowerment (beta = 0.309, t = 6.681, p < 0.001), work setting empowerment (beta = 0.124, t = 2.492, p < 0.013), and opportunity do you have for the activities in present job (OFTA) empowerment (beta = 0.174, t = 3.904, p < 0.001), on affective commitment. As for continuance commitment, only resources empowerment was found to have significant positive influence (beta = 0.110, t = 2.077, p < 0.038). On the other hand, there is a significant positive effect of information empowerment (beta = 0.296, t = 5.942, p < 0.001), and OFTA empowerment (beta = 0.121, t = 2.490, p < 0.013), on normative commitment. For different dimensions, information empowerment has the highest impact on affective commitment (beta = 0.309) followed by (OFTA) empowerment (beta = 0.174) and last work setting empowerment (beta = 0.124) while, for normative commitment, information empowerment (beta = 0.296) has more impact compared to OFTA empowerment (beta = 0.121). Overall, the model was able to explain 27.5% and 22.2% of correlations and variances in affective and normative commitments, respectively.
Conclusion: The study showed significant predictive roles for higher level of information empowerment, OFTA, higher level of resources, and higher level of work setting empowerments, as significant predictors for organizational commitment.