The relationship between work design and work related attitudes among Malaysian academics : the role of psychological empowerment as mediator and proactive personality as moderator

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship of work design and work-related attitudes. The work design dimensions integrated from two models, namely job characteristics and social characteristics. Job characteristics, namely task significance, task identity, autonomy, feedback, and social characteristics, consist of social support, interdependence, feedback from others, and interaction outside the organisation. Work-related attitudes comprise of job satisfaction and internal work motivation. The review of the literature revealed that past research on job characteristics is not sufficient to explain work design. Therefore, this current study integrated social characteristic dimension with job characteristics. Moreover, the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship of work design and work-related attitude is also not yet addressed in the existing body of work design theories. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of psychological empowerment in the relationship between the work design and work-related attitudes. As suggested by the previous studies, a proactive personality is a new moderator factor that should be investigated in the relationship between work design and work-related attitudes. Thus, this study examines proactive personality as a moderator. This study applies quantitative design by employing the cross-sectional method. Data were collected from the 479 academics from three Malaysian Public Universities. The data for the quantitative design were obtained through self-administrated questionnaire. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses using AMOS version 22 were performed to test the hypotheses of the study. The findings revealed that all dimensions of work design were found as correlated with job satisfaction. However, only five dimensions of work design were found as correlated with internal work motivation. Empirical results obtained from SEM analysis revealed that significant mediations of psychological empowerment dimensions, namely meaning dimension, competence/ self-determination, and impact, are proved in the relationship between work design and job satisfaction. Whereas, only two dimensions of psychological empowerment, namely meaning and competence/ self-determination, have a significant effect in the relationship between work design and internal work motivation. Moreover, proactive personality plays a significant role as a moderator to the relationship between work design dimension, namely task identity, feedback, and social support with work-related attitudes. Theoretically, this research makes important contribution in the existing body of knowledge on the work design, work-related attitudes, their relationship with one another, and the mediating roles of psychological empowerment and proactive personality. Practically, this research serves as a guideline that is beneficial to the top management in Malaysian Public Universities for them to conduct work design analysis, design programmes to develop psychological empowerment, proactive personality, and work-related attitudes.