Structural Equation Modeling of the Relationships Between Psychological Empowerment, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Commitment in Private Companies

The aim of this study is to develop and test a structural equation model in which psychological empowerment is considered as a predictor variable, job satisfaction as a mediating variable, and organizational commitment as the final outcome within the context of private companies. Data were collected from ۲۸۰ employees of private firms. After assessing the normality of data distribution using skewness and kurtosis indices within the acceptable range, Mardia's multivariate normality test, and identifying outliers through Mahalanobis distance, analyses were conducted using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The CFA results indicated that the measurement model of the three main constructs- psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment-showed factor loadings above ۰.۵۰, composite reliability (CR) values above ۰.۷۰, and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) above ۰.۵۰. Furthermore, the Fornell-Larcker criterion confirmed discriminant validity, and model fit indices including RMSEA, CFI, TLI, and SRMR were all within acceptable thresholds, indicating satisfactory model fit. In the structural model, path analysis demonstrated that psychological empowerment has a positive and significant effect on job satisfaction (B = ۰.۶۲, t = ۷.۸۵); psychological empowerment also exerts a direct positive and significant effect on organizational commitment (ẞ = ۰.۳۷, t = ۴.۹۱); and job satisfaction positively and significantly predicts organizational commitment (ẞ = ۰.۵۵, t = ۶.۷۲). Additionally, bootstrap results with ۵۰۰۰ iterations revealed that psychological empowerment has a significant indirect effect on organizational commitment through job satisfaction (indirect ẞ = ۰.۳۴). Since the direct path remained significant, partial mediation was confirmed. The total effect of psychological empowerment on organizational commitment was found to be ẞ = ۰.۷۱. These findings indicate that psychological empowerment not only has a direct impact on organizational commitment, but also improves employees' commitment by enhancing job satisfaction. Particularly, job satisfaction plays a key role in transmitting the positive effects of empowerment to affective and normative commitment. Based on these results, it is suggested that managers of private companies design and implement empowerment programs that enhance job meaningfulness, competence, autonomy, and impact, thereby improving employees' satisfaction and long-term loyalty.

کلیدواژه ها:

Psychological Empowerment ، Job Satisfaction ، Organizational Commitment ، Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) ، Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) ، Private Companies