Empowering leadership in hospital employees

Purpose - This research paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model which explains whether and how empowering leadership, through employee goal orientation and job conditions, influences employee proactivity. The authors suggest two simultaneous pathways from empowering leadership to employee proactivity based on path-goal theory and social exchange theory. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from 253 frontline employees working in Indian NABH accredited hospitals. Regression analysis was performed to analyze the data with the help of SPSS 24. Further, SPSS process macro was used to test the parallel mediation effects with the help of bootstrapping procedures. Findings - The important findings of this study are as follows: (1) empowering leadership has direct influence on employee proactivity; (2) empowering leadership, employees' goal orientation and job conditions are important antecedents of employee proactivity; (3) goal orientation and job conditions simultaneously partially mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and employee proactivity. In particular, employees' goal orientation is a more important mediating variable than job conditions in the studied relationship. Practical implications - Organizations may reap the benefits of employee's proactive work behavior by hiring, training, and developing empowering leaders. Originality/value - The study adds to the existing literature by building theory in the area of employee proactivity. In doing so, this study explains the less understood relationship between empowering leadership and employee proactivity.