The Impact of Psychological Empowerment on

Individual Creativity among Al Aqsa

University’s Employees

بداع الفردي لدى موظفي جامعة اإلأثر التمكين النفسي عمى قصىألا

Mahmoud M. A. Saymah

Supervised by

Associate Prof. Sami Ali Abu Al Ross

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Business Administration

June / 2018

زةــغ – تــالييــــــت اإلصـــــــــبيعـانج

بعهيانبحث انعهي وانذراصبث ان عبدة

تصـــــبد وانعهوو اإلداريكهيــــــــت االقت

ــــــــبلـــز إدارة األعــــــــــــــيبجضتي

The Islamic University–Gaza

Dean ship of research and graduate studies

Faculty of Economics & Administrative Sciences

Master of Business Administration

I

إقــــــــــــــزار

أنا الموقع أدناه مقدم الرسالة التي تحمل العنوان:The Impact of Psychological Empowerment on

Individual Creativity among Al Aqsa

University’s Employees

أثر التمكين النفسي عمى االبداع الفردي لدى موظفي جامعة االقصى

أقر بأن ما اشتممت عميو ىذه الرسالة إنما ىو نتاج جيدي الخاص، باستثناء ما تمت اإلشارة إليو حيثما ورد، وأن ىذه الرسالة ككل أو أي جزء منيا لم يقدم من قبل االخرين لنيل

لقب عممي أو بحثي لدى أي مؤسسة تعميمية أو بحثية أخرى.درجة أو

Declaration

I understand the nature of plagiarism, and I am aware of the University‟s

policy on this.

The work provided in this thesis, unless otherwise referenced, is the

researcher's own work, and has not been submitted by others elsewhere for any other

degree or qualification.

:Mahmoud Saymah Student's name اس اىطبىت:

:Signature اىتقع:

:Date اىتبسخ:

III

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the impact of psychological empowerment on

individual creativity among a representative sample of Al Aqsa University

employees. The study explored up to what extent employees perceived themselves to

be psychologically empowered. It also tests the relationship between the dimensions

of psychological empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination and

impact) and the dimension of individual creativity.

Descriptive analytical approach was used to conduct this study, and a questionnaire

was modified and used. A stratified random sampling model was used to distribute

256 questionnaire sheets to both academic and administrative employees, 209 were

completed and returned, with a response rate of 81.6%.

The most important results are:

1. Employees of Al Aqsa University have a high perception that they are

psychologically empowered, despite the substantial employment and social

challenges.

2. All the dimension of the psychological empowerment was highly impacting the

perception of individual creativity; the highest was the competence dimension and

the lowest was self-determination.

3. Most of the employees at Al Aqsa University considered themselves, to a high

extent, as individually creative.

4. The study revealed several areas for improvement to improve psychological

empowerment, such as improving self-determination ability and raising the

awareness of the university impact on community development.

5. There is no significant differences in respondent's answers toward applying

psychological empowerment on individual creativity according to their gender

and social status , but there is significant differences in respondent's answers

according to their age above 50 years , job classification , educational level with

PhD degree and years of experience with more than 25 years .

The most important recommendations are:

1. Modifying the hieratical structure of decision making; therefore the employees

would appreciate more space of autonomy and self –determination.

2. Introducing the psychological empowerment instrument as one of the tools to

determine the quality of human resources development at academic institutions.

3. Improving the awareness of the employees‟ about the role that the university plays

to participate in the development of the Palestinian community.

4. Creating an incentive system that reward and encourage creative thinking, and

integrating creative thinking as one component of the annual performance

evaluation.

IV

Abstract in Arabic Language

ممخص الدراسةاإلبداع الفردي لدى عينة من موظفين جامعة عمى التمكين النفسي ثرأتيدف ىذه الدراسة لفحص

األقصى بغزة. تفحص العالقة ما بين ايضاو ،مدى استشعار الموظفين لتمكينيم النفسي الى أيتكشف ىذه الدراسة

اإلبداع الفردي بعد عمى الذاتية والتأثير()اإلحساس بجدوى العمل، والكفاءة، واالستقاللية التمكين النفسي أبعادىذه الدراسة. تم تعديل االستبانة المستخدمة جراءإلتحميمي الوصفي المنيج الكما تم استخدام لدى الموظفين.

استبانة عمى عينة الدراسة من الموظفين ٦٥٢لتوزيع طبقيتم استخدام منيج عشوائي في ىذه الدراسة . ٣. ١٨استبانة مكتممة بما يشكل نسبة اعادة تصل إلى ٦٠٢اإلداريين واألكاديميين. تم اعادة

اىم نتائج ىذه الدراسة كانت كما يمى:

قات موظفين جامعة األقصى لدييم نسبة عالية من اإلحساس بالتمكين النفسي، بالرغم من كل المعي .1 االجتماعية والوظيفية.

كان لكل ابعاد التمكين النفسي أثر كبير عمى اإلحساس باإلبداع الفردي لدى العاممين، كان البعد األكثر .2 تأثيرا ىو بعد الكفاءة واألقل تأثيرا ىو بعد االستقاللية الذاتية.

الية من اإلبداع الفردي.غالبية الموظفين بجامعة األقصى اعتبروا أنفسيم عمى أنيم يتمتعون بدرجة ع .3الدراسة كشفت عن كثير من الجوانب التي يمكن تحسينيا لتعزيز اإلحساس بالتمكين النفسي، مثل تحسين .4

تمع المحيط.االستقاللية الذاتية وزيادة وعي الموظفين لدرجة تأثير الجامعة عمى المج اإلبداع عمى النفسي التمكين تطبيق نحو بحوثين الم إجابات في إحصائية داللة ذات فروق توجد ال .5

حسب المستجيبين إجابات في جوىرية اختالفات ىناك ولكن ، ةاالجتماعي الحالة لمجنس و وفقا الفردي كثرأل الخبرة واتسن ، والدكتوراه بدرجة التعميمي والمستوى يفي ،الوظ تصنيفالو ، سنة 55 فوق أعمارىم

.سنة 25 من

الدراسة:وكان من أىم توصيات تعديل السمم االداري لصنع القرار بحيث يشعر الموظف بمزيد من االستقاللية والتمكين. .1 تبنى استبانة التمكين النفسي كأحد األدوات لقياس كفاءة العاممين كجزء من التقييم السنوي لمعاممين. .2 زيادة وعى العاممين ألىمية دور الجامعة في نمو وتطور المجتمع الفمسطيني. .3إنشاء نظام حوافز لمكافأة وتشجيع اإلبداعات الفردية والتفكير الخالق، كما يجب ادماج اإلبداع الفردي .4

كأحد العناصر لقياس األداء في عممية التقييم السنوية لمعاممين.

V

بضى هللا انزحن انزحيى

ن انعهى إالا قهيال ويب أوتيتى ي

85] اإلسشاء:[

And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little.

(Al Esraa : 85 )

VI

Dedication

Every challenge requires great self-efforts as well as the light of others

especially those who live in our heart .

I dedicate this research to

The soul of my parents

To my Beloved wife and my wonderful children

To my Brothers & Sisters

To my Friends & Colleagues

Without their inspiration , Support and wisdom , this study would not

have been achieved .

VII

Acknowledgement

Foremost, I would like to express my honest appreciation and

respect and my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Sami Ali Abu Al

Ross for his support presented to me to accomplish this research. in

addition, I would thank him for his patience, motivation, and guidance

that helped me in preparing it.

Besides, I would like to thank the research committees: Dr Akram

Sammour and Dr Alaedin K. Alsayed for their great feedback.

I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Ashraf Abu Samra

who statistically analyzed the collected data of the research.

Also, I would offer my sincere thanks to my brother Dyaa for his

help, encouragement and support.

I would like to express my warmest love and forever appreciation to

my family for their continuous support and encouragement to complete

this research; and I would like to express my appreciation to my

colleagues and friends who provide the researcher with advice, support,

information, and encouragement in order to complete this research.

VIII

List of Contents

Declaration .................................................................................................................. I

Abstract ..................................................................................................................... III

Abstract in Arabic Language .................................................................................. IV

Dedication ................................................................................................................. VI

Acknowledgement .................................................................................................. VII

List of Contents ..................................................................................................... VIII

List of Tables ............................................................................................................ XI

List of Figures ........................................................................................................ XIII

List of Appendices ................................................................................................. XIV

Chapter One The Research General Framework ................................................... 1

1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 2

1.2 The Research Problem Statement ................................................................... 4

1.3 The Research Variables .................................................................................. 5

1.4 The Research Hypotheses ............................................................................... 6

1.5 The Research Objectives ................................................................................ 7

1.6 The Research Importance ............................................................................... 7

Chapter Two Literature Review .............................................................................. 8

2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 9

Section One- Psychological Empowerment .......................................................... 10

2.1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 10

2.1.2 Definition of Psychological Empowerment .............................................. 10

2.1.3 Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment ............................................ 12

2.1.4 Factors Affecting Psychological Empowerment ....................................... 13

2.1.5 Consequences of Psychological Empowerment ........................................ 16

Section Two- Individual Creativity ........................................................................ 18

2.2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 18

2.2.2 Definition of Individual Creativity ............................................................ 18

2.2.3 Relationship Between Organizational Creativity and Individual Creativity

............................................................................................................................ 19

2.2.4 Creativity Versus Innovation ..................................................................... 20

2.2.5 Sources of Individual Creativity ................................................................ 21

IX

2.2.6 Factors Stimulate Creativity ...................................................................... 23

Section Three- Al Aqsa University ......................................................................... 26

2.3.1 Background ................................................................................................ 26

2.3.2 Overview of Al Aqsa University ............................................................... 26

2.3.4. Psychological Empowerment and Creativity at Al Aqsa University ....... 28

Chapter Three The Previous Studies ..................................................................... 30

3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 31

3.2 Local Studies ................................................................................................ 31

3.3 Regional Studies ........................................................................................... 35

3.4 International Studies ..................................................................................... 39

3.5 General Commentary on the Reviewed Studies ........................................... 53

3.6 The Major differences of the Current Study Compared to Previous Studies 55

Chapter Four The Research Practical Framework .............................................. 56

4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 57

4.2 Research Methodology ................................................................................ 57

4.3 Data Sources ................................................................................................. 57

4.4 Research Procedures ..................................................................................... 58

4.5 Research Population and Sample ................................................................. 60

4.6 Research Tool Development: ....................................................................... 61

4.7 Pilot Study: ................................................................................................... 62

4.8 Questionnaire Validity: ................................................................................ 62

4.9 Questionnaire Reliability: ............................................................................. 66

4.10 Normal Distribution Test: .......................................................................... 67

4.11 Statistical analysis tools .............................................................................. 68

Chapter Five Data Analysis and Hypotheses Testing........................................... 70

5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 71

5.2 Descriptive Analysis of the Sample Characteristics ..................................... 71

5.3 Data analysis and results: ............................................................................. 75

5.4 Hypotheses Testing: ..................................................................................... 83

5.5 The Main Hypothesis: .................................................................................. 83

Chapter six Conclusions and Recommendations .................................................. 96

6.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 97

X

6.2 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 97

6.3 Recommendations ...................................................................................... 101

6.4 Limitations and Suggestion for Future Research ....................................... 104

References ............................................................................................................... 105

XI

List of Tables

Table (4.1): Distribution of Employees ..................................................................... 60

Table (4.2): Population and Sample size ................................................................... 61

Table (4.3): The distribution of the paragraphs ......................................................... 61

Table (4.4): Agreement Scale .................................................................................... 62

Table (4.5): Correlation coefficient of each field and Meaning ................................ 63

Table (4.6): Correlation coefficient of each field and Competence .......................... 63

Table (4.7): Correlation coefficient of each field and Self determination ................. 64

Table (4.8): Correlation coefficient of each field and Impact ................................... 64

Table (4.9): Correlation coefficient of each field and Individual creativity .............. 65

Table (4.10): Correlation coefficient of each factor and process criterion ................ 66

Table (4.11): Cronbach's alpha coefficient ................................................................ 66

Table (4.12): Split-Half Coefficient ........................................................................... 67

Table (5.1): Sample .................................................................................................... 71

Table (5.2): Gender .................................................................................................... 71

Table (5.3): Age ......................................................................................................... 72

Table (5.4): Social status ........................................................................................... 72

Table (5.5): Job Classification ................................................................................... 73

Table (5.6): Educational Level .................................................................................. 73

Table (5.7): Years of Experience ............................................................................... 74

Table (5.8): Study Scale ............................................................................................. 74

Table (5.9): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Meaning ............. 75

Table (5.10): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Competence ...... 76

Table (5.11): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Self-determination

................................................................................................................................... 77

Table (5.12): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Impact ............... 78

Table (5.13): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Dimensions of

Psychological Empowerment .................................................................................... 79

Table (5.14): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Individual

creativity .................................................................................................................... 81

Table (5.15): the correlation coefficient between Psychological empowerment and

individual creativity. .................................................................................................. 83

XII

Table (5.16): The correlation coefficient between Meaning dimension and individual

creativity. ................................................................................................................... 84

Table (5.17): The correlation coefficient between Competence dimension and

individual creativity. .................................................................................................. 85

Table (5.18): The correlation coefficient between Self-determination dimension and

individual creativity. .................................................................................................. 85

Table (5.19): The correlation coefficient between Impact dimension and individual

creativity. ................................................................................................................... 86

Table (5.20): Multiple regression analysis for regression coefficients ...................... 87

Table (5.21): The independent T-test of the fields and their p-values for gender ..... 89

Table (5.22): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for age ................. 90

Table (5.23): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for Social status ... 91

Table (5.24): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for Job Classification

................................................................................................................................... 92

Table (5.25): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for educational Level

................................................................................................................................... 93

Table (5.26): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for Year of

Experience ................................................................................................................. 94

XIII

List of Figures

Figure (1.1): The Research Variables .......................................................................... 6

Figure (4.1): The methodology flowchart, which leads to achieve the research

objective. .................................................................................................................... 59

XIV

List of Appendices

Appendix (A): The Questionnaire Referees ............................................................ 112

Appendix (B): The Questionnaire ............................................................................ 113

Appendix (C): Questionnaire in Arabic Language .................................................. 117

Chapter One

The Research General Framework

2

Chapter one- The Research General Framework

1.1 Introduction

This research study is investigating the role that the psychological empowerment can

play to enhance individual creativity and innovation at one of the largest academic

institutions in Palestine: Al Aqsa University. The relationship between psychological

empowerment and individual creativity has been evident through many regional studies,

such as (Fallag & Qadoor, 2013), and global studies, such as (Çekmecelioğlu and

Özbağ (2014). However, this relationship may be not researched in Gaza. This study

can fill in a gap in research and in practical human resources development. Taking into

consideration various challenges facing the academic institutions in Gaza, the ongoing

deterioration of the socio-economic situation, the unstable political and administrative

climate and the high competition between different academic institutions, makes this

study highly valuable because it provides answers for the dilemma of improving the

quality of work in a situation where the level of stress is high and the resources are

scarce.

The concept of empowerment in business administration has been wildly used in the

recent decades (Chen & Chen, 2008). The whole concept of delegation and sharing of

authorities around decision-making, that leads de-centralization of management, has

attracted many business developers and researchers. The impact of this model on

business development and employees‟ innovation is evident (Chiang & Hsieh, 2012).

The need for individual creativity is becoming more prominent in a rapidly changing

work environment. The global development of open market and the increasingly

competitive work priorities put more emphasis on the value of creative solutions to

daily work challenges, which is led by individual innovation and decentralization.

The psychological empowerment is considered a more individual-based concept, as it

focuses on “enable” employees rather than “delegate” some new tasks to them

(Spreitzer, 1996). The psychological empowerment in such case can be best defined as:

“a cognitive state, a psychologically empowered experience with power-sharing,

competence and value internalization in organizations in a set of four cognitions

3

reflecting an individual‟s orientation to his or her work role: meaning, competence, self-

determination, and impact” (Chang & Liu, 2008:5).

Many studies linked the psychological empowerment with higher commitment among

employees, which leads to improved performance (Spreitzer 1995). Other studies linked

the psychological empowerment with higher job satisfaction (Spreitzer et al., 1997).

The connection between psychological empowerment and the quality of costumer care

has been demonstrated in the study of Scotti et al. (2007) about hospital care. In

particular, psychological empowerment of hospital employees has been found to be a

contributing factor to positive outcomes such as high-quality patient care and patient

safety (Laschinger et al., 2004).

There is no doubt that the individual creative behavior would lead to organizational

innovation and success. In a rapidly changing and competitive work environment,

individual creativity can help in facilitating adjustment and help finding new ways of

accomplishing tasks. The best definition of individual creativity that we will use in this

study will be: “Developing solutions to job-related problems that are judged as both

novel and appropriate for the situation” (Shalley, 1995).

This research study could fill an important gap in research by exploring the relationship

between psychological empowerment and individual creativity at one of the largest

academic institutions in Gaza: Al Aqsa University. The findings of this study will

examine the degree of perceptual psychological empowerment among employees, and

how this perceived psychological empowerment would affect their individual

performance. Proving a relationship between psychological empowerment and

individual creativity in Gaza would help human resources planners to develop further

strategies to ensure that employees are psychologically empowered. Therefore, the

quality of work should be improved as a result of increasing the possibility for

individual creativity and innovation.

4

1.2 The Research Problem Statement

Many studies investigated the psychological empowerment in terms of its impact on job

satisfaction, employee performance, and organizational growth and commitment. Few

studies tried to examine the impact of psychological empowerment on individual

creativity, which is more important than the job satisfaction and performance, because

individual creativity leads to exploring more possibilities to solving problems and

achieving tasks (Çekmecelioğlu & Özbağ, 2014). This is particularly important in Gaza

because the work environment is changing continuously and the specific political and

social situation can lead to work complexities, which require the employees to think of

creative solutions all the time.

For more elaboration on the research problem, the researcher interviewed the dean of

Commerce Faculty at Al-Aqsa University, Nidal Abdallah in September 2016, to

emphasize the gaps in human resources development. The dean summarized three major

barriers toward human resources development. The first one was the lack of

commitment and punctuality among most of employees. The dean explained the

punctuality problem in the context of the challenging social and political changes. Such

unstable political and social environment has left its huge toll on employees‟ sense of

job security and commitment. Although Al-Aqsa University has managed to avoid any

direct involvement in external politics and has maintained the professional identity of

the university as one of the largest academic institutions in Palestine, but we need to

take into considerations that Al-Aqsa employees are part of the Palestinian society and

they are affected by surrounding political and social challenges.

The second barrier was the decline of individual motivation toward career and

individual development. The dean explained the low motivation for individual

development in the context of comparing the number of employees who pursued their

individual and career‟s goals now, to the same number in the past. It was clear that in

the past there was more motivation toward achieving individual and career development

because the potential for achieving personal goals was more obvious. The decrease in

number of employees who are still motivated to develop their career is linked with the

5

diminished potential for achieving such goals, because of consequences of prolonged

blockade on Gaza and its impact on freedom to travel and obtaining higher education.

The third barrier was the decreased individual creativity according to creativity annual

indicators. The dean emphasized that most of the employees at Al-Aqsa University are

creative in many ways; their ability to function and develop their careers in a very

challenging political and social situation is a robust evidence of their creativity.

However, such creativity is not structured and supported by the human resource

department. No doubts that such individual creativity would need more support and

more attention by the human resources development, if the goal is to increase it in terms

of quantity and quality. The dean recommended that the university adapt new evidence

based strategies to deal with the increasing challenges by changing the mentality of

human resources administration toward focusing on individual and psychosocial factors

that can improve the employee‟s commitment and performance.

Taking into consideration the most important gaps in human resources development, as

highlighted by the dean of the Commerce Faculty, in addition of reviewing the regional

and global research on improving individual creativity in the work place, this research is

introducing a potential solution to address the gaps in human resource development at

Al-Aqsa University. Psychological empowerment can bridge this gap in research

because of its direct relationship with improving individual creativity (Çekmecelioğlu &

Özbağ, 2014) and because it is substantially relevant to the academic institutions in

Palestine, taking into consideration the need for providing psychological support to

employees who are facing enormous political and social stressors.

In light of the above, the research main question is "up to what extent does the

psychological empowerment influence the level of individual creativity of Al-Aqsa

University employees?"

1.3 The Research Variables

The Research Variables: The followings are the independent and dependent variables

that will be studies through research:

6

1. The Independent Variable: Psychological empowerment with four Dimensions:

a. Meaning

b. Competence

c. Self-determination

d. Impact

2. The dependent variable: individual creativity

Figure (1.1): The Research Variables

Source: articulated by the researcher (2016), based on study of (Çekmecelioğlu & Özbağ ,2014)

1.4 The Research Hypotheses

The following are the research hypotheses:

1. There is a statistical significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between Psychological

empowerment dimensions and individual creativity. Accordingly, the following are

the Sub-Hypotheses:-

a. There is a statistical significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between Meaning

and individual creativity.

b. There is a statistical significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between

Competence and individual creativity.

c. There is a statistical significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between Self-

determination and individual creativity.

d. There is a statistical significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between Impact

and individual creativity.

2. There is a statistical significant impact at level α ≤ 0.05 of Psychological

empowerment on individual creativity.

Psychological

Empowerment

Meaning

Competence

Self-determination

Impact

Individual

Creativity

The independent variable The dependent variable

7

3. There is a statistical significant difference in the responses of the research sample at

level α ≤ 0.05 due to the following demographic characteristics (gender, age, years

of experience, education level and social status).

1.5 The Research Objectives

The objectives of the research can be categorized into three categories:

1. To introduce the concept and the tools of psychological empowerment as an

evidence-based phenomena for human resources development.

2. To investigate the relationship between the psychological empowerment with its

dimensions (meaning, competence, self-determination, impact) and individual

creativity of the employees at Al-Aqsa University.

3. To provide recommendations to the management of academic institutions in Gaza to

address the gaps in human resources development.

1.6 The Research Importance

The importance of the research can be categorized into two categories:

1. Scientific Importance

a. This study will contribute to increasing the knowledge related to psychological

empowerment and its impact on individual creativity based on the results reached.

b. This study will add to the body of knowledge by providing valuable information

about the perception of the role of the psychological empowerment in Gaza.

c. This study provides a wealth of knowledge and fill in a gap in research related to

implementing empowerment models in business development.

d. This study may benefit researchers in conducting similar studies in new

communities and using other variables or building on the current study, and starting

new fields.

2. Practical Importance

a. Findings of this study will contribute to improving the administration styles at Al

Aqsa University in Gaza.

b. Findings of this study can be used by other universities in Gaza to empower the

employees toward improving individual creativity.

Chapter Two

Literature Review

9

Chapter Two- Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a thorough theoretical analysis of the main three component of

this study, based on an up-to-date research of literature on the local, regional and global

levels. This chapter was divided into three sections; each section elaborates one of the

main study components: psychological empowerment, individual creativity and Al Aqsa

University, where they study will be implemented. The first section emphasizes the

definition of the term “psychological empowerment” from different resources. The four

dimensions of psychological empowerment in terms of meaning, competence, self-

determination and impact will be elaborated. Then the section discusses the key factors

affecting psychological empowerment. Finally the section illustrates interior personality

traits that affect psychological empowerment.

The second section focuses on individual creativity. Starting by identifying individual

creativity and innovation on the personal and organizational level, it explains the

relationship between both terms. Then the section provides a thorough elaboration on

the sources of individual creativity, especially the knowledge, the creative thinking and

the motivation. Additionally, this section provides an analysis to the contextual

characteristics of individual creativity, with a focus on the organizational learning

culture, the interaction between supervisors and employees, the level of autonomy at the

job, and the possibility toward proactivity. Finally, this section provides key

recommendations for enhancing individual creativity at work, by making jobs

challenging, provides space of freedom, secures resources, focuses on the characteristic

of the work group, maintains supervisor‟s encouragement and ensures organizational

ongoing support. The last section provides a brief description of Al Aqsa University, by

discussing its vision, mission and its strategic objectives, providing a brief overview of

its history and major activities, and finally discussing reasons of choosing Al Aqsa

University for this particular study.

10

Section One- Psychological Empowerment

2.1.1 Introduction

In the light of rapidly changing job challenges and the increasingly growing global

competitions, the role of human resources has been highlighted as the most valuable

factor for addressing the organizational needs. The trend toward providing more flexible

roles for employees and encouraging innovative solutions to complex problems

becomes a fundamental pillar in human resource development. The psychological

empowerment, in its four dimensions; competence, meaning, self-determination and

impact, has become an internationally recognized tool for enhancing employee‟s

performance as opposed to materialistic incentives. The main task of psychological

empowerment is to improve the ability of employees to appreciate their own strengths

and qualities and also support them to value the role of their own jobs and the

contribution of their organization in general, which at the end will lead to the feeling of

satisfaction (Spreitzer, Kizilos, & Nason, 1997).

This chapter reviews the literature on the relationship between psychological

empowerment and individual creativity by providing a theoretical framework on the

characteristics and definitions of both concepts.

2.1.2 Definition of Psychological Empowerment

Employment empowerment has been generally defined as “delegation of authority by

the managers to each employee, mostly with respect to job practices and methods”

(Sibson, 1994). There have been many efforts to define psychological empowerment.

Conger and Kanungo (1988) defined empowerment as a process of enhancing the

feelings of self-efficacy among organizational members, which would also include that

the employees perceive themselves to be empowered (Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

The first efforts for defining psychological empowerment as a structure of multiple

facets came from Thomas and Velthouse (1990), who defined psychological

empowerment as four cognitions reflecting an employee‟s orientations towards his/her

job namely impact (the ability employees have to affect organizational outcomes);

11

competence (an employee‟s capability to perform the work); meaningfulness (the value

of the work) and choice (how and deciding on the time to execute tasks) (Thomas &

Velthouse, 1990).

This cognitive framework was further developed by Spreitzer who defined the

psychological empowerment with its four dimensions that is characterized by a sense of

perceived control, perceptions of competence, and internalization of the goals and

objectives of the organization. Spreitzer (1995) somewhat changed what Thomas and

Velthouse (1990) found that by defining psychological empowerment as manifested in

four cognitions, it reflects an employee‟s active orientations to his/her work that

included meaning (the value of the work in relation to expectations); competence (the

ability to skillfully execute tasks); self-determination (deciding on the method, pace and

effort when completing tasks) and impact (ability to influence outcomes at work)

(Spreitzer, 1995).

Therefore, the psychologically empowered state is a cognitive state characterized by a

sense of perceived control, competence, and goal internalization. Empowerment is thus

considered a multi-faceted construct reflecting the different dimensions of being

psychologically enabled, and is conceived of as a positive additive function of the three

dimensions (Sanjay, 1999).

In more practical terms, Goetzee (2001) defined empowerment as the “term of

encouraging and allowing employees to take personal responsibility for any

improvement brought about in the performance of their assigned task whilst

contributing to the attainment of the overall objective of the organization” (Goetze,

2001).

According to Degago (2014), psychological empowerment means making people feel

valued by involving them in decisions, asking them to participate in the planning

process, praising them and continually providing adequate training and support. It is

giving employees the opportunity to contribute to the company‟s overall success

(Degago, 2014).

12

In sum, psychological empowerment is defined as a motivational construct manifested

in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. Together,

these four cognitions reflect an active, rather than passive, orientation to a work role.

2.1.3 Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment

According to Spreitzer definition, psychological empowerment has four main

dimensions (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact). Thomas and

Velthouse (1990) stated that empowerment is multifaceted and that its essence can't be

captured by a single concept. It increases intrinsic task motivation manifested in a set of

four cognitions reflecting an individual‟s orientation to his or her work role: meaning,

competence, self-determination and impact. The following are dimensions of

psychological empowerment:

1- Meaning: It concerns the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an

employee‟s own ideals and standards or meaning concerns a sense of feeling that

one‟s work is personally important (Spreitzer, 1995; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). It

is the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an individual‟s own

ideals or standards (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). This means works are like a driving

force of empowerment; if employees don‟t like working at a specific place, if the job

they are doing are clashing with their value system, they would not feel that much

empowered.

2- Competence: Self-efficacy is an individual‟s belief in his or her capability to

perform activities with skill (Gist, 1987). Competence can be defined as the feeling

of accomplishment after skillfully completing a task that has been undertaken. When

feeling competent about the task that has been performed, employees would also be

more open to confront difficulties instead of refraining from attempting to engage in

these activities. When feeling competent, employees are more likely to also

experience job satisfaction. This is also related to feelings of self-efficacy and this

would also influence how tasks are going to be approached in the future (Thomas &

Velthouse, 1990). Chen and Chen (2008) stated that employees would feel more

valued when empowered and can encourage employees to enhance their level of

self-efficacy. In this way, employees can also be identified by the organization that

will encourage them to exert more effort on the job, making them more committed to

13

the organization. This could also enhance the level of organizational commitment of

the employees, by making them feel more valued and could also encourage their

levels of self-efficacy (Chen & Chen, 2008).

3- Self-Determination: Is an individual‟s sense of having choice in initiating and

regulating actions (Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989). Self-determination is another key

component of intrinsic motivation that is a key determinant of satisfaction.

Competence and self-determination are also a key component and an essential

ingredient for intrinsic motivation (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Self-determination

is related to the opportunity to select task activities that make sense to perform in

ways that seem appropriate and also the sense of freedom about how to do their own

work.

4- Impact: Is the degree to which an individual can influence strategic, administrative,

or operating outcomes at work (Ashforth, 1989). Impact is the degree to which an

individual can influence strategic, administrative and operating outcomes of work. It

can also be defined as the degree to which behaviour can influence the overall

outcome of the task. Quinn and Spreitzer (1997) explained that empowered

employees would also feel that they have an impact on the task (are better able to

influence the outcome of these tasks) and be more engaged in the tasks that they do

(Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997). Rogers and Blenko also stated that “every success, every

mishap, every opportunity seized or missed stems from a decision someone made-or

failed to make”. These are the type of employees that would be expected to make the

aim and objectives of the university a reality and not remain aims and objectives on

paper (Rogers & Blenko, 2006).

2.1.4 Factors Affecting Psychological Empowerment

This section demonstrates and discusses environmental and personal features and

characteristics that affect how, and to what extent, employees perceive psychological

empowerment. The availability of all these factors or the majority of them should

predict a high probability of perceived psychological empowerment, while the absence

of these factors or the majority of them should predict the unlikeliness of perceived

psychological empowerment.

14

1. Information Exchange: Information exchange has been defined as the sharing of

knowledge and experiences directed towards the enhancement of organizational

quality or, in the case of nursing homes, increasing the quality of care to residents

(Sprtizer, 1995). In order to be more empowering, organizations must make more

information more available to more levels through more devices. Past research has

shown information exchange to have a positive effect on empowerment in service.

Sprtizer (1995) found that employees who received greater access to information

about their organization‟s mission reported higher levels of empowerment.

2. In order to be empowering, organizations must make more information available to

more people at more levels through more devises. Lawler (1992) suggested that two

specific types of information are critical for empowerment: (1) information about an

organization‟s mission and (2) information about performance. With regards to

information related to organization‟s mission, until people feel informed about where

an organization is headed overall, they won't feel capable of taking initiatives. With

regard to information related to performance, people need to understand how well

their work units are performing in order to make influencing decisions to maintain

and improve performance in the future. Performance information is fundamental to

reinforcing a sense of competence and believing that one is a valued part of an

organization (Spreitzer, 1995).

3. Decentralization of Resources: Decentralizing the access of resources from the top

levels of the organizational hierarchy is a key to empowering its workers.

decentralization of resources is a structural feature within an organization which

allows frontline employees to access and acquire materials, staff, time or space in

order to proceed with work tasks (Kanter, 1984). Access to resources enhances

workers‟ sense of self-efficacy and controls over environmental contingencies which

relate to the self-determination and impact dimensions of psychological

empowerment. The more team members have access to work unit resources, the

more they report higher levels of psychological empowerment (Spritzer,1995).

4. Co-Worker Support: Co-worker support is defined as a general belief that co-workers

will help one another with work tasks. The more a team‟s members have socio-

political support, the more they report to have higher levels of psychological

15

empowerment. Employees that are connected within a social network are empowered

to influence the direction of their organization (Chan, Taylor, & Markham, 2008).

5. Perceived Supervisor Support: Perceived supervisor support has been defined as the

general views held by employees concerning the degree to which their supervisors

value their contributions and care about their wellbeing (Kottke & Sharafinski,

1988). Members of high performing work teams report high levels of support from

management, and higher levels of control over decision making which is analogous

to psychological empowerment.

6. Availability of Training: Yeatts and Hyten (1998) defined training as the

organizational means by which work specific skills are provided to its workers.

Training has been found in past research to foster psychological empowerment as

well as several of its component parts including self-determination, impact, and

competence (Yeatts & Hyten, 1998).

7. Socio Demographic Effects: There are several demographic variables that have been

reported to affect empowerment which include sex, age, level of education and race.

Female managers received less support than males contribute to feeling less

empowered. Older managers are found to also receive less support, information, and

resources than others which contribute to diminished feelings of empowerment.

More educated workers feel more competent and therefore experiences more

psychological empowerment than less educated workers (Spreitzer, 1996).

8. Self-Esteem: Self-esteem is defined as a general feeling of self worth and posited to

be related to empowerment. Individuals who hold themselves in high esteem are

likely to extend their feelings of self worth to a work specific sense of competence.

Through self-esteem, individuals see themselves as valued resources having talents

worth contributing, and they are thus more likely to assume an active orientation

with regards to their work (Spreitzer, 1995).

9. Locus of Control: Locus of control, the personality trait most relevant to the impact

dimension, will also be related to empowerment. Locus of control explains the

degree to which people believe that they, rather than external forces, determine what

happens in their lives. Individuals with an internal locus of control regarding life in

general are more likely to feel capable of shaping their work and work environment

and to feel empowered (Spreitzer, 1995).

16

2.1.5 Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

Two major consequences are associated with psychological empowerment,

effectiveness and innovative behaviour:

1. Global competition and organizational changes have stimulated a need for

employees, who can take initiatives, embrace risk, stimulate innovation and cope

with high uncertainty. Managerial effectiveness is generally defined as the degree to

which a manager fulfills or exceeds work role expectations (Spreitzer, 1995).

2. Creative behaviour reflects the creation of something new or different. Creative

behaviours are by definition change-oriented because they involve the creation of a

new product, service, idea, procedure, or process. More specifically, because

empowered individuals believe they are autonomous and have an impact, they are

likely to be creative, and they feel less constrained than others by technical or rule

bound aspects of work. Furthermore, because empowered individuals feel self-

efficacious, they are likely to be innovative in their work and to expect success

(Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).

3. The lack of psychological empowerment in the work places should have the diverse

effect. Employees will not feel enough trusted and empowered to think creatively to

respond to the very completive and rapidly changing work environment. Therefore,

the general quality of the organizational performance will be severely affected.

Given the high competitive pace of work, the existence of such an organization will

be substantially threatened (Spreitzer, 1995).

4. Psychological empowerment appears to be effective in engendering positive

performance behaviours across cultures. Although empowerment in general has a

stronger effect on job satisfaction in low power-distance cultures than in high power-

distance cultures, psychological empowerment appears to be one of such promising

practices of positive effects across cultures (Tuuli & Rowlinson, 2009).

5. Psychological empowerment helps individuals to feel that they possess work-related

competence and control over work decisions and derive meaning and sense of impact

from their jobs; they become more likely to exhibit task and contextual performance

behaviours. Further, such individuals are internally motivated, develop competencies

regarding their work and may also have greater opportunity to perform in ways that

17

contribute to the achievement of organizational and project goals (Tuuli &

Rowlinson, 2009).

6. Psychological empowerment promotes contextual behaviours such as cooperation

and teamwork, imperative in project management performance; this can be provided

to management level as practical evidence to advocate for the importance evidence

that belief in capability or perceived competence/self-efficacy is enhanced when

individuals are psychologically empowered (Tuuli & Rowlinson, 2009).

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Section Two- Individual Creativity

2.2.1 Introduction

The recent literature has proven that the main source for growth in the 21st centaury is

human creativity, rather than knowledge , technology or competition. Due to the rapidly

advanced technological development, economical growth and globalization, increased

the market demands and the expectations and challenges it brings, there is a growing

interest in creating a work environment that supports individual creativity that leads to

the organization creativity and innovation.

This section provides a theoretical framework of the meaning of individual creativity in

the work place context. The section starts by providing a thorough definition of

creativity, with a particular focus on the definition of creativity in the workplace.

Additionally, the definition will extend to describe organizational creativity and

specifies the connection between creativity and innovation. After that, this section will

provide a comprehensive analysis of the elements that form and enhance individual

creativity, whether it's an individual resources or factors related to the workplace or the

work environment inside organizations.

2.2.2 Definition of Individual Creativity

There are many definitions to creativity in general, depending on the context and the

scientific backgrounds of the researchers and scientists. In this study, the researcher has

selected the definitions that are most relevant to creativity in workplace.

Stegmeier defined creativity as the ability to approach the situation at hand with a fresh

perspective, and link together previously unrelated or uncombined concepts, to generate

new and unexpected ideas that solve a problem or capture an opportunity (Stegmeier,

2008). While Amabile has defined creativity in different ways. Generally, it is the

production of novel and useful ideas in any domain, and also it is the development of

ideas about products, practices, services or procedures that are novel and potentially

useful to the organization (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996). Leigh and

Tremblay defined creativity as the ability to approach the situation with a fresh

perspective, linking together previously unrelated or uncombined concepts to generate

19

new and unexpected ideas that solve a problem or capture an opportunity (Leigh, Huber,

& Tremblay Jr).

Zhou and Shalley defined creativity as the production of new and useful ideas

concerning products, services, processes and procedures. Also included under this

definition is the generation of novel solutions to business problems, creative business

strategies, and creative changes in job processes (Zhou & Shalley, 2003).

Overall, the definition that can be more comprehensive and more relevant to this study

is the one developed by Amabile: “the development of ideas about products, services,

practices, processes, and procedures that are judged to be (a) original and novel, and (b)

appropriate and potentially useful” (Amabile et al., 1996).

2.2.3 Relationship Between Organizational Creativity and Individual Creativity

While individual creativity mechanisms refer to activities undertaken by individual

employees within an organization to enhance their capability for developing something,

which is meaningful and novel within their work environment, organizational creativity

mechanisms refer to the extent to which the organization has instituted formal

approaches and tools, and provided resources to encourage meaningfully novel

behaviors within the organization.( Zhang and Bartol ,2010)

At the individual level, support is required to invite critical thinking to move ideas from

the level of everyday or common problem solutions to the level of performance

producing innovation influenced by group thought processes, at this transitory point

organizational creativity is shaped by individual employee„s perceptions of

organizational context (climate) and the values and norms of the organization (culture)

(Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007).

Organizational creativity can be defined as the creation of a variable, useful, new

products, service, idea, procedure, or process by individual working together in a

complex social system (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). It also can be defined as

any business entity whose main source of income comes from the production of novel

and appropriate ideas, processes, products or services to tackle clients‟ problems or

20

opportunities identified (Andriopoulos & Lowe, 2000). Williams and Yang defined

organizational creativity as an adaptive entity highlighting the need for greater

employee autonomy, intrinsic motivation and commitment and not just individual

creativity in a group work setting (Williams & Yang, 1999).

Creative organizations can be prescribed as complex, social, political and technical

systems. In order to identify creative outlets and implementation a set of mechanisms,

the leadership in organizations must have the skills to appreciate knowledge at the

individual, team and organization levels at the same time. The creative organization

balances the integration of two central offerings: autonomy for free enterprise and

individual creativity. Organizational creativity is linked to a risky balance between

complexity, compromise and choices. The creative organization needs to be flexible

while controlling business risk, but provides the freedom to search for new knowledge

through learning and experimentation of individuals (Patterson, 2002).

2.2.4 Creativity Versus Innovation

Ford summarized the difference between creativity and innovation as creativity is the

production of novel perspectives, ideas, or products, while innovation has been

identified as the implementation of those perspectives, ideas, or products, and as such

innovation involves creativity (Ford, 1996). The innovation hypothesis proposes that

innovation within organizations is a function of individual efforts and institutionalized

mechanisms to facilitate creativity (Glynn, 1996).

Amabile argued that innovation in an organization is significantly influenced by the

extent of creativity-relevant skills possessed by its employees. These creativity-relevant

skills can be developed, sustained, and enhanced through formal and informal

mechanisms such as training and education. Hence, when employees improve their

creative abilities, it enhances the innovation performance. In other words, individual

creativity efforts are strengthened by the presence of organizational systems,

procedures, and processes that enable creativity. Creative personalities produce more

creative output than less creative personalities only when they are surrounded by an

organizational context that facilitates creativity (Amabile, 1988).

21

Although individual and organizational creativity mechanisms can individually impact

innovation performance, the effectiveness of making innovation will be greater when

both individual and organizational creativity mechanisms occur simultaneously

(Bharadwaj & Menon, 2000).

However, there are various ways of defining innovation, depends on field of work or

discipline. Some disciplines define innovation based on the nature of the behavior, such

as bringing new creative idea, or improve an existing model. Other disciplines look at

the innovation as a product came as a result of creative thinking. While other disciplines

perceive innovation as a mean for achievement that creates a balance between

technology, ideas, inventions, creativity, and market (Baregheh, Rowley, & Sambrook,

2009).

2.2.5 Sources of Individual Creativity

The individual sources for creativity and innovation have been an essential topic in

creativity research. Amabile, one of the key researchers in the field of creativity, and

Sternberg, have identified main individual resources for creativity and innovation,

1. Knowledge : Amabile describes knowledge as all the relevant information that an

individual brings to bear on a problem (Amabile, 1998). On the other hand,

individuals must develop in-depth domain expertise to be creative. Simonton,

another creativity researcher, explained that we can conclude that creative output is

linked to the amount of time a person is actively engaged in a creative domain. In

other words, creativity production increases with years in the field until reaching a

maximum at which point it begins to decrease (Simonton, 2003).

2. Creative Thinking: According to Amabile, there are four aspects to creative thinking;

comfort in disagreeing with others and trying out solutions that depart from the status

quo, combining knowledge from previously disparate fields, ability to persevere

through difficult problems and dry spells, and ability to step away from an effort and

return later with a fresh perspective (Amabile, 1998). While Strenberg, in his

“triarchic theory”, spoke about three main aspects of intelligence and creative

thinking that are key for individual creativity; (1) synthetic: the ability to generate

ideas that are novel, high quality and task appropriate. One aspect of this is the

22

ability to redefine problems effectively and to think insightfully, (2) analytical:

critical/analytical thinking is involved in creativity as the ability to judge the value of

one‟s own ideas, to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and suggest ways to

improve them, and (3) practical: ability to apply intellectual skills in everyday

contexts and to sell creative ideas (Sternberg & O'HARA, 1999).

3. Motivation: Many researchers see motivation as the most important component of

creativity. Amabile focused on the role of intrinsic motivation and ways in which

intrinsic motivation can be enhanced in the workplace. Employees will be most

creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and

challenge of the work itself. According to Amabile, persons who are motivated by

external factors will take the shortest, most obvious path to get to the reward at the

finish line, while persons who are internally motivated will explore various pathways

and alternatives, taking his/her time and enjoying the process along the way

(Amabile, 1998). Creative individuals are characterized by their disposition to

convert differences into advantages. They reflect on their goals. In addition, they

analyze their strengths and weaknesses and then leverage their abilities to the

optimum. Furthermore, they frame apparent defeats or failures as prods to greater

achievement in the future. They also demonstrate intrapersonal intelligence – the

ability to understand and guide one‟s own creative process and to put checks on

illusory and/or emotional interferences in the process. Finally, they are comfortable

with taking risks and show persevere, even in the face of doubt and misgivings of

others (Howard & Policastro, 1999).

4. Intellectual skills: Three intellectual skills are particularly important:

a. The synthetic skill to see problems in new ways and to escape the bounds of

traditional thinking.

b. The analytic skill to recognize which idea is worth pursuing and which is not

c. The practical–contextual skill to know how to persuade others of the value of one‟s

ideas.

The combination of these three skills is also important (Sternberg, 2006).

5. Thinking styles: Thinking styles are preferred ways of using one‟s skills. In

particular, these styles decide how to match the skills available to a person. With

regard to thinking styles, a legislative style is particularly important for creativity,

23

that is, a preference for thinking and a decision to think in new ways. This preference

needs to be distinguished from the ability to think creatively: Someone may like to

think along new lines, but not think well, or vice versa. It also helps to become a

major creative thinker, if one is able to think globally as well as locally,

distinguishing the forest from the trees and thereby recognizing which questions are

important and which ones are not (Sternberg, 2006).

6. Environment: Non-threatening and non-controlling environment that encourages and

protects novel and new ideas. A creative environment is the environment that allows

workers to make mistakes, but to learn from their mistakes. Creative behavior needs

an environment which is free of external pressure (Sternberg, 2006).

2.2.6 Factors Stimulate Creativity

Most literature on creativity in the workplace targets an audience of managers and

business leaders and focuses on methods to foster organizational climates conducive to

innovation. Management should ask for technical creativity, demand it, encourage it,

stimulate it, fund it and reward it (Mauzy, Harriman, & Harriman, 2003). Amabile

suggested that the management of any organization should focus on the following six

areas to enhance intrinsic motivation:

1. Challenge: Match people to jobs where challenge is appropriate: not too low so they

would feel bored and lazy and not too high so they would feel overwhelmed and lose

the control. Appointing people in the wrong position that doesn‟t match the challenge

level of the employee is one of the essential factors that impact the individual

creativity.

2. Freedom: Give employees a good space of freedom when it is related to the process,

not necessary at the end of the task. The clearly articulated strategic goals for any

organization can enhance the creativity among employees, but giving them a good

space of freedom around the process of performing tasks can also give them a sense

of ownership. Moreover, when employees contribute to setting strategic goals, this

would even enhance the creative thinking and behaviour.

3. Resources: Resources in both time and money, both are essential to affect individual

creativity. Time can enhance creativity by creating a challenge of producing results

24

in specific time frame, but on the other hand it can cause frustration and burn out if

the deadlines are tight and cause so much challenge.

4. Work-Group Features: When teams include people from various perspectives and

backgrounds, ideas can be exchanged and combined in an interesting way. Teams

can create an environment of excitement, commitment and recognition of the value

each member brings to the team. Creating such team requires reasonable efforts by

the management to know the people they work with.

5. Supervisory Encouragement: Management should generously recognize creative

work even before the commercial outcome of it starts to appear. Usually, people

react to new ideas by resistance and bias. The organization‟s attitude toward failure

is important toward enhancing creativity and innovation. Organizations, which

tolerate failure and promote risk-taking behaviour, are more likely to achieve

successful innovation at the end. Leader-member relationship quality refers to the

quality of the interpersonal relationship between an employee and his or her

manager, which determines the amount of physical or mental effort, material

resources, information, and social support that are exchanged between the leader and

the follower. Thus, employees in such relationships interact frequently with their

leaders and have their leaders‟ support, consideration, encouragement, and

confidence, and they take on extra-role effort and behaviour to achieve the team‟s

goals beyond transactional expectations in the job descriptions (Amabile, 1988).

6. Proactivity: proactive personality, is one crucial characteristic of individual creativity

because of the changing nature of work and business environment. Proactivity is

defined as a belief in one‟s ability to overcome constraints by situational forces and

the ability to affect changes in the environment (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Proactive

behaviour is described as „taking initiative in improving current circumstances or

creating new one; it involves challenging the status quo rather than passively

adapting to present conditions‟. Proactive employees look for opportunities, show

initiative, take action, and are persistent in implementing change (Joo, Yang, &

McLean, 2014).

7. Organizational Support: Intrinsic motivation increases when employees are aware

that people around them are excited about the work they do, the environment

supports information sharing and collaboration (Amabile, 1988). Work environment

25

can influence employee creativity in the work place. The characteristics of the work

environment, as described below, can affect the motivation toward creativity:

a. Perceived Learning Culture: To survive and thrive in a world characterized by rapid

change and competition, many organizations strive to have a learning organization

culture of creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge and modifying its

behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights. To be a learning organization,

organizational learning needs to be structured so that teamwork, collaboration,

knowledge sharing, and creativity processes have a collective meaning and value.

There are seven action requirements for a learning organization: (a) continuous

learning opportunities; (b) inquiry and dialogue; (c) collaboration and team learning;

(d) established systems for learning; (e) empowerment for a collective vision; (f)

connectedness to the environment; and (g) strategic leadership for modeling

organizational learning (Amabile, 1988).

b. Job Autonomy: One of the most important contextual factors likely to affect

creativity and innovation is the amount of job autonomy. Job autonomy refers to the

degree to which the job gives the worker freedom and independence in scheduling

work and determining how the work will be carried out. Complex jobs that provide

job incumbents with autonomy demand creative outcomes by encouraging

employees to focus simultaneously on multiple dimensions of their work, whereas

highly simple or routine jobs may inhibit such a focus. Individuals are likely to be

excited about their work activities and interested in completing these activities in the

absence of external controls or constraints. When individuals are intrinsically

involved in their work, all of their attention and effort is focused on their jobs,

making them more persistent and more likely to consider different alternatives,

which should lead to higher levels of creativity (Hackman & Oldham, 1980).

26

Section Three- Al Aqsa University

2.3.1 Background

Al Aqsa University has been established as an outcome of merging two teachers‟

institutes, which were established in 1955 by the Egyptian government aiming to

upgrade and train qualified teachers. The merge of the two institutes in 1991 produced,

what was called at that time, Governmental Education College. This college has shown

an impressive growth since then and contributed substantially in qualifying students and

teachers. Since 1991, the college has proved its ability to grow significantly by

developing its educational strategies, opening more scientific fields and accepting more

students and teachers. The college has graduated many highly-qualified students from

different programs at the level of baccalaureate, Master and PhD. The post-graduate

program was provided in partnership with Ein Shams University in Egypt. This college

has been developed to Al Aqsa University since 2000. (http://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/ 2015)

The University has been a member of the Arab Universities Union as well as of the

Palestinian Higher Education Council since 2003. Vision: Al–Aqsa university is striving

to be distinguished between Palestinian and regional universities in all fields of

academic studies, scientific research and community service based on the

comprehensive high quality culture. Mission: Al–Aqsa university is a Palestinian

government institution of higher education which aims at preparing a person provided

with knowledge, skills and values and having the ability of self-paced education and

utilizing information technology through capacity- building programs, university

education, scientific research and community development and service. The university

is committed to fulfill its vision through adherence to Arabic and Islamic culture,

human rights principles, which include accountability, respect of law, transparency,

respect, forgiveness, justice, equity, empowerment, and sharing knowledge .

(http://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/ 2015).

2.3.2 Overview of Al Aqsa University

The university encompasses broad range of science through nine main colleges: Al

Aqsa society science, art and human sciences, education, applied sciences, media, fine

27

arts, administrative science, and sports. Additionally, there is a current ongoing effort to

accredit two additional colleges, which are information technology and paramedical

sciences (http://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/ 2015).

The postgraduate program has started in 1994, in a partnership with Ein Shams

University in Egypt. This program assisted a high number of researchers and

professionals from different governmental and non-governmental organizations to

obtain qualifications at the postgraduate diploma, Masters and PhD level. In 2012, Al

Aqsa University has been accredited by the Ministry of Education to open postgraduate

Master programs (http://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/ 2015).

Currently, there are more than 20000 students who are registered at Al Aqsa university

in both campuses in Gaza and Khanyounis districts. The number of female students is

three times greater than the number of males. One of the reasons behind the high

tendency of students to enroll at Al Aqsa university is the relatively reasonable tuition

and fees, compared with other universities operating in Gaza. The average tuition and

fee for accredited hour is 13 Jordanian Dinars, which is appropriate for most of the

families living in Gaza taking into consideration the deteriorated economic situation in

the last 10 years. In addition, the university gives full tuition scholarships for students

who keep Qur‟an by heart, students who are the top of their departments, sons of

martyrs, sons of prisoners and partial scholarships to students who suffer from low

socio-economic status (http://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/ 2015).

The number of full time academic staff is 396 employees, while the number of full time

administrative staff is 320 employees. There are other 300 full time employees who

occupy administrative positions in the university under special contracts. Additionally,

the university also contracts other teachers and trainers from outside the university

when there is a need for this.

Consequently, based on all the above illustrated historical and contextual fact that make

Al Aqsa University one of the largest academic institutions in Palestine, the researcher

has chosen Al Aqsa University to implement this study. The outcomes of this study can

be most useful in such a place with this high number of employees. Additionally, the

administration of Al Aqsa University can benefit from such study because the

28

recommendation can be implemented without financial costs, given the deteriorated

socio-economic situation in Gaza. Further, the diversity of the socio-demographic and

nature of employment of Al Aqsa University employees, between academic and admin

and between permanent and special contract employees, can enrich the outcomes of this

study as it would allow further analysis of individual factors and their impact on their

perception of psychological empowerment and how this would influence their

individual creativity (http://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/ 2015).

2.3.4. Psychological Empowerment and Creativity at Al Aqsa University

In order to view the dimensions and the potential of implementing the psychological

empowerment as a new concept at Al Aqsa University, the researcher interviewed the

manager of the Human Resources department Mohammed Al Astal in October 2017 to

obtain his overview of how the psychological empowerment can be implemented at Al

Aqsa University and how it can contribute to increase the individual creativity.

The manager indicated that many of Al-Aqsa employees are creative in their work and

they support the development of the univesity by their creative ideas. However, the

human resource department doesn‟t have the capacity or the tools to track every

individual creativity. In order to encourage and sustain the individual creativity among

all employees at Al-Aqsa univesity, the human resource department needs to develop

new tools for tracking and encouraging such small initiatives and support the

implementation of new creative ideas. Furthermore, the individual creativity needs to be

considered as one of the main factors for evaluating the annual performance of Al-Aqsa

University‟s employees.

The manager advised that the psychological empowerment is not fully existed as a

strategy at Al Aqsa University; rather there are the uses administrative empowerment.

However the psychological empowerment can add a important value to improve

creativity among employees because they face many stressors at their work and at their

personal life.

29

The manager emphasizes different factors that can help Al Aqsa University to adopt the

psyhological empowerement as a strategy to improve individual creativity; such as

endorsing the psychological empowerement as a policy by the university administration,

relying on professionals who are specialized in such field because it is relatively new to

the university and to Gaza in general, involving different related departments such as

the university administration, the Human Resources department, the Employee Counsel

and also the department of Employees in a comprehensive plan to implement the

pyschological empowerement. The employees themselves should be involved and

encouraged to apply it; and finally there should be enough financial support to

implement such a new strategy.

However, there will be different internal and external challenges that would hinder the

university‟s efforts to adopt the psychological empowerement. Internal factors can

include the lack of qualified employees to lead the implementation of such strategy, the

rsistence to change as it is a new idea, and many employee would object to it, and also

the lack of financial resources as the university is facing significant financial challenges.

Other external factors would include the unstable political and socio-economic situation

in Gaza. The difficult living situation of most of employees can affect their response to

the administration‟s initiatives to implement new ideas, and the political division at the

Palestinian authority level can affect the sustainability of the public employment in

general.

Finally, the manager recommeded developing a detailed time-framed plan to implement

the psychological empowerment strategy. This plan should include establishing a task

force to lead and oversee the implementation of such a plan. In addition, it is essential to

educate the administration of Al Aqsa University and all employees of the advantages

of adopting the psychological empowerment as a strategy for encouraging the individual

creativity among employees. Finally, it is important to dedicate a defined budget to

support the implementation of this plan.

30

Chapter Three

The Previous Studies

31

Chapter Three- The Previous Studies

3.1 Introduction

This chapter gives a comprehensive overview and review of studies from different

places on two main areas, which are the psychological empowerment, and the individual

creativity. A review of existing 27 studies was undertaken through Internet search

facilities, library access, and websites of universities and official scientific websites and

journals. No specific journals were targeted, included, or excluded. This section

includes summaries for 17 international studies in different parts of the world, 6

regional studies, and 4 local studies. The researcher orders the presentation of studies

from the newest to oldest in terms of their year of publication. In addition, he

investigates various point of views for different researchers concerned about the impact

of psychological empowerment on individual creativity among al Aqsa university

employees.

3.2 Local Studies

1. (Salman (2015): The Impact of Human Resources' Psychological Empowerment

on Organizational Commitment on Banking Sector Local Commercial Banks in

Gaza Strip

This study aims to examine the impact of human resources' psychological

empowerment on the organizational commitment in banking sector specially the local

commercial banks in Gaza Strip. The literature reviews and the theoretical subjects and

topics were reviewed and hypotheses were formulated to fulfill this study purpose. The

descriptive analytical approach was used. The sample consisting of 224 employees in

local commercial banks was randomly selected from study population of 537

employees. The researcher used the questionnaire as a main tool for data collection.

The research results:

a) There is a significant positive relationship between psychological empowerment and

organizational commitment Strip in Local Commercial Banks in Gaza Strip.

32

b) There is a significant positive relationship between each of psychological

empowerment dimensions (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact)

and organizational commitment in Local Commercial Banks in Gaza Strip.

c) The result shows that the four psychological empowerment dimensions are available

in Local Commercial Banks in Gaza Strip at high levels and competence was the

most effective dimension.

The research recommendations:

a) Enhancing employee's psychological empowerment through maintaining an

appropriate management environment, distinguished by decentralization and

organizational justice.

b) Supporting employees through more participation in training courses and workshops

to increase their knowledge, skills and abilities.

c) Listening to employees' ideas related to work to encourage them to care about the

work they perform.

2. (Masri (2015): Requirements of Empowerments according to the Managerial

Employees Perspective in the Palestinian Universities in Gaza Governorates

The study aims to identifying the requirements of empowerment according to the

managerial employees' perspective in the Palestinian Universities in Gaza strip.

The study used the descriptive analytical approach. A questionnaire included five

pillars, which are delegation, participation and social work, the effective contact, the

managerial trust and the continuous training. Three hundred questionnaire sheets were

distributed, after proving validity, and 266 were returned with rate (87.7%).

The research results:

a) No statistically significant differences in the average of the study samples that

indicate to variables as gender, experience and grade.

b) There is deference due to the university variable and that was in the Islamic

University and to the qualification variable which was for the ones with high studies.

c) The managerial employees' trust, participation and social work requirements rate was

little.

33

The research recommendations:

a) It is important to take into consideration the opinions of employees and get them

participate in planning, organizing and decision taking.

b) It's a must to train the managerial leaders to delegate effectively & to guide them

toward the administrative decentralization in taking decisions in the Palestinian

Universities.

3. (Nasman (2011); The Administrative Empowerment and the Relation with the

Managerial Employees Creativity in Palestinian Universities in Gaza Strip.

This study aims to shed light on the administrative concept of empowerment and its

importance as a modern managerial approach for efficiency and performance. It

explores the empowerment and its relation to the creativity of employees at the

Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip. The study population consists of (914)

administrative employees from Azhar University, The Islamic University and Al-Aqsa

University. The sample of the study is (252) employees that were randomly selected.

The research results:

a) Empowerment and creativity are visible at the universities included in the study.

b) There is a significant statistical relationship between the components of

empowerment such as training, communication, information flow, team work,

incentives and delegation and the employees‟ creativity.

c) There are no significant statistical differences in the answers of the respondents

concerning the relationship between empowerment and creativity among groups of

different education levels.

The research recommendations:

a) There is a need to encourage employees to be accountable for the results of their jobs

and to enable employees to use new approaches to achieve the results. This is based

on giving the employees trust and the needed authority to do their jobs, in addition to

rewarding the creative employees.

b) There is a need for more attention to the components of empowerment at the

Palestinian universities by conducting training programs.

34

4. (Al-Ja'abari (2010): Employee Empowerment in Palestinian Public Universities

of West Bank: An Overview of the Managerial Employees.

The study aims at identifying the reality of empowerment among administrative staff in

public universities operating in the West Bank, from the perspective of psychological

empowerment and administrative empowerment. The study also emphasizes examining

the relation between psychological aspect and administrative aspect, and the barriers

that faced implementing empowerment for employees in West Bank universities. The

population of this study was composed of all managerial employees in six Public

Universities in West Bank. The sample of the study consists of 226 employees selected

randomly from the population of administrative staff.

The research results:

a) Result of this study showed that the level of Empowerment was high in general, but

the psychological empowerment degree was higher than the administrative

empowerment degree for those respondents.

b) There are no differences of the empowerment related to the (sex, age, and academic

qualification), while there is a significant difference related to (years of experience

and university).

c) The study represents that there is a positive relation between both of Psychological

Empowerment and Administrative Empowerment, which was moderate at (59.9%).

The research recommendations:

a) The administration cares about incentives both moral and monetary and focuses on

the rewards upon Performance.

b) Encouraging working as a team and believing of sharing responsibilities between

leaders, and subordinate.

c) Encouraging communication methods among universities and making sure

employees get knowledge and information flow more easily.

35

3.3 Regional Studies

1. (Al Nwajha (2016): Psychological Empowerment and Life Orientation in a

Sample of Teachers in Basic Stage.

The study aims to identify the psychological empowerment and life orientation at the

level of a sample of (291) teachers from elementary teachers to verify the existence of a

correlation between psychological empowerment and life orientation.

The researcher detected a difference related to the variable of sex, experience years, and

supervising authority. The psychological empowerment scale by Spritzer (1995) and life

orientation scale by Scheier & Carver, (1985) are used.

The research results:

a) The study showed that the level of psychological empowerment is (91.2%); the level

of life orientation is (77.8%) and a correlation exists between psychological

empowerment and life orientation.

b) There are no differences depending on the variable of sex except in impact branch, in

favor of males; there are no differences according to years‟ experience in favor of the

experienced of 11 years or more; and there are no differences depending on supervising

authority variable except in impact branch in favor of relief agency.

The research recommendations:

a) Providing new teachers with many aspects of experience that increase professional

experience and increase efficiency and performance.

b) Providing training and recreational programs that improve the level of optimism and

life orientation of teachers in educational institutions.

2. (Fallaq. and Naflah. (2013): The impact of administrative empowerment on

employee creativity: A case study of the Jordanian Telecom Group (Orange).

This research aims at identifying the impact of Managerial Empowerment on

employees Innovation. The study sample consisted of (82) Single from the

management board at Jordan Telecom Group. The data were analysed by using the

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), depending on the multiple regression,

and analysis of variance.

The research results:

36

a) The results of the study assured that there was an impact for Managerial

Empowerment on employees Innovation at Jordan Telecom Group (orange). There

were no statistically significant differences in the employee‟s perceptions of

Empowerment concept. This was interpreted to their experiences and functions.

The research recommendations:

a) The study concluded with the recommendation of starting reconsidering of

employees' salaries and clear promotional programs.

3. (Amedi (2013): The Effect of Psychological Empowerment in Job Alienation An

Exploratory Study of a Sample of Heads of Scientific Departments' Opinions in

University of Dohuk.

This research deals with two subjects: psychological empowerment of employees and

job alienation, on the basis of their being organizational phenomena that focus on

human resource and affect the organizational performance. The research aims to detect

the role of psychological empowerment in job alienation; it is based on two main

hypotheses: the fist hypothesis is "there is a significant correlation between

psychological empowerment and job alienation". The second hypothesis is "there is a

significant effect of psychological empowerment in job alienation". University of

Duhok was selected to be the field of the research and testing its hypotheses, and the

heads of the scientific departments were selected to be the study society. The number of

respondents was (47) of the total heads of scientific departments. By using a number of

statistical tools, the hypotheses were tested.

The research results:

a) The most important results of the study is the heads of departments at the University

of Dohuk receive appropriate levels of psychological empowerment, as well as

moderate levels of job alienation. The study also showed that there is a negative

significant correlation between psychological empowerment and job alienation, as

well as a negative significant effect between them.

37

The research recommendations:

a) The research presented a set of recommendations in respect of how to enhance the

levels of psychological empowerment of heads of scientific departments at the

university and to reduce levels of job alienation that they have.

4. (Abazeed (2010): The Effect of Psychological Empowerment on Citizenship

Behavior of Employees in Social Security Corporation in Jordan.

The study aims to explore the level of psychological empowerment with dimensions and

its impact on citizenship behavior for the employees working in social corporation in

Jordan. To achieve this objective, a standard questionnaire was adopted, adjusted and

used to meet the study goals. The number of received questionnaire sheets was 328,

which represents (63.07%) of the all population of the study.

The research results:

a) The findings revealed that there is an impact of psychological empowerment on

citizenship behaviour.

b) Results show that employees have a high level of psychological empowerment, and

citizenship behaviour.

c) Results also showed that there are no statistical differences among demographic

variables of employees regarding the psychological empowerment and citizenship

behaviour.

The research recommendations:

a) Enhancing the track of psychological empowerment and citizenship behavior of

employees.

b) Enhancing the psychological empowerment of workers by maintaining the

appropriate administrative environment, decentralization and organizational justice.

c) Citizenship behavior is considered one of the important criteria in staff assessment.

5. (Radi (2010): Administrative Empowerment and its Relation to Employee

Creativity Field Study on a Sample of Employees of the Faculty of Management

and Economics in Al Qadisiyah University.

38

The study deals with the relationship between administrative empowerment and its

dimensions: delegation Power, teamwork, training, active communication, motivation,

and employee creativity that includes the spirit of risk, flexibility, persuasion, scientific

methodology in thinking and problem solving. The questionnaire was distributed as a

tool to measure administrative empowerment and employee creativity on a random

sample of 37 working in the Faculty of Management and Economics University of

Qadisiyah.

The research results:

a) There is a strong relationship between administrative empowerment and employee

creativity.

b) The existence of partial support for administrative empowerment relations with most

of the creative variables of workers, and the limited responsiveness of employee

creativity variables to the difference in the level of employee awareness of practices

administrative Empowerment.

The research recommendations:

a) The possibility of benefiting from the tools of measuring the administrative

empowerment and creativity of workers to design training programs contributing to

the dissemination of knowledge to the top leaders in the college and motivating them

to think about empowerment field staff.

b) The continuity of strategic leadership thinking in the college in the manner of

administrative empowerment in order to increase the level of creativity of workers in

the areas highlighted in response to the variables of administrative empowerment.

6. (Gathami (2009): The Relationship of Psychological Empowerment with

Organizational Loyalty of the Employees in Security Forces Hospital, Riyad

City.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the four dimensions of psychological

empowerment including meaning, competence, self-determination and impact on

organizational loyalty of the employees in Security Forces hospital, Riyad City. A

sample of 210 employees was recruited to participate in this study. This study used a

39

descriptive analytical approach on studying this phenomenon using a questionnaire as a

main tool.

The research results:

a) The main result of this study revealed a direct correlation between psychological

empowerment, with its four dimensions including meaning, competence, self-

determination and impact, and organizational loyalty.

b) The results also found that the Board of Directors of Security Forces hospital, Riyad

City are aware of the importance of the psychological empowerment and its

relationship to organizational Loyalty.

The research recommendations:

a) This study recommends that the psychological empowerment is important to improve

the organizational loyalty to any institution, and the fulfillment of this relationship

can be achieved by improving awareness and providing ongoing training for

supervisors.

3.4 International Studies

1. (Arogundade, Arogundade, and Odoh (2017): Psychological Empowerment as a

Predictor of Work Engagement among Officers of Nigerian Immigration

Services.

This study examines the influence of psychological empowerment on work engagement

among officers of Nigerian immigration services. A survey research design was adopted

and data were collected from two hundred and Twenty- five (225) participants (M= 147,

F=78) using a battery of psychological test consisting of Psychological Empowerment

Scale (PES) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9). The data were

analyzed using percentages and multiple regression analysis to test the hypothesis.

The research results:

a) The results show that all the dimensions of psychological empowerment jointly

accounted for 25% of the variance in employees‟ work engagement. Furthermore, the

various dimensions of psychological empowerment contributed differently to the

variance in employees‟ work engagement.

40

b) Additionally, all the dimensions of psychological empowerment except impact have

positive relationship with work engagement. This implies that an increase in the

dimensions of self-determination, meaningfulness, and competence will result in

increase in work engagement.

The research recommendations:

a) The conclusion is that psychological empowerment has consistent positive impact

performance outcomes, which include work engagement.

b) This implies that the more an organization empowers the workers psychologically,

the more they remain engaged in their works.

2. (Muqadas, Rehman, and Aslam (2017): Organizational Justice and Employee’s

Job Dissatisfaction: A Moderating Role of Psychological Empowerment.

This investigation focuses on measuring the perception of employees regarding

organizational justice and job dissatisfaction in the presence of interactive effect of

psychological empowerment. It is a cross-sectional study that aims to collect data and

examine the research model at one point of time. A self-administered questionnaire was

given to the permanent and visiting faculty of private universities in Lahore division.

Descriptive statistics has been used to find the gender, age, level of education, working

status, and experience level. Reliability test was used to measure the internal

consistency and multiple regression test performed to examine the proposed direct

hypotheses. Finally, Hayes (2013) moderation test was used to measure the moderating

role of psychological empowerment on the association between organizational justice

and the level of job dissatisfaction.

The research results:

a) The results of this investigation reveal that organizational justice has a negative

association with the level of job dissatisfaction in the workplace. Moreover, the

moderating role of psychological empowerment has weakened the negative

relationship between organizational justice and the level of job dissatisfaction.

41

b) The results reveal that psychological empowerment moderated and weaken the

existing negative association between distributive justice and the level of job

dissatisfaction.

c) Psychological empowerment also moderates and reduces the direct negative

association between interactional, procedural justice, and level of job dissatisfaction.

The research recommendations:

a) The top management of private universities can benefit using the results and by

arranging organizational psychological empowerment programs to improve the level

of job satisfaction in the workplace.

b) In the context of social practice, the trainings on justice practices and psychological

empowerment would lead to positive outcomes for external and internal

stakeholders.

3. (Montazeri, M., Ghezelayagh, M. and Lili F. , 2017): A Study of the

Relationship between Organizational Health and Job Performance with the

Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment of Executive Entities Staffs of

Sirjan City.

The present study, a research-based work, has been conducted with the objective of

studying the relationship between organizational health and job performance with the

mediating role of psychological empowering. In addition, the theoretical literature and

testing the hypotheses of the study have also been reviewed. In the frame of a survey, to

select sample from the population including the entire staffs of executive entities of

Sirjan city, 274 people were selected as the sample by random stratified method. After

questionnaire distribution, data analysis was applied in two descriptive and inferential

statistical levels. The construct validity was confirmed by factor analysis. Reliability of

the instrument was calculated as 0.897 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. In order to

analyze the data, statistical and Parametric tests of t, correlation coefficient and

structural equation model were applied using the software LISREL.

42

The research results:

a) The results of the study represented that organizational health leads to job

performance enhancement through psychological empowering. Meanwhile,

organizational health has a positive and significant relation with job performance.

b) Psychological empowerment has a positive and significant relation with job

performance. The results showed that the empowered people would have higher

performance rather than other staffs.

c) Empowerment increases both the start of work behavior and continuity of effort for

these tasks. Especially, high levels of psychological empowerment lead to more and

harder efforts, continuity of effort and more flexibility.

The research recommendations:

a) As "psychological empowerment" of staffs has had the most effect on improvement

of job performance the managers of executive entities are recommended to adopt

policies that can empower their staffs.

b) It means that they can help the staffs to feel confident and boost their energy and

intrinsic motivation to do their activities.

4. (Khany and Tazik (2016): On the Relationship Between Psychological

Empowerment, Trust, and Iranian EFL Teachers’ Job Satisfaction: The Case

of Secondary School Teachers.

This study aims at investigating the relationship between trust and psychological

empowerment and job satisfaction among Iranian teachers. Participants were 217 (117

females and 100 males) secondary school teachers. Four dimensions of psychological

empowerment (meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact), three faculty

trust (trust in principal, trust in colleague, and trust in students and parents), and two

aspects of job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) were measured. The collected data

were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling (SEM) using the AMOS 20

program.

The research results:

43

a) Results indicated that psychological empowerment was directly related to job

satisfaction. Further analysis of the model indicated that trust is indirectly related to

job satisfaction through psychological empowerment.

b) Psychological empowerment and trust were regarded as predictors of job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction was regarded as direct predictor of trust as well as direct and indirect

predictor of psychological empowerment.

The research recommendations:

a) School principals and educational policy makers need to know that focusing solely

on financial incentives is not sufficient for satisfying teachers in Iran.

b) Authorities in ministry of education should know that proving an environment full of

trust, collaboration, autonomy, and healthy relationships are required for enhancing

teachers‟ job satisfaction in secondary schools.

5. (Olcer, F. and Florescu ,S., 2015). Mediating Effect of Job Satisfaction in the

Relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Job Performance.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among the four components of

psychological empowerment (i.e. meaning, self-determination, competence, and

impact), job satisfaction and job performance. A survey questionnaire was used to

collect data from a sample of 238 employees in manufacturing industry. SPSS was used

to conduct the statistical analysis of all data in this study. Multiple regression analyses

were conducted to examine the postulated hypothesis and test the direct and mediated

relationships among variables.

The research results:

a) The findings indicated that meaning, self-determination and impact had positive

significant effects on job satisfaction, but competence had no effect on job

satisfaction. In addition, competence, self-determination and impact had positive

effects on employees‟ job performance while meaning did not support the proposed

relationship.

b) The results suggested that job satisfaction significantly affected job performance.

Furthermore, overall job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between

meaning and job performance. In contrast, job satisfaction partially mediated the

44

relationships between competence and job performance, between self-determination

and job performance, and between impact and job performance.

The research recommendations:

a) The study recommended that employee psychological empowerment practices

should be supported by both top and middle level management in the regional

development authorities as this will improve employees' job performance

tremendously.

b) Moreover, the study displayed that the most employees were satisfied with their jobs

and perceived high job performance. More focus should be on developing creativity

and rooms for employees to exercise empowerment in order to enhance their job

satisfaction level and performance, thus providing quality service to customers.

6. (Fong and Snape (2015): Empowering Leadership, Psychological

Empowerment and Employee Outcomes: Testing a Multi-level Mediating

Model.

This study examines the effects of empowering leadership on employees in a customer

service organization, using data from 266 employees and their supervisors from 41

work teams in a division of a large Hong Kong telecommunications corporation.

Empowering leadership had acceptable levels of within-group agreement and between-

group variability, providing support for its analysis as a group-level construct.

The research results:

a) There was evidence of significant mediation effects of psychological empowerment

at both the individual and group levels.

b) The findings suggest that empowering leadership was associated with psychological

empowerment at both the individual and group levels. At the individual level,

psychological empowerment played a role as a mediator between empowering

leadership and job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

The research recommendations:

a) The results suggest that encouraging supervisors to practice empowering leadership

may underpin employee empowerment and result in positive employee attitudes and

45

behaviour, and ultimately improve customers‟ service experience.

b) The findings suggest that empowering leadership contributes positively to the

psychological empowerment, attitudes and work behaviours of followers.

7. (Çekmecelioğlu and Özbağ (2014). Linking Psychological Empowerment,

Individual Creativity and Firm Innovativeness: A Research on Turkish

Manufacturing Industry.

The aim of this empirical study is to determine the impact of the four dimensions of

psychological empowerment including meaning, competence, self-determination and

impact on individual creativity and its relationship with firm innovativeness. The target

industry was 100 firms among 650 are identified as the target group of the research

because of their availability. Tools such as e-mail, letter and face-to-face interviews are

used for gathering data from the managers‟ -top, middle or first line managers.

The research result:

a) Psychological empowerment has significant effect on individual creativity and

through their actions; creative employees may increase firm innovativeness.

b) Many researchers have emphasized the importance of individual creativity and its

relationship to organizational innovation and success

The research recommendations:

a) This study has only examined the role of psychological empowerment in fostering

individual creativity. Yet, the behaviours of organizational members occur in a far

more complex environment and could be affected by many additional factors such

as organizational climate, leadership, reward system, resource allocation, job

design, etc.

b) Therefore, other researchers are recommended to investigate these factors in

different regions and industries.

46

8. (Chiang and Hsieh (2012): The Impacts of Perceived Organizational Support

and Psychological Empowerment on Job Performance: The Mediating Effects

of Organizational Citizenship Behavior.

This study investigates how hotel employees perceive organizational support. The study

also examined the relationship between multiple study variables, such as psychological

empowerment, organizational citizenship behaviour, and job performance. A total of

513 participants at Taiwan hotels participated in the study. Data were analyzed through

descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, and the structural equation modeling.

The research results:

a) The findings indicated that perceived organizational support and psychological

empowerment both had a positive effect on perceived organizational citizenship

behaviour.

b) While psychological empowerment and organizational citizenship behavior

positively influenced job performance, there was no positive relationship between

perceived organizational support and job performance.

c) Organizational behaviour acted as a partial mediator between perceived

organizational support and job performance, as well as between psychological

empowerment and job performance.

The research recommendations:

a) These results can influence policy makers and managers at hotel industry to

recognize the importance of the feeling of organizational citizenship and become a

positive trigger toward improving performance. One way of improving the

organizational citizenship is to improve psychological empowerment.

9. (Hirst, Van Knippenberg, Chen, and Sacramento (2011): How Does

Bureaucracy Impact Individual Creativity? A Cross-Level Investigation of

Team Contextual Influences on Goal Orientation–Creativity Relationships.

This study aims at showing that team bureaucratic practices (centralization and

formalization) may inhibit the creative expression and regulate the individual‟s goal-

directed behaviour. The researchers of this study collected data by surveying 330

47

employees in 95 teams at the Taiwan Customs Bureau offices at the international

airports of Taipei and Kaohsiung and the international harbours of Keelung, Taichung,

and Kaohsiung.

The research Results:

a) Team bureaucracy can suppress the expression of individual differences that may

cause creativity.

b) Low centralization reduce the negative association between an avoided orientation

and creativity.

The research Recommendations:

a) Managers should encourage creativity by diminishing centralization and

formalization.

10. (Dewettinck and van Ameijde (2011): Linking Leadership Empowerment

Behavior to Employee Attitude and Behavioral Intentions: Testing the

Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment.

The overall aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between leadership

empowerment behavior, employee psychological empowerment and employee attitudes

and behavioral intentions. This study examined this relationship among 381 frontline

service employees from four companies active in people related services such as

temporary staffing and health insurance.

The research results:

a) The relationships between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction was

confirmed as well as the relationship between psychological empowerment and the

affective organizational commitment. The data provided stronger support for the

relationship between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction.

b) The empowering leadership behaviour enhances psychological empowerment, which

in turn influences job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

48

c) Leadership behaviour also shows to be directly related to employee attitudes, which

in turn are strongly related to an employees' intention to stay working for the

organization.

The research recommendations:

a) Psychological empowerment is a relevant construct to, at least partially, explain how

leadership empowerment behaviour relates to employee job satisfaction and

organizational commitment.

b) Research focusing on the relationship between leadership and employee motivation

traditionally makes a strict distinction between intrinsic motivation and contextual

elements.

11. (Zhang and Bartol (2010): Linking Empowering Leadership and Employee

Creativity: The Influence of Psychological Empowerment, Intrinsic Motivation,

and Creative Process Engagement.

This study aims at incorporating leadership theories, empowerment theories, and

creativity theories to build a theory that links empowering leadership with creativity.

This study also clarifies the function of three mediating mechanisms: psychological

empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. The study was

conducted in a large information technology company in China using a web-based

survey tool to collect data from 670 professional employees and their supervisors.

The research Results:

a) Empowering leadership has a strong impact on psychological empowerment where

the individual considers empowerment as part of his or her role identity.

b) Leader encouragement of creativity controls the link between psychological

empowerment and creative process engagement.

The research Recommendation:

a) Understanding how empowering leadership can raise creative outcomes in

organizations.

b) Training employees using creativity-relevant methods and processes to enhance their

performance.

49

12. (Casey, Saunders, and O’HARA (2010). Impact of Critical Social

Empowerment on Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction in

Nursing and Midwifery Settings.

The aim of this study is to test an expanded model of empowerment, which specifies the

relationships between structural, psychological, critical social empowerment and job

satisfaction. This study explored a third dimension of empowerment critical social

empowerment and its impact on psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. Non-

experimental design with a sample of 306 nurses and midwives in Ireland was

conducted using the Conditions of Work Effectiveness Questionnaire, the psychological

Empowerment Questionnaire, a researcher developed tool to measure critical social

empowerment and a job satisfaction questionnaire.

The research results:

a) Critical social empowerment was the stronger predictor, while both structural and

critical social empowerment were significant independent predictors of

psychological empowerment and job satisfaction.

The research recommendations:

a) The findings support the inclusion of the critical social dimension of empowerment

in the understanding of empowerment.

b) Implications for nursing management Managers at all levels, nurses and midwives

must attend critical social empowerment as well as structural empowerment courses

in order to increase job satisfaction and retention and engagement of highly qualified

committed nurses and midwives.

13. (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg, Schippers, and Stam (2010): Transformational

and Transactional Leadership and Innovative Behaviour: The Moderating

Role of Psychological Empowerment.

The main purpose of the study is to emphasize the importance of integrating

psychological empowerment in research in transformational and transactional

leadership. The study proposes that psychological empowerment moderates the

relationship with innovative behaviour of both transformational and transactional

50

leadership. The study was conducted in the Netherlands in a government agency using

mail surveys to collect data from 231 employees.

The research results:

a) a) Transformational leadership has a positive relationship with innovative behaviour

only when psychological empowerment is high. Transactional leadership has a

negative relationship with innovative behaviour only under these conditions.

The Research Recommendations:

a) Organizations should take followers of psychological empowerment into account and

not simply promote transformational or discourage transactional leadership.

14. (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009). Transformational leadership, creativity, and

organizational innovation.

This study proposes a model of the impact of transformational leadership both on

followers' creativity at the individual level and on innovation at the organizational level.

The model is tested on 163 of research and development personnel and managers at 43

micro- and small-sized Turkish software development Companies.

The research results:

a) This research, conducted in real-work settings, finds a positive relationship between

transformational leadership and followers' individual creativity.

b) In addition, transformational leadership influences employees' creativity through

psychological empowerment. At the organizational level, the results of regression

analysis reveal that transformational leadership is positively associated with

organizational innovation

The research recommendations:

a) The measure of organizational innovation that this study develops and uses might be

useful for studies in industries other than software development.

51

15. (Chen and Chen, (2008): The Impact of Work Redesign and Psychological

Empowerment on Organizational Commitment in a Changing Environment:

An Example from Taiwan's State-Owned Enterprises, Public Personnel

Management.

The purpose of Chen and Chen's study is to establish a framework to explain how to use

work redesign and Psychological Empowerment to strengthen employee commitment to

an organization that is undergoing change. A questionnaire was distributed to a sample

of 213 employees at three of Taiwan state–owned enterprises undergoing privatization

or reorganization.

The research results:

a) The results showed that the significant influence work redesign had impact on

employees' commitment to their organizations.

b) Psychological Empowerment plays an intermediating role between work redesign

and Organizational Commitment.

c) The results showed also that the perceptions of work redesign by employees who

have an external locus of control had a more significant positive impact on their

Organizational Commitment.

16. (Ergeneli, Arı, and Metin (2007): Psychological empowerment and its

relationship to trust in immediate managers.

The main aim of this study is to examine the relationships between overall

psychological empowerment and bank managers' cognition and affect-based trust in

their immediate managers. The study was conducted in Ankara, Turkey and includes

data from 84 bank branches. Data were collected from 220 questionnaire sheets from

respondents holding managerial positions (manager, assistant manager and supervisor)

in these banks.

The research results:

a) Results emphasize the importance of trust, as it is one of the factors influencing

empowerment practices. Therefore, a significant relationship exists between

52

cognition-based trust in immediate managers and overall psychological

empowerment.

The research recommendations:

a) Organizations should consider the significant role of trust as it enhances

communication, gives opportunities for effective solutions and encourages individual

discretion. Individuals' cognition-based trust in their immediate managers provides a

positive psychological empowerment.

17. (Hechanova, Regina, Alampay, and Franco (2006). Psychological

empowerment, job satisfaction and performance among Filipino service

workers.

This study examines the role of psychological empowerment on improving the job

satisfaction and improving the performance among Filipino participants working in

different services. The total number of workers surveyed was 954 participants, who

work in 10 organizations from five service sectors in the Philippines, hotels, food

service, banking, call centers, and airlines.

The research results:

a) The findings support the hypothesis that psychological empowerment is significantly

correlated to both job satisfaction and performance. Males reported greater

psychological empowerment than females even when controlling for job level and

job performance.

b) The findings of this study confirmed previous findings of other studies, which

showed that psychological empowerment is associated with positive performances

and outcomes.

The research recommendations:

a) The variation between the ratings of psychological empowerment among different

service workers should be understood in a way that psychological empowerment can

work in different ways, in different services, settings, and organizations.

53

3.5 General Commentary on the Reviewed Studies

This chapter demonstrates a diverse collection of the most relevant studies took place

recently in Palestine, Arab countries and the rest of the world.

1. There was a noticeable paucity of Palestinian studies, which explored the role of

psychological empowerment as a main variable. There was only one direct study

(Salman, 2015), which found a positive relationship between psychological

empowerment and organizational commitment.

2. There are more Arabic literature that studied the psychological empowerment as a

main variable and found a direct relationship of this variable with life orientation, job

alienation and organizational loyalty, such as (Al Nawajha, 2016) (Amedi,2013)

(Abazeed,2010) and (Gathami, 2009) .

3. The studies analyzed in this chapter studied psychological empowerment as a main

variable (Arogudade,2017), (Khany and Tazik,2016) , (Olcer and Florescu,2015) ,

(Fony and Snap,2015) and its impact on various organizational features; such as

organizational commitment, organizational loyalty, work engagement, trust, job

alienation and social empowerment.

4. The impact of psychological empowerment was also tested on other individual traits

such as life orientation, employees‟ creativity, citizenship behavior, job satisfaction,

employees‟ outcome and employees‟ performance, such as in (Hechanova et. Al,

2006)

5. Psychological empowerment was also studies as mediation factors between two

major variables such as organizational justice and job satisfaction, organizational

health and job performances, transformational and transactional leadership and

leadership empowerment and employees‟ attitude, work redesign and organizational

commitment, such as in (Muqadas et. al,2017),( Montazeri et. al,2017), (Pieterse et.

Al,2010) and (Chen and Chen,2008).

6. Few studies focused on individual creativity as a main variable compared to further

studies focused on psychological empowerment. The extensive focus on

psychological empowerment in the studies reviewed was done to emphaysize the

psychological empowerment as the primary variable and also because this concept is

still new to the Palestinian literature. Few studies investigated the individual

54

creativity with other various variables such as perceived bureaucracy as in (Hirst et.

Al,2011) and empowering leadership such as in (Zhang and Bartol,2010)

7. There are only two studies investigated the direct relationship between the current

study variable, psychological empowerment and individual creativity such as

(Cekmecelioglu and Ozbag,2014) However, both studies didn‟t implement their

research among university staff as a study sample.

8. The study samples and places of studies also vary. The psychological empowerment

and its impact on organizational and individual performances were tested among

bankers, university staff, international organizations‟ staff, industrial and

telecommunication companies, teachers, nurses, hotel staff and governmental

employees.

9. The diversity of study samples has not affected the consistent positive impact of

psychological empowerment on improving the organizational and individual

performance.

10. Studies analyzed in this chapter used different tools and instruments to collect data,

to meet the study goals. Mainly Psychological Empowerment Scale, developed by

Spritzer (1995) was used by most of studies to test the immediate impact of

psychological empowerment on other variable. Hayes Moderation Scale was used

to investigate the mediating factor of psychological empowerment with other two

main variables.

11. The majority of studies used a pure quantitative study design; only few studies used

qualitative brands such as face-to-face interview. Consequently, most of the data

analysis adopted a descriptive analysis approach, mostly SPSS was used for data

analysis. In few cases, AMOS program was used.

12. Reviewing the research findings and recommendations of all of studies analyzed in

this chapter, a clear evidence of a positive impact of psychological empowerment

on improving individual and organizational performance was found. The studies

illustrated above have made a robust ground of creating the design, the main

question and relative hypotheses of the current study.

55

3.6 The Major differences of the Current Study Compared to Previous Studies

The major differences between the current research and the previous studies are

summarized in the following points:

1- The current research is implemented in an educational environment characterized as

one of the largest governmental universities in Gaza Strip serving 24000 students in

different majors.

2- The scale of Spritzer (1995) for psychological empowerment will be oriented to fit

the Palestinian educational environment. Regarding individual creativity scale, the

researcher developed a new tool to measure it.

3- Most of the previous studies measured the variables in different populations working

in different sectors for example industrial, health and firms. The current research

population targeted the academic and admin staff in a governmental university.

Chapter Four

The Research Practical

Framework

57

Chapter Four- The Research Practical Framework

4.1 Introduction

The study methodology and its procedures are considered as a major hub by which

researchers accomplish the practical side of the study, and get the data needed to

conduct a statistical analysis to come up with results. Then, results are interpreted

in the light of the reviewed literature studies and thus it achieves the objectives that

it seeks to achieve.

This chapter contains a description of the methodology used, the community and

the study sample, the study tool used, the method of its preparation, and the way of

its construction and development, and the extent of its sincerity and persistence. It

also includes a description of the procedures carried out by the researcher in

designing and codifying the study tool used to collect the data. The chapter ends up

with the processes that have been used in the statistical analysis and the

conclusions.

4.2 Research Methodology

Based on the nature of the study and the objectives that it seeks to achieve, the

researcher has used the descriptive analytical approach, to describe precisely the

phenomenon qualitatively and quantitatively. This approach does not depend only

on the collection of information on the phenomenon, but determining patterns in

data in order to investigate its manifestations and answer the research question.

Descriptive analysis offers information to describe capacities, needs, methods

practices, policies, populations, and settings in a way that is appropriate to a

particular research question (Loeb et al., 2017).

4.3 Data Sources

For achieving the research objectives, sources of data were used which are:

1. Secondary sources: To establish a theoretical framework for the search, the

researcher surveyed data sources such as Arab and foreign-related references,

58

periodicals, articles, reports, previous researches and studies, and various

Internet sites.

2. The primary sources: to address the analytical aspects of the research topic, the

researcher resorted to primary data collection through a questionnaire,

specifically designed for this purpose.

4.4 Research Procedures

The followings are the steps the researcher followed in the research design and

implementation:

1. The research thesis started by preparing a proposal that included identifying and

defining the problems, establishing objectives of the study and developing the

research plan.

2. After receiving approval on the proposal, the researcher began to review the

literature on psychological empowerment and individual creativity.

3. The researcher develops a structure questionnaire to distribute it among the

research sample. This step involved (1) the establishment of an initial structured

questionnaire that measures the research variables, (2) generating the final

version of the structured questionnaire after it was judged and reviewed by

referees (10 in number) from the Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Azhar

University and Al Aqsa university.

4. After that; testing the questionnaire design was done by distributing the

questionnaire in a pilot study. The purpose of the pilot study was to test and

prove that the questionnaire questions are clear and answered in a way that

would help to achieve the target of the study.

5. The data collection for the research focused on distributing the questionnaire.

This questionnaire was used to collect the required data in order to achieve the

research objective. A total of 256 questionnaire sheets were distributed to the

research sample and 209 copies were received.

6. This phase of the research was data analysis and discussion. Statistical Package

for the Social Sciences, (SPSS) was used to perform the required analysis, to get

results and draw conclusions.

59

7. Discussing the results in order to draw a conclusion and suggest practical

recommendations.

Figure (4.1): The methodology flowchart, which leads to achieve the research

objective.

Source: Articulated by the researcher based on (Saunders et. al., 2010)

60

4.5 Research Population and Sample

Table (4.1): Distribution of Employees

Employees #

Administrative staff 442

Academic staff 323

Total 765

According to the personnel affaires of Al Aqsa university report on 1/12/2016 the

total number of employees is 765 of which the majority work in the academic field

442 employees, while the administrative staff come second, with a total number of

323 employees.

Because of the large size of the study population, the researcher used the random

stratified method to collect the necessary data for the study.

The sample size was calculated using the following equation (Moore, 2003):

2

2

Zn

m

….(1)

Where:

Z: The standard value corresponding to a given level of significance (for example:

Z = 1.96 for α = 0.05).

m (margin error): expressed as decimal (±0.05).

The sample size is then corrected in the case of the final communities from the

following equation:

n =1

nN

N n…(2)

Where N is the sample size, and using equation (1) we find that the sample size is

equal to:

21.96

3842 0.05

n

Since the study population is 765N =, the sample size of the sample using equation

(2) is equal to:

61

n = 2561384765

765384

Thus, the appropriate sample size in this case is at least 256.

Table (4.2): Population and Sample size

Job Classification N Sample

Administrative staff 442 148

Academic staff 323 108

Total sample 765 256

4.6 Research Tool Development:

The researcher prepares a study tool to study the Impact of Psychological

Empowerment on Individual Creativity among Al Aqsa University Employees. The

researcher followed the following steps to build the questionnaire:

1. Reviewing the administrative literature and previous studies relevant to the

subject of the study and taking advantage of them in the construction of the

questionnaire and the formulation of its clauses.

2. The researcher consulted a number of experienced people in determining the

dimensions of the questionnaire and its clauses.

3. Identifying the key areas covered by the questionnaire.

4. Determining the paragraphs that fall under each factor.

The design of the questionnaire in the initial image has consisted of two basic parts.

The Section I: It is personal data on the respondent (Gender, Age group, Social

status, job classification, educational level and years of experience)

The Section II is a study area, and consists of 40 paragraphs, distributed among the

following themes:

Table (4.3): The distribution of the paragraphs

# Paragraphs N. items

1. Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment 20

a. Meaning 5

b. Competence 5

c. Self determination 5

d. Impact 5

2. Individual creativity 20

Total 40

The gradient (1-10) has been used to measure the responses of the respondents to

the questionnaire by paragraphs.

62

Table (4.4): Agreement Scale

Level Strongly disagree Strongly agree

scale 1 10

The researcher has chosen the gradient (1-10) to respond, and the closer the answer

is to 10, the higher the approval is on what is stated in paragraph concerned.

4.7 Pilot Study:

A pilot study for the questionnaire was conducted before distributing its final copy.

A pilot sample of 30 questionnaire sheets were distributed randomly to help test the

validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Taking into consideration the

distribution of professional groups, 17 questionnaire sheets were distributed to

academic employees and 13 questionnaire sheets were distributed to administrative

employees.

4.8 Questionnaire Validity:

Validity refers to the degree to which an instrument measures what it is supposed to

be measuring. Validity has a number of different aspects and assessment

approaches. External validity is used to make sure the questionnaire is issued in the

final form required. Statistical validity is used to evaluate instrument validity,

which includes internal validity and structure validity.

/

4.8.1 External Validity

The researcher offered the questionnaire to a group of arbitrators consisting of

specialists in the academic, administrative, professional and statistical fields. The

focus was on academic experts of the faculty of Commerce from Islamic

University, Al Azhar University and Al Aqsa University. The names of the

arbitrators are in Appendix (A). The researcher has responded to the arbitrators and

performed the necessary deletions and modifications in the light of the proposals

submitted, and thus came up with the questionnaire in its final form.

4.8.2 Internal Validity

The internal validity means the internal validity of each paragraph of the

questionnaire with the domain that this paragraph belongs to. After conducting a

63

pilot study, where a questionnaire was distributed to a sample of (30) employees

from the potential respondent, the researcher calculated the internal validity of the

questionnaire through the use of correlation coefficients between each paragraph of

the areas of the questionnaire and the total score of the field itself.

1- Internal Validity For Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment

The results of the internal validity:

a- Internal Validity For Meaning Dimension:

Table (4.5): Correlation coefficient of each field and Meaning

# Meaning

Pearson

Correlation

coefficient

Sig.

1 My job at the university means something to me 0.930* 00000

2 The job activities are personally meaningful to me 0.911* 00000

3 The work I do is meaningful to me 0.845* 00000

4 My work at the university contributes to achieve the university‟s

goal

0.944* 00000

5 My work at the university contributes to community development 0.876* 0.000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, value of Correlation (R) table from

(30,0.05) Equal 0.349

Table No. (4.5) shows the correlation coefficient between each paragraph of the

factor of "Meaning" and the total score of the field, which shows that the

correlation coefficients indicated a function at the level of moral 0.05 ≥α, and so the

field is honest to put the measure.

b- Internal Validity For Competence Dimension:

Table (4.6): Correlation coefficient of each field and Competence

# Competence

Pearson

Correlation

coefficient

Sig.

1 I am confident about my ability to do my job 0.648* 00005

2 I am self-assured about my capability to perform my work

activities

0.876* 00000

3 I have mastered the skills necessary for my job 0.830* 00000

4 I have an adequate knowledge of how I can perform my work

tasks

0.654* 00000

5 I can handle all new situations at work with confidence and

effectiveness

0.723* 00000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, value of Correlation (R) table from (30,

0.05) Equal 0.349

64

Table No. (4.6) shows the correlation coefficient between each paragraph of the

factor of "Competence" and the total score of the field, which shows that the

correlation coefficients indicated a function at the level of moral 0.05 ≥α, and so the

field is honest to put the measure.

c- Internal Validity For Self Determination Dimension:

Table (4.7): Correlation coefficient of each field and Self determination

# Self determination

Pearson

Correlation

coefficient

Sig.

1 I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job 0.777* 00000

2 I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom on

how I do my job

0.872* 00000

3 I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work 0.893* 00000

4 I can identify my work priorities in line with work needs 0.860* 00000

5 I can determine work needs and goals without an intervention by

others

0.916* 0.000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, value of Correlation (R) table from (30,

0.05) Equal 0.349

Table No. (4.7) shows the correlation coefficient between each paragraph of the

factor of " Self-determination" and the total score of the field, which shows that the

correlation coefficients indicated a function at the level of moral 0.05 ≥α, and so the

field is honest to put the measure.

d- Internal Validity For Impact Dimension:

Table (4.8): Correlation coefficient of each field and Impact

# Impact

Pearson

Correlation

coefficient

Sig.

1 My impact of what happens in my department is large 0.883* 00000

2 I have a great deal of control over what happens in my department 0.865* 00000

3 I have a significant influence over what happens in my department 0.917* 00000

4 I have a great influence on students I work with directly 0.702* 00000

5 My role contributes to achieving the university‟s educational aims 0.761* 00000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, value of Correlation (R) table from

(30,0.05) Equal 0.349

65

Table No. (4.8) shows the correlation coefficient between each paragraph of the

factor of " Impact" and the total score of the field, which shows that the correlation

coefficients indicated a function at the level of moral 0.05 ≥α, and so the field is

honest to put the measure.

2- Internal Validity For Individual Creativity

Table (4.9): Correlation coefficient of each field and Individual creativity

# Individual creativity

Pearson

Correlation

coefficient

Sig.

1 I suggest new ideas to achieve work‟s goals 0.859* 00000

2 I invent new practical ideas to improve my work performance 0.894* 00000

3 I search for new strategies to help me achieve my work activities 0.841* 00000

4 I use new problem solving techniques away from routine regular

strategies

0.820* 00000

5 I set up time framed plans to implement new ideas 0.853* 00000

6 I am competent in communication and negotiation and have

ability to convince others

0.835* 00000

7 I have the ability to create immediate solutions to work problems

when they appear

0.707* 00000

8 I have the ability to suggest multiple ideas in a short time 0.721* 00000

9 I achieve all my work activities creatively 0.608* 00000

10 I pay attention to listen to feedback to improve my performance 0.760* 00000

11 I have the ability to see things from different dimensions 0.843* 00000

12 I plan ahead to face potential problems at work 0.846* 00000

13 I am keen to know my weaknesses at work 0.871* 00000

14 I have a substantial ability to detect other people's problems at

work

0.878* 00000

15 I have a strong drive to achieve my goals at work 0.764* 00000

16 My main concern is to suggest new ideas more than to obtain

other workers‟ satisfaction

0.684* 00000

17 I have the ability to defend my ideas by providing evidence 0.841* 00000

18 I initiate adopting new ideas and strategies for problem solving 0.875* 00000

19 I have the ability to realize and explain how different things are

connected

0.839* 00000

20 In most cases, I can create solutions to problems I face at work 0.744* 00000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, value of Correlation (R) table from

(30, 0.05) Equal 0.349.

Table No. (4.9) shows the correlation coefficient between each paragraph of the

factor of " Individual creativity" and the total score of the field, which shows that

the correlation coefficients indicated a function at the level of moral 0.05 ≥α, and so

the field is honest to put the measure.

66

4.8.3 Structural Validity

Structure validity is the statistical test that was used to test the validity of the

questionnaire structure by testing the validity of each field and the validity of the

whole questionnaire. It measures the correlation coefficient between one field and

all the fields of the questionnaire .

Table (4.10): Correlation coefficient of each factor and process criterion

#

Pearson

Correlation

coefficient

Sig.

Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment 0.936* 00000

a. Meaning 0.786* 00000

b. Competence 0.466* 00000

c. Self determination 0.870* 00000

d. Impact 0.839* 00000

Total Individual creativity 0.953* 00000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level , value of Correlation (R) table from

(30,0.05) Equal 0.349

Table (4.10) shows that all correlation coefficients in all areas of the questionnaire

are statistically significant at the level of moral 0.05 ≥ α and so all areas of the

questionnaire are sincere to put the measure.

4.9 Questionnaire Reliability:

The steadfast questionnaire means this questionnaire gives the same result if it is re-

distributed more than once under the same circumstances and conditions. In other

words, the stability of the questionnaire means stability in the results of the

questionnaire and not significant changes if it is re-distributed to individuals several

times during certain periods of time.

Table (4.11): Cronbach's alpha coefficient

# Number of

paragraphs

Cronbach's

Alpha

1. Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment 20 0.934

a. Meaning 5 0.942

b. Competence 5 0.795

c. Self determination 5 0.913

d. Impact 5 0.874

2. Individual creativity 20 0.970

Total 40 0.972

67

Table (4.12): Split-Half Coefficient

# Number of

paragraphs

Split-Half

Coefficient

1. Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment 20 0.976

e. Meaning 5 0.921

f. Competence 5 0.950

g. Self determination 5 0.887

h. Impact 5 0.780

2. Individual creativity 20 0.981

Total 40 0.990

The results shown in Table (4.11) and Table (4.12) shows that the value of the

Cronbach alpha is high for total accuracy, as in Alpha Kronbach, 0.972, while in

the Split-Half it was 0.990.

It is Clear from the results shown in the tables (4.11) and (4.12) that the value of

Cronbach's alpha coefficients are high for the axis of (Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment), ranging from (0.795-0.942), while the total for all (Dimensions of

Psychological Empowerment) is (0.934). The way of Split-Half results were similar

to the way of Alpha Kronbach, and the total for all areas is (0.976).

The value of Cronbach's alpha coefficient elevated to the axis of the profitability of

(Individual creativity) (0.970). But according to Split-Half way, it is (0.981).

Therefore, the researcher proved that the questionnaire is valid , reliable , and ready

for distribution. It is in appendix (B).

4.10 Normal Distribution Test:

Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to test whether the data follow the normal

distribution or not, and the results were as shown in Table (4.11).

Table (4.13): Normality distribution test

#

N. items Kolmogorov-

Smirnov Z (Sig.)

1. Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment 20 0.643 0.802

a. Meaning 5 0.703 0.706

b. Competence 5 1.072 0.200

c. Self determination 5 0.913 0.375

d. Impact 5 0.805 0.536

2. Individual creativity 20 0.794 0.553

Total 40 0.496 0.966

68

It's clear from the results shown in Table (4.13) that the p-value (Sig.) to all fields

of the study was greater than the level of significance (0.05). Then the distribution

for each field is normally distributed, so parametric tests will be used to answer the

questions of the study.

4.11 Statistical analysis tools

To achieve the research goal, the researcher used both qualitative and quantitative

data analysis methods. The researcher used the statistical package for the Social

Science (SPSS) for analyzing the data. In addition, the researcher would utilize the

following statistical tools:

1- Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was applied to detect if the study questionnaire data

follow the normal distribution or not. This test is considered necessary in the case

of testing hypotheses as most Parametric Tests require data to be normally

distributed.

2- Pearson Correlation Coefficient was utilized to measure the correlation between

two variables, where it was applied to test the validity of questionnaire.

3- Cronbach's Alpha was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaire

between each field and the mean of the whole fields of the questionnaire.

4- Split-Half Coefficient to determine reliability of the questionnaire: The

researcher used the split half technique which depends on splitting the test for two

parts, and calculating the correlation between the parts Frequency and Descriptive

analysis.

5- One-sample T test was used to determine if the mean of an item is significantly

different from a hypothesized value 6. If the P-value (Sig.) is smaller than or equal

to the level of significance, α ≤ 0.05, then the mean of an item is significantly

different from a hypothesized value 6.

6- The Independent Sample T-test was used to examine if there is a statistical

significant difference between two means among the respondents .

7- One way ANOVA was used to examine if there is a statistical significant

difference between Male and Female respondents .

69

8- Multiple Regression was used to explain the relationship between one

continuous dependent variable and two or more independent variables.

Chapter Five

Data Analysis and Hypotheses

Testing

71

Chapter Five- Data Analysis and Hypotheses Testing

5.1 Introduction

This chapter contains a brief analysis of the data and hypotheses test, by answering

questions about the study and reviewing the most prominent results of the questionnaire.

The results were reached through analysis of paragraphs, focusing on the variables of

the study, which included the (gender, age group, social status, job classification,

educational level and years of experience). Therefore, a statistical treatment of the data

collected from a questionnaire study was done by the use of statistical packages for

Social Studies (SPSS) program.

5.2 Descriptive Analysis of the Sample Characteristics

The statistical description of the study sample according to the personal information:

Table (5.1): Sample

Frequency Percentage

Complete questionnaires 209 81.6

Missing questionnaires (not answered) 47 18.4

Total 256 100.0

It is illustrated that 81.6% of the questionnaires were complete by the respondents,

while 18.4% of the forms had not been completed and was considered missing forms.

Most of the employees who didn‟t return the questionnaire were occupying high level

academic and management positions that keep them very busy to have time to complete

the questionnaire.

1- Gender:

Table (5.2): Gender

Frequency Percentage

Male 149 71.3

Female 60 28.7

Total 209 100.0

The table (5.2) shows that 71.3% is males, while 28.7% is females. This ratio is

compatible with the human resources survey report in Palestinian territories, which

72

illustrated the gap between males and females in the labor market (Palestinian Central

Bureau of Statistics, 2013)

2- Age:

Table (5.3): Age

Frequency Percentage

Less than 30 25 12.0

30-less 40 years 103 49.3

40-less 50 years 52 24.9

50-more than 29 13.9

Total 209 100.0

Table (5.3) shows that 61.3% of the age groups is less than 40 years and 38.7% is more

than 40 years. So, the majority of the employees 61.3% is less than 40 years old. This

demographic outcome can be understood in the light of the Palestinian split and its

consequences on the distribution of human resources. The university recruiting new

employees in the years of 2008 and 2009. The majority of the new employees at that

time were newly graduates. This explains why the majority of questionnaire

respondents aged less than 40 years. The rest of the study sample was over 40 years of

age especially the academic staff, taking into consideration the timeframe of acquiring

high post graduate degrees that qualify them to teach in university level academic

institutions.

3- Social status:

Table (5.4): Social status

Frequency Percentage

Single 5 2.4

Married 198 94.7

Widow/er 1 0.5

Divorced 5 2.4

Total 209 100.0

Based on the table (5.4), 94.7% the sample is married, while 5.3% is not in the married

status. Such distribution of marital status can be attributed to the cultural background of

the Palestinian society. Most of its members tend to achieve stability and build the base

73

of their families in an earlier age. This explains why the majority of the sample 94.7% is

married.

4- Job Classification:

Table (5.5): Job Classification

Frequency Percentage

Administration 100 47.8

Academic 69 33.0

Academic with Admin position 40 19.2

Total 209 100.0

Based on the table (5.5), 47.8% have Administration position, 33% have Academic

position, and 19.2% has Academic with Admin position. The total number of the study

sample was 256, the questionnaire forms were distributed according to the percentage of

each employees‟ groups. Therefore, the percentage of academic employees was 57%

while the percentage of admin employees was 43%. Consequently, 109 questionnaire

forms were distributed to admin employee, 100 were returned. While 147 questionnaire

forms were distributed to academic employees, only 109 employees returned their

questionnaires.

5- Educational Level:

Table (5.6): Educational Level

Frequency Percentage

Diploma 17 8.1

Bachelor 67 32.0

Masters 53 25.4

PhD 72 34.5

Total 209 100.0

Based on the table (5.6), 8.1% has diploma, 91.9% has other degrees including

Bachelor, Master and PhD degree. It is worth noting that most of the admin employee

have at least a bachelor degree, while there were 16 admin employee who upgraded

their credentials to master degrees while they are still performing admin jobs. This can

be understood in the light of the ongoing political conflict, so the status of split between

Gaza and the West Bank has hindered the regular process of updating the employees‟

credentials. Therefore, those employees are still holding their admin positions and have

74

not been upgraded to academic positions, as they would aim. On the other hand, most of

the academic employee hold PhD degrees, and most of them have extensive teaching

experience. Most of them have developed such capacities a long time ago even before

the political conflict took place.

6- Years of Experience:

Table (5.7): Years of Experience

Frequency Percentage

Less than 5 years 13 6.2

5-10 years 71 34.0

10-25 years 113 54.1

More than 25 years 12 5.7

Total 209 100.0

Based on the table (5.7), 40.2% of respondents have less than 10 years of experience,

while 59.8% of respondents have more than 10 years of experience. Notably, these

respondents whose work experience is less than 10 years is because of an influx of

recruitment in the years of 2008 and 2009. The majority of the participants 59.8% have

more than 10 years of work experiences. This percentage corresponds to the number of

administrative staff and academics in the university as the largest number of academics,

most of whom have more than 10 years of experience working at the university.

The relative weight of paragraphs areas:

Approvals have been approved by the following scale:

Table (5.8): Study Scale

Digital weight mean Relative weight

Very few 1 1.00 -3.60 20-less than 36.0

Few 2 3.61-5.20 20-less than 52.0

Medium 3 5.21- 6.80 52-less than 68.0

Large 4 6.81- 8.40 68-less than 84.0

Very large 5 8.41- 10.0 84-100.0

Table (5.8) to analyze the vertebrae questionnaire was used parametric tests (one sample

T. test) to see whether the mean scores of the response. Where it is considered a Class 6

neutrality.

75

5.3 Data analysis and results:

T test was used to determine the average response to all paragraphs. The results are

shown in the following table: -

1- Analysis of Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment:

a) Meaning:

Table (5.9): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Meaning

# Meaning M

ean

Sta

nd

ard

Dev

iati

on

Th

e

rela

tiv

e

wei

gh

t

%

Th

e v

alu

e

of

the

test

P-

va

lue

Ra

nk

1 My job at the university means

something to me 7.20 0.99 71.96 10.97 0.00 2

2 The job activities are

personally meaningful to me 7.14 0.97 71.39 10.50 0.00 3

3 The work I do is meaningful to

me 7.20 0.94 72.00 11.43 0.00 1

4

My work at the university

contributes to achieve the

university‟s goal

7.09 0.98 70.93 9.83 0.00 4

5

My work at the university

contributes to community

development

6.95 1.22 69.51 7.06 0.00 5

Meaning 7.12 0.84 71.16 11.17 0.00

The Third paragraph (The work I do is meaningful to me) ranked first with a relative

weight was 72% , the mean 7.2 and standard deviation 0.94 .

The Fifth paragraph (My work at the university contributes to community development)

ranked 69.51% , the mean 6.95 and standard deviation 1.75.

Through the table (5.9), it is clear that the mean of all the paragraphs of the field of the

Meaning (71.1) was at large agreement. The agreement level toward all questions is

large.

The researcher attributes that to the order of items which were very close, as the relative

weight for all the five sentences was fluctuating between 69.51% and 72%. Therefore,

the “meaning” dimension was very important to participants. Consequently, the

76

researcher believes that employees consider their work highly valuable to them. Thus,

Statistically the results are very high, but on the ground here we see that the respondents

do not indicate complete approval of the paragraphs and this indicates the existence of a

certain gap or complete dissatisfaction.

This result is consistent with the results of other studies like Salman (2015), Al-Ja'abari

(2010) and Al-Gathami, (2009) in which the respondents give the dimension Meaning

high priority. In addition, the population and samples in those studies have a clear

similarity .

b) Competence:

Table (5.10): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Competence

# Competence

Mea

n

Sta

nd

ard

Dev

iati

on

Th

e

rela

tiv

e

wei

gh

t

%

Th

e v

alu

e

of

the

test

P-

va

lue

Ra

nk

1 I am confident about my ability

to do my job 7.56 0.73 75.56 18.38 0.00

1

2

I am self-assured about my

capability to perform my work

activities

7.42 0.84 74.24 15.13 0.00

2

3 I have mastered the skills

necessary for my job 7.40 0.86 73.96 14.62 0.00

3

4

I have an adequate knowledge of

how I can perform my work

tasks

7.34 0.65 73.36 16.31 0.00

4

5

I can handle all new situations at

work with confidence and

effectiveness

7.18 0.78 71.83 12.66 0.00

5

Competence 7.38 0.53 73.79 18.88 0.00

The first paragraph (I am confident about my ability to do my job) is ranked first with a

relative weight 75.56%, the mean 7.56 and standard deviation 0.73.

The fifth paragraph (I can handle all new situations at work with confidence and

effectiveness) ranked 71.8%, the mean 7.18 and standard deviation 0.78.

77

Through the table (5.10), it is clear that the mean of all the paragraphs of the field of the

Competence was (7.38) the opinion of respondents toward all questions is also at large

level of agreement.

The researcher attributes that to the order of sentences, which was very close, as the

relative weight for all the five sentences was fluctuating between 75.56 % and 71.83%.

Therefore, this indicates that the participants believe that they have the sufficient

competence and skills to perform their job competently. The employees' confidence in

their skills enables them to perform their job perfectly.

This result is consistent with (Al-Ja'abari, 2010), (Salman, 2015) and (Al-Gathami ,

2009) which indicate the respondents believe in the competence and their skills for

ability to doing their job duties .

c) Self-Determination:

Table (5.11): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Self-determination

# Self determination

mea

n

Sta

nd

ard

Dev

iati

on

Th

e

rela

tiv

e

wei

gh

t

%

Th

e v

alu

e

of

the

test

P-

va

lue

Ra

nk

1

I have significant

autonomy in determining

how I do my job

6.76 1.00 67.63 5.91 0.00 1

2

I have considerable

opportunity for

independence and freedom

on how I do my job

6.57 0.99 65.75 3.77 0.00 3

3

I can decide on my own

how to go about doing my

work

6.37 1.28 63.66 1.13 0.26 5

4

I can identify my work

priorities in line with work

needs

6.65 1.20 66.55 4.13 0.00 2

5

I can determine work

needs and goals without

an intervention by others

6.39 1.32 63.88 1.30 0.19 4

Self determination 6.55 0.95 65.50 3.57 0.00

The first item (I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job) ranked first

with a relative weight 67.63%, the mean 6.76 and standard deviation 1.0.

78

The third item (I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work) ranked

relative weight 63.66%, the mean 6.37 and standard deviation 1.28.

Through the table (5.11), it is clear that the mean of all the paragraphs of the field of the

Self-determination was (6.55) which means the opinion of respondents toward all items

is at medium level of agreement. The positive response for (Self-determination) was

65.5%, which was less than the meaning and competence dimensions.

This can be understood as the work environment at the university has its own

characteristics, as there is a clear decision making structure that can be central based in

most cases. The relative weight at this dimension ranged from 67.63% to 63.66%.

The paragraph which came fifth in the relative weight was (I can decide on my own

how to go about doing my work) as it illustrates that the decision-making process in the

university is central. Therefore, the employees cannot take the individual responsibility

of taking decisions that they are not entitled to do, according to their job description.

This result is consistent with (Salman, 2015), (Al-Ja'abari, 2010) and (Al-Gathami

,2009) which indicate the nature of environment of work and the policy of high level of

administration are same in Arab countries , especially in Palestine.

d) Impact:

Table (5.12): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Impact

# Impact

Mea

n

Sta

nd

ard

Dev

iati

on

Th

e

rela

tiv

e

wei

gh

t

%

Th

e v

alu

e

of

the

test

P-

va

lue

Ra

nk

1 My impact of what happens in

my department is large 6.65 1.18 66.47 4.10 0.00 4

2

I have a great deal of control

over what happens in my

department

6.70 1.08 66.99 4.93 0.00 3

3

I have a significant influence

over what happens in my

department

6.24 1.39 62.36 0.13 0.90 5

4 I have a great influence on

students I work with directly 6.72 1.19 67.24 4.80 0.00 2

5

My role contributes to

achieving the university‟s

educational aims

6.90 1.11 68.95 6.93 0.00 1

Impact 6.64 0.84 66.42 5.07 0.00

79

The fifth paragraph (My role contributes to achieving the university‟s educational aims)

ranked first with a relative weight 68.95%, the mean 6.90 and standard deviation 1.11.

The third paragraph (I have a significant influence over what happens in my

department) ranked 62.36%, the mean 6.24 and standard deviation 1.39.

Through the table (5.12), it is clear that the mean of all the paragraphs of the field of the

Impact was (6.64) which means the opinion of respondents toward all questions is at

medium level of agreement.

The employee can notice the most viable and visible impact directly. Additionally, the

employee can perceive his/her direct community impact when he/she participates in

graduating more students who will contribute to community development by their future

roles. The paragraph (I have a significant influence over what happens in my

department) with relative weight 62.36% came fifth. This can be explained again by

understanding the centrality of decision making structure, as each employee has limited

ability in decision making that is defined by his/her role and job description.

This result is inconsistent with Salman (2015) whose study showed that the employees

of Local Commercial Banks have a clear influence over their departments as a result of

their skills and capabilities. Also, Al-Ja'abari's (2010) study respondents showed a high

level attitude towards impact dimension. In addition, this result is inconsistent with Al-

Gathami (2009) whose study sample revealed a high level of job experiences, enabling

them to have a significant influence on departments that they work in.

e) Analysis of overall Psychological Empowerment scale items:

Table (5.13): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment

#

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

mean standard

deviation

the

relative

weight

%

The

value

of the

test

p-

value

paragraph

Order

1 Meaning 7.12 0.84 71.16 11.17 0.00 2

2 Competence 7.38 0.53 73.79 18.88 0.00 1

3 Self determination 6.55 0.95 65.50 3.57 0.00 4

4 Impact 6.64 0.84 66.42 5.07 0.00 3

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

6.92 0.58 69.22 10.74 0.00

80

The dimension (Competence) ranked first with a relative weight 73.79%, the mean 7.38

and standard deviation 0.53.

The dimension (Self-determination) ranked 65.5%, the mean 6.55 and standard

deviation 0.95.

Through the table (5.13), it is clear that the mean of all the paragraphs of the field of the

Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment was (6.92) which is considered at large

level of agreement.

The researcher concludes that all participants have responded positively to all

dimensions of psychological empowerment scale. This can be explained by

emphasizing the employees‟ awareness to the importance of their work and their

confidence of performing their job tasks competently, as they possess all skills and

awareness that qualify them to do such.

However, they don‟t perceive themselves as they enjoy adequate space of freedom and

independence related to how they can perform their job. In addition, they don‟t feel the

high impact of the job they do in their surrounding environment, which can be common

in public universities as the decision-making process is centrally structured. Such

centrality in decision making can leave the space for freedom limited to what is

indicated in the job description which can leave an immediate impact into employees‟

department or unit.

It is concluded that the respondents agreed to all items of Psychological Empowerment.

This indicates that employees in Al Aqsa University realize the Psychological

Empowerment in their work.

81

This result is supported by Al-Ja'abari (2010), Salman (2015) and Al-Gathami (2009).

The dimension "competence" is ranked in the first. It is obvious that competence

dimension is ranked the first for the Al Aqsa University employees, too.

2- Analysis of Individual Creativity Fields:

Table (5.14): The mean and the relative weight for the area of the Individual creativity

# Individual creativity M

ean

Sta

nd

ard

Dev

iati

on

Th

e

rela

tiv

e

wei

gh

t

%

Th

e v

alu

e

of

the

test

P-

va

lue

Ra

nk

1 I suggest new idea to

achieve work‟s goals 6.65 1.03 66.55 4.57 0.00 18

2

I invent new practical

ideas to improve my

work performance

6.77 0.86 67.71 6.64 0.00 14

3

I search for new

strategies to help me

achieve my work

activities

6.83 0.89 68.32 7.24 0.00 12

4

I use new problem-

solving techniques away

from routine regular

strategies

6.67 1.15 66.67 4.37 0.00 17

5

I set up time framed

plans to implement new

ideas

6.51 1.12 65.10 2.77 0.01 20

6

I am competent in

communication and

negotiation and have

ability to convince

others

6.92 0.88 69.24 8.42 0.00 8

7

I have the ability to

create immediate

solutions to work

problems when they

appear

6.85 0.80 68.48 7.95 0.00 10

8

I have the ability to

suggest multiple ideas in

a short time

6.81 0.87 68.12 7.09 0.00 13

9 I achieve all my work

activities in creatively 6.93 0.96 69.32 8.05 0.00 7

10

I pay attention to listen

to feedback to improve

my performance

6.85 0.76 68.48 8.21 0.00 9

11

I have the ability to see

things from different

dimensions

6.84 0.94 68.40 7.08 0.00 11

12

I plan ahead to face

potential problems at

work

6.63 1.04 66.26 4.22 0.00 19

13 I am keen to know my

weaknesses at work 6.97 0.80 69.69 9.58 0.00 6

82

# Individual creativity

Mea

n

Sta

nd

ard

Dev

iati

on

Th

e

rela

tiv

e

wei

gh

t

%

Th

e v

alu

e

of

the

test

P-

va

lue

Ra

nk

14

I have a substantial

ability to detect other

people's problems at

work

6.77 0.86 67.71 6.62 0.00 15

15

I have a strong drive to

achieve my goals at

work

7.10 0.81 70.97 11.17 0.00 1

16

My main concern is to

suggest new ideas more

than to obtain other

workers‟ satisfaction

6.76 1.01 67.60 5.81 0.00 16

17

I have the ability to

defend my ideas by

providing evidences

7.01 0.88 70.13 9.57 0.00 3

18

I initiate adopting new

ideas and strategies for

problem solving

6.96 0.81 69.65 9.39 0.00 5

19

I have the ability to

realize and explain how

different things are

connected

6.98 0.75 69.81 10.08 0.00 4

20

In most cases, I can

create solutions to

problems I face at work

7.08 0.70 70.79 11.90 0.00 2

Individual creativity 6.84 0.61 68.45 9.23 0.00

The fifteenth paragraph (I have a strong drive to achieve my goals at work) ranked first

with a relative weight 70.97%, the mean 7.10 and standard deviation 0.81.

The fifth paragraph (I set up time framed plans to implement new ideas) ranked 65.1%,

the mean 6.51 and standard deviation 1.12,

Through the table (5.14), it is clear that the mean of all the paragraphs of the fields of

the Individual creativity was ( 6.84) which is considered at large level of agreement.

Table (5.14) shows the relative weight of the individual creativity scale, which includes

20 paragraph, ranged between 70.97% to 65.1%. Such findings indicate that most of

participants‟ answers were above average as it exceeds 60%, which is the accepted

positive rate. In fact, here the approval is almost very normal and there is a gap between

them and the actual large approval.

83

The paragraph (I have a strong drive to achieve my goals at work) came first with a

relative weight of 70.97%, while the paragraph (I set up time framed plans to implement

new ideas) came last with a relative weight of 65.1%. This indicates that the participants

have high consensus that individual's creativity improves the individual‟s capacity of

possessing the drives for achieving successes in different life fields. As for the last

paragraph in terms of relative weight, it shows how much difficult for different

employees to have same professional mentality in terms of implementing time frames to

achieve new ideas, as it seems more relative to employees whose work would include

developing plans and setting time frames for achieving it.

The researcher attributes the employee's motivation to develop their abilities and

thoughts to searching for new methods of problem solving and communicating with

other groups inside the university. Additionally, employees attempt consistently to

create new ways to achieve their goals. Moreover, the university reinforces such

creativity among its employees by supplying them with all required needs in order to

improve the quality of services.

This result is consistent with Hirst et. al. (2011) , Zhang and Bartol (2010) in which the

respondents have motivation to develop their abilities to achieve the efficiency at their

work place .

5.4 Hypotheses Testing:

Test hypotheses about the relationship between two variables of the study variables (the

first major premise):

5.5 The Main Hypothesis:

1. There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between

Psychological empowerment and individual creativity.

Table (5.15): the correlation coefficient between Psychological empowerment and individual

creativity.

Pearson

coefficient

Potential value

(Sig.)

There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05

between Psychological empowerment and individual creativity 0.793* 0.000

84

The table (5.15) shows that the correlation coefficient is equal to 0.793, and the

probability value (Sig.) equals 0.00 which is less than the significance level 0.05 ≥ α.

This indicates the presence of a statistically significant large relationship between

Psychological empowerment and individual creativity, then the hypothesis is accepted .

The researcher concludes that when psychologically empowered employees see

themselves as more capable of affecting their job and organizations in a more

meaningful way, they would be expected to execute extra-role efforts, act

independently, and have a higher attachment and involvement in their organization. The

results showed that the empowered people would have higher performance than other

staffs.

This result is consistent with results of (Chen and Chen, 2008), (Radi (2010), (Al

Gathami, 2010) and (Montazeri et al, 2017) which revealed that psychological

empowerment has a positive and significant relation with job performance. However,

the result is inconsistent with (Arogundade et al., 2017) study that showed that all the

dimensions of psychological empowerment except impact have positive relationship

with work engagement.

This main hypothesis contains sub-hypotheses:

a- There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between Meaning

dimension and individual creativity.

Table (5.16): The correlation coefficient between Meaning dimension and individual creativity.

Pearson

coefficient

Potential value

(Sig.)

There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05

between Meaning dimension and individual creativity 0.642* 0.000

The table (5.16) shows that the correlation coefficient is equal to 0.642, and the

probability value (Sig.) Equals 0.00 which is less than the significance level 0.05 ≥ α.

This indicates the presence of a statistically significant medium relationship between

meaning dimension and individual creativity, , then the hypothesis is accepted .

85

The researcher concludes that when employees find their tasks meaningful and feel that

their goals are properly aligned with organizational goals, their level of creativity is

enhanced.

This finding is consistent with results of (Gundus & Gonol , 2014) and (Chen and Chen

, 2008) in which respondents feel that the meaning and the importance of their jobs can

affect positively individual creativity .

b- There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between

Competence dimension and individual creativity.

Table (5.17): The correlation coefficient between Competence dimension and individual creativity.

Pearson

coefficient

Potential value

(Sig.)

There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05

between Competence dimension and individual creativity 0.546* 0.000

The table (5.17) shows that the correlation coefficient is equal to 0.546, and the

probability value (Sig.) Equals 0.00 which is less than the significance level 0.05 ≥ α.

This indicates the presence of a statistically significant medium relationship between

Competence dimension and individual creativity, , then the hypothesis is accepted .

The researcher concludes that when employees perceive that they have the required

skills, talent and competencies to execute their job, their level of individual creativity is

escalated.

This finding is consistent with results of Gundus & Gonol (2014) and Chen and Chen

(2008) in which respondents feel that they have competences and skills in their work

environment which can affect positively individual creativity .

c- There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between Self-

determination dimension and individual creativity.

Table (5.18): The correlation coefficient between Self-determination dimension and individual

creativity.

Pearson

coefficient

Potential value

(Sig.)

There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05

between Self-determination dimension and individual creativity. 0.665* 0.000

86

The table (5.18) shows that the correlation coefficient is equal to 0.665, and the

probability value (Sig.) Equals 0.00 which is less than the significance level 0.05 ≥ α.

This indicates the presence of a statistically significant medium relationship between

Self-determination dimension and individual creativity, , then the hypothesis is accepted

The researcher concludes that when employees are given the autonomy to make

decision about work methods, pace and effort, their creativity is enhanced.

This result does not agree with the study of Gundus & Gonol (2014) and Chen and

Chen (2008) which respondents can‟t feel that they have control in their work

environment .

d- There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05 between impact

dimension and individual creativity.

Table (5.19): The correlation coefficient between Impact dimension and individual creativity.

Pearson

coefficient

Potential value

(Sig.)

There is a statistically significant correlation at level α ≤ 0.05

between Impact dimension and individual creativity 0.780* 0.000

The table (5.19) shows that the correlation coefficient is equal to 0.780, and the

probability value (Sig.) Equals 0.00 which is less than the significance level 0.05 ≥ α.

This indicates the presence of a statistically significant large relationship between

impact dimension and individual creativity, , then the hypothesis is accepted .

The researcher concludes that when employees feel that their contributions are

considered for achieving organizational goals and can influence strategic, administrative

or operating outcomes at workplace, their sense of creativity enhances.

This finding is consistent with results of (Gundus & Gonol , 2014), (Chen and Chen,

2008) in which the respondents feel that the contributions are considered for achieving

organizational goals and vision.

87

2. There is a statistically significant impact at level α ≤ 0.05 to the dimensions of the

Psychological empowerment (Meaning, Competence, Self-determination, and

Impact) on individual creativity.

Table (5.20): Multiple regression analysis for regression coefficients

Dep

end

ent

va

riab

le

(R)

Co

rrel

ati

on

(R²) F DF Sig (Unstandardized

Coefficients) ß T.t

est

Sig

.

individual creativity

0.815 0.664 99.93

Regression 4

0.0

Constant 1.723 4.301 .000

Impact .434 8.187 .000

Residual 202 Meaning .130 2.519 .013

Self determination

.110 2.366 .019

Competence .119 1.978 .049

To determine the effect level of (Meaning, Competence, Self-determination, Impact) on

the (individual creativity), the researcher used multiple regression testing using the

method of Stepwise. He concluded the following:

Results (A) show of the final regression model using the method of Stepwise show that

the (individual creativity), which represents the dependent variable is affected

substantially and significantly in all of the variables (Impact, Meaning, Self-

determination, Competence).

(B) results of the analysis show that the Pearson Correlation is 0.815,and the coefficient

of determination equals 0.664. This means that 66.4% of the change in (individual

creativity) dates back to the effects of the following independent variables: (Impact,

Meaning, Self-determination, Competence) and the remaining 33.6% is due to other

factors affecting the dependent variable (individual creativity).

This results is supported by (Fallaq & Naflah , 2013) whose study assured that there is

an impact for Managerial Empowerment on employees Innovation at Jordan Telecom

Group (orange). Also this result is supported by Abazeed (2010) whose study revealed

that there is an impact of psychological empowerment on citizenship behaviour. In

addition, OLCER & FLORESCU (2015) study indicated that competence, self-

88

determination and impact had positive effects on employees‟ job performance while

meaning did not support the proposed relationship. As well, Çekmecelioğlu and Özbağ

(2014) study indicated that psychological empowerment has significant effects on

individual creativity and through their actions, creative employee may increase firm

innovativeness. Finally, Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009) study showed that

transformational leadership influences employees' creativity through psychological

empowerment.

The equation resulting from the regression will be as follows:

Individual creativity = 1.723+ 0.434*(Impact) + 0.130 *(Meaning) + 0.110*(Self-

determination) +0.119* (Competence)

- When installing the value of (Meaning, Self-determination, Competence) and

increasing (Impact) by one unit, it leads to increase in the dependent variable (individual

creativity) by (0.434).

- When installing the value of (Impact, Self-determination, Competence) and increasing

(Meaning) is incremented by one unit, it leads to increase in the dependent variable

(individual creativity) by (0.130).

- When installing the value of (Impact, Meaning, Self-determination, Competence) and

increasing (Self-determination) is incremented by one unit, it leads to increase in the

dependent variable (individual Creativity) by (0.110).

- When installing the value of (Impact, Meaning, Self-determination, Competence) and

increasing (Competence) is incremented by one unit, it leads to increase in the

dependent variable (individual creativity) by (0.119).

3-There is a statistically significant difference in the responses of the research

sample at level α ≤ 0.05 due to the following demographic characteristics (Gender,

Age group, Social status, Job Classification, Educational Level and Years of

Experience)

a)There are differences in responses to Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment

and individual creativity due to the (gender) at significance level of (α ≤ 0.05).

89

Table (5.21): The independent T-test of the fields and their p-values for gender

Item

Means T.

Test-

value

(Sig.)

value

male female

Meaning 7.12 7.11 0.087 0.931 Sig.

Competence 7.41 7.31 0. 752 0.453 Not Sig.

Self determination 6.5 6.68 -0.994 0.322 Not Sig.

Impact 6.65 6.62 0.189 0.850 Not Sig.

Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment 6.92 6.93 -0.067 0.946

Not Sig.

individual creativity 6.88 6.76 0.811 0.418

Not Sig.

The independent t-test is used to test the above hypothesis. The results illustrated in

table (5.21) show that the p-value (Sig.) is greater than (0.05) for each criterion, and p-

value (Sig.) for all the (Psychological Empowerment) criteria equals (0.946), which is

greater than (0.05). This means that there are no significant differences in respondents'

answers toward applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to their gender.

The results, illustrated in table (5.21), show that there are no significant differences in

respondents' answers toward applying the (individual creativity) according to their

gender.

The researcher concludes that the characteristic of the respondent's gender has no effect

on each field and all fields together. This result can be understood in the light of equal

opportunities for both genders in the work place, especially in academic institutions.

Females can compete with males in all positions and they have the same ambitions of

self-development and upgrading.

This result is consistent with (Al-Haj (2015), (Nasman (2011) and (Hechanova et al. ,

2006) which revealed the same result that there are no significant differences in

respondents' answers according to their gender. However, this result is inconsistent with

(Masri (2015), (Al-Ja'abari ,2010) which show significant differences in respondents'

answers according to their gender

90

b) There are differences in responses to Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment and individual creativity due to the (the Age) at significance level of

(α ≤ 0.05).

Table (5.22): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for age

Item

Means F.

Test-

value

(Sig.)

value

less 30

years

30

years

less 40

40years

less 50

above

50

years

Meaning 6.74 7.07 7.09 7.63 3.134 0.027 Sig.

Competence 6.96 7.44 7.35 7.56 2.577 0.055 Not

Sig.

Self determination 6.27 6.43 6.63 7.07 2.704 0.047 Sig.

Impact 6.21 6.6 6.6 7.21 3.970 0.009 Sig.

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

6.54 6.89 6.92 7.37 3.990 0.009

Sig.

individual creativity 6.56 6.8 6.92 7.13 1.863 0.137

Not

Sig.

The one-way ANOVA test is used to test the above hypothesis. The results illustrated in

table (5.22) show that the p-value (Sig.) is less than (0.05) for each criterion, and p-

value (Sig.) for all the (Psychological Empowerment) criteria equals (0.009), which is

less than (0.05).

This means that there are significant differences in respondents' answers toward

applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to their age. The differences are

in favor of their age above 50 years. This also means that there are significant

differences in respondents' answers toward applying the (individual creativity)

according to their age.

These findings show that employees with longer work experience can feel more

psychologically empowered than employee with less work experience. This can be

referred to their confidence of performing their jobs which they have built over long

work experience. Additionally, they would require less empowerment because their

ability to solve new problems, based on their long experience of solving previous

problems, is higher than employees with less work experience.

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This result is consistent with Nasman (2011) which shows differences in favor of

respondents age above 50 years. However, this result is inconsistent with Al-Haj (2015),

and Al-Ja'abari (2010) where the age of respondents doesn‟t make differences .

c) There are differences in responses to Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment and individual creativity due to the (Social status) at significance

level of (α ≤ 0.05).

Table (5.23): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for Social status

Item

Means F.

Test-

value

(Sig.)

value

Single Married Widowed Divorced

Meaning 7.00 7.11 6.50 7.67 0.522 0.667 Not

Sig.

Competence 7.27 7.38 6.33 7.60 0.625 0.600 Not

Sig.

Self determination 6.93 6.55 5.00 6.60 0.715 0.544 Not

Sig.

Impact 6.97 6.65 4.83 6.33 1.148 0.331 Not

Sig.

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

7.04 6.92 5.67 7.05 0.705 0.550

Not

Sig.

individual

creativity 6.93 6.84 5.88 7.03 0.442 0.723

Not

Sig.

The one-way ANOVA test is used to test the above hypothesis. The results illustrated in

table (5.23) show that the p-value (Sig.) is greater than (0.05) for each criterion, and p-

value (Sig.) for all the (Psychological Empowerment) criteria equals (0.55), which is

greater than (0.05). This means that there are no significant differences in respondents'

answers toward applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to their Social

status,

These findings illustrated that employees in academic institutions are professionally

matures and highly self-controlled to focus on their tasks and responsibilities without

being impacted by other social or marital factors. This indicates the high level of

motivation, determination and commitment that the employees demonstrated in this

study.

This result is inconsistent with Al-Haj (2015) which has differences with respondents

according to their Social status .

92

d) There are differences in responses to Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment and individual creativity due to the (Job Classification) at

significance level of ( α ≤ 0.05).

Table (5.24): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for Job Classification

Item

Means

F.

Test-

value

(Sig.)

value

Administration Academic

Academic

with

Admin

position

Meaning 6.94 7.29 7.56 4.983 0.008 sig.

Competence 7.33 7.4 7.52 0.674 0.511 Not

sig.

Self determination 6.34 6.93 6.87 5.386 0.005 sig.

Impact 6.43 6.91 7.12 7.256 0.001 sig.

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

6.76 7.13 7.27 6.026 0.003

sig.

individual creativity 6.68 7.08 7.19 6.188 0.002 sig.

The one-way ANOVA test is used to test the above hypothesis. The results illustrated in

table (5.24) show that the p-value (Sig.) is less than (0.05) for each criterion, and p-

value (Sig.) for all the (Psychological Empowerment) criteria equals (0.003), which is

less than (0.05).

This means that there are significant differences in respondents' answers toward

applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to their Job Classification, The

differences are in favor of employees with Academic and Admin positions.

The employees with both academic and admin positions together are the highest rank of

employees at the university, which means they can substantially influence decision

making. This can be attributed to their ability of self-determination in a centrally

structured organization and also to their ability to feel the immediate impact of the

decisions they make, compared with other professional groups who would feel their

long-term contribution rather than see the immediate effect of their work.

This result is inconsistent with Al-Haj (2015) where no significant statistical differences

revealed in the respondent's responses about the Job Classification .

93

e. There are differences in responses to Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment and individual creativity due to the (Education Level) at

significance level of ( α ≤ 0.05).

Table (5.25): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for educational Level

Item

Means F.

Test-

value

(Sig.)

value

Diploma Bachelor Masters PhD

Meaning 6.04 7.03 7.16 7.54 8.351 0.000 sig.

Competence 6.63 7.4 7.4 7.55 5.075 0.002 sig.

Self determination 5.65 6.4 6.63 6.99 6.109 0.001 sig.

Impact 6.12 6.45 6.61 7.17 6.090 0.001 sig.

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

6.11 6.82 6.95 7.31 8.713 0.000

sig.

individual creativity 6.51 6.62 6.91 7.23 5.613 0.001 sig.

The one-way ANOVA test is used to test the above hypothesis. The results illustrated in

table (5.25) show that the p-value (Sig.) is less than (0.05) for each criterion, and p-

value (Sig.) for all the (Psychological Empowerment) criteria equals (0.000), which is

less than (0.05).

This means that there are significant differences in respondents' answers toward

applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to their Educational Level. The

differences are in favor of their educational Level with PhD.

This also means that there are significant differences in respondents' answers toward

applying the (individual creativity) according to their educational Level. The differences

are in favor of their educational Level with PhD.

The findings came to emphasize previous findings, supporting the centrally based

structure of decision making process. As PhD holders feel more psychologically

empowered and more supported for individual creativity, they usually occupy

influential position in the academic and admin fields. They can impact decision making,

and they can feel the immediate impact of their work on the surrounding environment.

The result is inconsistent with Masri (2015), Nasman (2011) and Al-Ja'abari (2010)

which show no significant statistical differences in the respondent's responses duo to

educational Level.

94

f) There are differences in responses to Dimensions of Psychological

Empowerment and individual creativity due to the (Years of experience) at

significance level of (α ≤ 0.05).

Table (5.26): One-way ANOVA of the fields and their p-values for Year of Experience

Item

Means F.

Test-

value

(Sig.)

value

Less

than 5

years

5-10

years

10-

25

years

More

than 25

years

Meaning 6.64 7.02 7.23 7.08 1.318 0.270 Not

Sig.

Competence 6.78 7.36 7.48 7.15 2.833 0.039 Sig.

Self determination 5.6 6.44 6.71 6.68 3.458 0.017 Sig.

Impact 5.75 6.59 6.76 6.78 3.143 0.026 Sig.

Dimensions of

Psychological

Empowerment

6.19 6.85 7.04 6.92 3.575 0.015

Sig.

individual creativity 6.1 6.88 6.89 6.95 2.802 0.041 Sig.

The one-way ANOVA test is used to test the above hypothesis. The results illustrated in

table (5.26) show that the p-value (Sig.) is less than (0.05) for each criterion, and p-

value (Sig.) for all the (Psychological Empowerment) criteria equals (0.015), which is

less than (0.05).

This means that there are significant differences in respondents' answers toward

applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to their Year of Experience. The

differences are in favor of their 10-25 years.

This also means that there are significant differences in respondents' answers toward

applying the (individual creativity) according to their year of experience. The

differences are in favor of their year of experience with More than 25 years.

The researcher assumes that competence and experience are accumulated and developed

with increasing years of work and experience.

This result is consistent with Nasman (2011), Al_Ja'abari (2010) which show significant

differences in respondents' answers toward applying the (Psychological Empowerment)

according to their Year of Experience . However, the result is inconsistent with Al-Haj

(2015), Masri (2015) and Al Nwajha (2016) which show no significant differences in

95

respondents' answers toward applying the (Psychological Empowerment) according to

their Year of Experience .

Chapter six

Conclusions and Recommendations

97

Chapter Six- Conclusions and Recommendations

6.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a summary of the most important findings and conclusions of

answering the main research question. This study aimed at investigating the level of

perception of psychological empowerment amongst academic and admin employees at

Al Aqsa University, and its relationship with individual creativity. Also, the study

explained the relationship of each of the dimensions of the psychological empowerment

(meaning, competence, self-determination and impact) and the individual creativity. The

presentation of conclusions will follow the order of the key findings presented in the

previous chapter. This chapter will also provide recommendations for researchers and

policy makers, as well as provides suggestions for further studies.

6.2 Conclusions

The following are more detailed conclusions, obtained from the key research findings:

1. Conclusions related to psychological empowerment field

The positive responses to all dimensions of psychological empowerment indicated that

employees of Al Aqsa University realize that they are psychologically empowered to

perform their work. The order of dimensions, which achieved a positive response, were

competence, meaning, impact and self-determination. The competence came in first

rank relatively higher than the other dimensions. It is important to the employees to feel

that they have the skills and knowledge to perform the job requirement.

The meaning came second in the order as it represents how important their job is to

them. Impact and self-determination came later in the order because of many factors

such as the centralization of decision making and long bureaucratic procedures.

a. Meaning: despite the challenges that the employees are facing, whether because of

the political conflict or because of the work stress, they demonstrated that their work

is meaningful to them, that their work was not affected by the environmental factors,

that employees considered their work as highly valuable to them , and that they feel

the importance of work and their belonging to it significantly. However, the role of

active contribution to the community development was not very clear among most of

98

young employees, who would benefit from more education regarding their work

contribution to community, especially newly graduates who focus more on their

carrier development and achieving their personal goals. So, they don‟t consider their

role as contributors to the community development in general.

b. Competence: respondents perceived themselves as having adequate skills and

knowledge to perform their jobs. This finding is highly relevant, considering that

most of the respondents have spent at least 5 years in their work places so they can

master the skills required for their jobs, although felt incompetent to handle new

situations or new problems. Similarly, respondents who have spent relatively short

work experience have shown lower competence in handling new situations or new

work problems, which shows a need for improving their problem solving skills by

engaging them in several training activity.

c. Self-determination: the ability of the respondents to take the initiative to decide what

should work better for them was not very high. The structure of communication and

the decision making chain in a governmental-run academic institution can be a

barrier toward the freedom for self-determination. That can be sometimes beyond

what is expected from the employee according to his/her job description. Employees

have not consider themselves as part of the decision making process in the institution

because the decision making process is central to employees in the hieratical of high

authority positions.

d. Impact: Although respondents were able to perceive their positive impact on

achieving the university goals and objectives, they were less able to perceive their

impact on changing their work environment due to the lack of autonomy and the

central decision making structure. This impedes the employee‟s ability to configure

the change they can make in their work place.

Although employees perceive their work highly meaning full to them , they can‟t

configure the impact of their work in changing the work environment or their

contribution to the community development in general.

99

This would need more attention to help the employees see the broader impact of their

individual roles in developing the community where they live in.

2. Conclusions related to individual creativity field

The overall response of respondents‟ perception of their individual creativity was

positive, although respondents perceived themselves less creative in some areas than in

other areas.

The job nature can play a role in identifying how employees would understand some

aspects of individual creativity. Some employees found difficulty setting time frame and

plans for achieving tasks as such activities are not part of their usual day to do activities.

The employees‟ motivation for developing their capacities of problem solving was

clear. There was an obvious self-motivation to learn new strategies and methods of

problem solving, which enhances individual creativity.

Employees have shown lower ability to suggesting new ideas to solve problems. This

was clear at the level of generating new strategies that was not used before, or at the

level of suggesting more than one solution to a single problem. This would suggest

improving employees‟ analytical thinking skills by engaging them in activities that can

improve such skills.

3. Conclusions related to the study hypotheses :

a- Psychological empowerment and individual creativity

1. The findings show a high statistically significant relationship between psychological

empowerment and individual creativity. Such result is consistent with most of the

literature at the regional and global levels.

2. The findings show that most of the change of the employees‟ behavior toward being

more individually creative was influenced by the psychological empowerment. Such

findings illustrate the importance of psychological empowerment to lead to creativity

rather than to any other external factors.

b- Individual creativity and meaning

1. The research findings show a statistically significant relationship between the

dimension “meaning” and individual creativity.

100

2. The more the employees find their job meaningful and the more they believe that

their role is contributing to achieve the organization‟s goal, the more they feel

inspired to be creative and dedicated to their roles.

c- Individual creativity and competence

1. The findings indicated a medium significant relationship between the dimension

“competence” and the individual creativity.

2. The perception of high competences among respondents seem to increase their level

of self-confidence to be more creative and believe in their ability to change and think

creatively.

d- Individual creativity and self-determination

1. The research findings emphasized a positive medium relationship between self-

determination and individual creativity.

2. Despite the limited space of freedom to self-determination, most of the respondents

found it enhancing their tendency to individual creativity.

e- Individual creativity and impact

1. The research findings emphasized the role of the dimension “impact” in improving

the reception of individual creativity among respondents, although the statistical

relationship was medium.

2. There was a clear understanding of the employees‟ role as contributing to achieve

the organization‟s goals and objectives, especially at the academic level as they

work in an academic institution.

f- Impact of demographic characteristics on the psychological empowerment and

individual creativity

1. Gender: the research findings showed that there was no statistical difference in

respondents answers toward psychological empowerment or individual creativity

scales according to their gender.

2. Age: the research findings indicated that older respondents perceive psychological

empowerment higher than younger respondents, this can be referred to the self-

101

confidence that employee would gain with longer work experiences and the

emotional maturity that come with age.

3. Social status: the research findings demonstrated that there was no significant

statistical difference related to the social status..

4. Job classification: The research findings indicated that the employees who occupy

academic and admin positions together are the highest to perceive positive

psychological empowerment and individual creativity. Taking into consideration

that such positions are the highest in the employees‟ structure and respondents who

work in such positions are highly empowered to take influential decisions.

5. Educational level: The research findings showed that respondents who hold PhD

degrees are the highest who perceive themselves as individually creative. This can

be understood in the context of higher skills and training they have, and also they

occupy higher positions that would allow them to affect decision making.

6. Years of experience: the research findings showed that respondents who have 25

years of experience, or more, are in a better place to perceive themselves more

creative than respondents who have less than 25 years of experiences.

6.3 Recommendations

1- Recommendations for the Psychological Empowerment Dimensions:

a- Meaning:

1. The researcher recommends that employees become more aware of the role the

university plays in developing the capacity of the Palestinian people in general and

how it contributes to community development in Gaza, So as to integrate the role of

the employees and the university to promote the community.

2. It is important for the university to educate the employees on the projects and

partnerships the university is pursuing with other community organizations to

improve the education system in Gaza.

3. The university needs to improve the employees' awareness so they can realize how

everyone‟s role can contribute to improving the capacity of the society they live in.

102

b- Competence:

1. Providing employees with feedback about their performance and their competency to

address the challenges of their job, as this would enhance their self-esteem and raise

their performance.

2. The university needs to establish an incentive system to encourage employees to

compete between each other to improve their competencies and to be distinguished

in their jobs. This system helps administrations to choose the most equivalent

employees to raise them in the career ladder and high positions in the future.

3. The university needs to think of a continuous training and education plan that will

help employees to update their skills and knowledge to face new challenges and to

keep up with the changing requirement of their jobs.

c- Self-Determination:

1. The university needs to provide the employees with more freedom to develop the

procedures and tools of carrying out their work that would enable more creative

thinking and will adapt new problem solving skills. This freedom helps employees to

think out of the box.

2. The university needs to establish channels of communication between the employees

at the low and middle management levels and the employees at high management

levels to promote changing of ideas and thoughts that will help employees of low and

middle management level to feel that they are part of the decision making.

3. The researcher advises the university to adopt a policy that promotes delegation of

authority between different levels of management. The delegation of authority is a

great tool of capacity building, and it also enhances the employees' sense of control

over the decision making process.

4. The university needs to promote the structure of communication inside the

organization so that it would allow broader participation in decision making to

benefit from all the opinions of the staff at all levels to come up with accurate and

effective decisions.

103

d- Impact:

1. The researcher recommends the university to organize educational activities and

workshops to increase the employees‟ awareness of the overall university role in

community development. This makes feedback to employees to keep them in higher

level for their responsibility toward the university and the society.

2. The university needs to initiate an appreciation system to reward the distinguished

employees who put more efforts and time to make an impact on the lives of students

or community members. This is beneficial to the community, the university and the

employees.

2- Recommendations for Individual Creativity:

a. The university needs to establish a system that encourages individual creativity by

recognizing employees and create an incentive system that rewards creative

employees, whether financially or morally. This is in the benefit of the university and

its advancement.

b. Considering individual creativity as an embedded componence of the annual

performance evaluation. Therefore, employees will feel encouraged to think and act

creatively.

c. Employees from different management levels should feel equally empowered to

implement their creative ideas and projects. Therefore, all employees will get equal

and fair chances to implement their creative ideas.

d. The university needs to adapt a transparent feedback system, so employees would

know where they have weaknesses so they can fix them and where they have

creativity so they can build on it.

3. General Conclusions

I. The HR department need to recruit new employees, as the number of employees

under 30 years was very small compared to other age groups. This means that the

university has not recruited enough employees in the past five years.

II. The HR department may organize seminars, workshops and study days to improve

the awareness of the management in the importance of psychological empowerment

and its strong relationship with individual creativity.

104

III. In the shortage of the financial resources and the decreased ability of financial

incentives, the HR department should think of adapting the dimensions of the

psychological empowerment as key components of the rewarding system.

IV. The HR department needs to review the employees qualifications and skills and the

suitability of such qualifications to perform the tasks required for the job. This would

enhance individual creativity if the employees are well allocated to positions that

match their qualifications.

V. The researcher recommends the higher administration to adopt a policy that

encourages the utilization of employees‟ creativity, talents and expertise in a

productive way. That would develop the capacity of the university and its employees.

6.4 Limitations and Suggestion for Future Research

The following are suggestions for future research:

1. This research studied the relationship between psychological empowerment and

individual creativity among employees at Al-Aqsa University. This relationship can

be investigated at other settings, whether it is academic institutions or community

organizations.

2. This research studied the relationship between psychological empowerment and

individual creativity as a univariate dimension. It would be a suggestion for further

studied to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and

individual creativity as a multivariate dimensions.

3. This research adopted a descriptive analytical approach that aim to provide

quantitative information to investigate the relationship between the study variables.

Future studies can adopt mixed methods approach or qualitative approaches to

explore more in-depth analysis of how psychological empowerment can affect

individual creativity.

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106

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Appendices

112

appendices

Appendix (A): The Questionnaire Referees

University Name No.

Islamic University of Gaza Dr. Rushdi Wadi 1.

Islamic University of Gaza Dr. Khalid Dehliz 2.

Islamic University of Gaza Dr. Youssef Baher 3.

Islamic University of Gaza Dr. Akram Sammour 4.

Islamic University of Gaza Dr. Khetam El Sahar 5.

Al- Azhar University-Gaza Dr. Mohammed Fares 6.

Al- Azhar University-Gaza Dr. Ramez Bedair 7.

Al – Aqsa University - Gaza Dr. Nedal Abdallah 8.

Al – Aqsa University - Gaza Dr. Alaedin K. Alsayed 9.

113

Appendix (B): The Questionnaire

Islamic University of Gaza

Postgraduate Deanship

Faculty of Commerce

Business Administration Department

Dear Employee

Peace, mercy and blessings from God

Questionnaire:

I am pleased to put between your hands a questionnaire entitled “ Impact of

psychological empowerment on individual creativity among Al Aqsa University

employees”. As a mandatory requirement for earning a Master degree in business

administration from Islamic University.

The attached questionnaire contains three dimensions: the first one focuses on

demographic information, the second one examines the psychological empowerment

with its four dimensions: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. It

should be take into consideration that psychological empowerment is a set of different

cognitive, emotional factors that determine the level of engagement of employees in

their workplace and their organizational structure, as well as their feeling of freedom to

perform their work assignments. This would reflect on their ability to achieve a high

level of quality performance. The third dimension was dedicated to individual

creativity among employees.

I hope that you can complete the three parts of the questionnaire by marking your

answers (from 0 to 10) in the assigned box, to reflect your level of acceptance to the

sentence next to it. Taking into account that your participation in completing this

questionnaire carefully and objectively will highly contribute in obtaining a robust

results. I also would like to bring to your attention that your answers will only be used

for scientific research purposes.

I highly appreciate your cooperation

Please accept my sincere respect and gratitude.

Researcher

Mahmoud Saymah

114

First Section:

Personal information

1. Gender

Male Female

2. Age group

Less than 30 years 30-40 years

40-50 years More than 50 years

3. Social status

Single Married Widow/er Divorced

4. Job Classification

Administration Academic Academic with Admin position

5. Educational Level

Diploma Bachelor Master PhD

6. Years of Experience

Less than 5 years 5-10 years

10-25 years More than 25 years

115

Section Two

Dimensions of Psychological Empowerment: Identify your view on each of the

following sentences.

(You should rank your answer from 0 (completely disagree) to 10 (completely agree)

N Sentence Score

Meaning

1 My job at the university means something to me

2 The job activities are personally meaningful to me

3 The work I do is meaningful to me

4 My work at the university contributes to achieve the university‟s

goal

5 My work at the university contributes to community

development

Competence

6 I am confident about my ability to do my job

7 I am self-assured about my capability to perform my work

activities

8 I have mastered the skills necessary for my job

9 I have adequate knowledge of how I can perform my work tasks

10 I can handle all new situations at work with confidence and

effectiveness

Self determination

11 I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job

12 I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom

on how I do my job

13 I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work

14 I can identify my work priorities in line with work needs

15 I can determine work needs and goals without an intervention of

others

Impact

16 My impact of what happens in my department is large

17 I have a great deal of control over what happens in my

department

18 I have a significant influence over what happens in my

department

19 I have a great influence on students I work with directly

20 My role contributes to achieving the university‟s educational

aims

116

Section Three: Individual creativity. Identify your view on each of the following

sentences.

(You should rank your answer from 0 (completely disagree) to 10 (completely agree)

N Sentence Score

1. I suggest new ideas to achieve work‟s goals

2. I invent new practical ideas to improve my work

performance

3. I search for new strategies to help me achieve my work

activities

4. I use new problem solving techniques away from routine

regular strategies

5. I set up time framed plans to implement new ideas

6. I am competent in communication and negotiation and have

ability to convince others

7. I have the ability to create immediate solutions to work

problems when they appear

8. I have the ability to suggest multiple ideas in a short time

9. I achieve all my work activities in creatively

10. I pay attention to listen to feedback to improve my

performance

11. I have the ability to see things from different dimensions

12. I plan ahead to face potential problems at work

13. I am keen to know my weaknesses at work

14. I have a substantial ability to detect other people's problems

at work

15. I have a strong drive to achieve my goals at work

16. My main concern is to suggest new ideas more than to obtain

other workers‟ satisfaction

17. I have the ability to defend my ideas by providing evidence

18. I initiate adopting new ideas and strategies for problem

solving

19. I have the ability to realize and explain how different things

are connected

20. In most cases, I can create solutions to problems I face at

work

117

Appendix (C): Questionnaire in Arabic Language

اىشح اىشح هللا ثس

بغزة االسالمية الجامعة العميا الدراسات عمادة التجارة كمية األعمال إدارة قسم

مة..يم/األخت الموظفة الكر ياألخ الموظف الكر

وبركاتو اهلل ورحمة عميكم السالم استمارة استبيان

السالم عميكم ورحمو اهلل وبركاتو... وبعد،"أثر التمكين النفسي عمى االبداع الفردي لدى موظفي جامعة كم استبانة بعنوان يديأضع بين أ طيب لي أني

غزة.-وذلك استكماال لمتطمبات الحصول عمى درجة الماجستير في إدارة األعمال بالجامعة اإلسالمية األقصى"تعمق بالتمكين يالمحور الثاني ضم االستبيان المرفق ثالثة محاور ، األول منيا خاص بالمعمومات الشخصية، و ي

النفسي بأبعاده األربعة وىي: اإلحساس بجدوى العمل والكفاءة واالستقاللية الذاتية والتأثير، حيث إن التمكين النفسي مجموعة من العناصر اإلدراكية والشعورية والنفسية لمموظفين لقياس مدى سيطرتيم واندماجيم في وظائفيم

ة في الميام المناطة بيم ، و بدوره ينعكس عمى تحقيق مستويات عالية يامتالكيم لمحر ومحيطيم التنظيمي ومدى من األداء، وجاء المحور الثالث متضمنا االبداع الفردي لمموظفين.

( في المكان المحدد ليعبر عن درجة الموافقة 15-1ور ىذه االستبانة بوضع رقم من )آمال التكرم بتعبئة كافة محال فقرة، عمما بأن مساىمتكم في تعبئة االستبانة بدقة وموضوعية سيكون ليا أثر كبير في الحصول أو عدميا لك

عمى نتائج إيجابية، كما أن اإلجابات التي ستدلون بيا لن تستخدم إال لغرض البحث العممي فقط. شاكرا لكم حسن تعاونكم. وتقبموا خالص احترامي وتقديري،،،

الباحث

محمود مصطفى صايمة

9033889950ج:

118

اىعيبد اىطخػخ : انحور االول

-ب االختبس اىبست ب ي :أاىشجبء ؾع عالخ ) (

:انجنش -1

أخ رمش

انفئت انعزيت: -2

عب 40 اقو عبب اى 30 عبب 30أقو

فأمخش عبب 50 عب 50 اقو عبب اى 40

:انحبنت االجتبعيت -3

طيق أسو تضد أعضة

:طبيعت انعم -4

داسإأمبد ر ػت أمبد داسإ

:انضتوى انتعهيي -5

دمتسا بجستش ثنبىسط دثي

:تذيصنواث انخ -6

ساد 10 اقو ساد اى 5 ساد 5أقو

خ فأمخشس 25 خس 25 اقو اى 10

119

حدد مدى موافقتك عمى كل من الفقرات التالية .: أبعاد التمكين النفسي لمموظفينالمحور الثاني موافق بشدة ( 15غير موافق بشدة ، ، 1)

انذرجت انفقزة و0

10اني 1 انعم االحضبس بجذوى عي ف اىجبعخ ر ع ثبىسجخ ى 1 طبـبد عي ىب اخ مجشح ثبىسجخ ى عي اىست اىطخػب 2 ذاف اؾحخ أى عي اىز أؤد ر غض أأعتقذ 3 ثبىجبعخ سب ثطنو جبضش ف تحقق أذاف اىجبعخعي 4 اىعو اىز أق ث ؽ ثبىجتع اىز أعص ف 5

األههيت وانكفبءة أحق ف قذسات عي أداء عي 6 مو جأتتفش ىذ اىبساد اىؿشسخ ىيقب ثعي عي 7 ثإتقبب تأمذ قذست عي اىقب ثطبـبد عي أ 8 أيل اىعيبد اىنبفخ ىيقب ثعي ثبىست اىطية 9

أستطع اىتعبو ع مو اىاقف اىجذذح ثبىعو ثجبعخ 10

االصتقالنيت انذاتيت ىذ استقالىخ مجشح ىتحذذ مفخ أداء عي 11 اىحشخ ف مفخ أداء ظفتمجشح االستقالىخ خىذ سبح 12 أستطع اتخبر قشاساد عي سئىت تخع سش اىعو 13 أستطع تحذذ أىبد عي ثفس ثب تبست ع احتبجبد اىعو 14 أستطع تحذذ أذاف آىبد اىعو ثذ تذخو االخش 15

انتأثيز عو ثبأ اىذائشح اىت أىذ تأحش مجش فب حذث ف اىقس 16 خش اىز عي ع ثطنو مجش جذا تأحش ف ا ىذ 17 عو ثبأأتتع ثقذس اسع اىسيطخ فب حذث ثبىقس ا اىذائشح اىت 18 اىطيجخ اىز أعو ع ثطنو جبضش عيىذ تأحش مجش 19 عي س ثبىؼ ثبىسشح اىتعيخ ف اىجبعخ 20

120

: االبداع الفردي لمموظفين حدد مدى موافقتك عمى كل من الفقرات التاليةالثالثالمحور موافق بشدة ( 15غير موافق بشدة ، ، 1)

انذرجت انفقزة و0 10اني 1

اىعو أذاف ىتحقق جذذح أقتشح ـشقب 1 أدائ ثبىعو ىتحس عيخ جذذح أفنبس إى أتغو 2 تسبعذ ثأداء ب عيجذذح تقبد ع أثحج 3 أستخذ أسبىت جذذح ف حو طنالد اىعو ثعذا اىشت اىعتبد0 4 0اىجذذح األفنبس ىتفز مبفخ صخ جذاه خططب أؾع 5 عي اإلقبع اىقبش اىحاس أتيل اىقذسح أتتع ثبىبسح ف 6 ىاجخ طبمو اىعوىذ اىقذسح عي تػس اىحيه اىسشعخ 7 ىذ اىقذسح عي تقذ أمخش فنشح خاله فتشح صخ قػشح0 8 ثأسية تجذد0 أجض ب سذ إى أعبه 9

أحشظ عي عشفخ اىشأ اىخبىف ىشأ ىالستفبدح 10 ىذ اىقذسح عي سؤخ األضبء صاب ختيفخ0 11 اىعو اىت ن حذحبأخطف ىاجخ طنالد 12 أحشظ عي عشفخ أج اىقػس أ اىؿعف فب أق ث عو 13 أتيل سؤخ دققخ المتطبف اىطنالد اىت عب ب اخش 14 يل دافع ق ىتحقق اىجبح اىذسجبد اىعيبتأ 15أمخش اتب ثحبىخ اىحػه عي أفنبس جذذح إتبداتب ػت عي 16

افقخ اخش

ىذ اىقذسح عي اىذفبع ع أفنبس ثبىحجخ اىجشب 17 أثبدس ثتج األفنبس األسبىت اىجذذح اىجحج ع حيه ىيطنالد 18 ىذ اىقذسح عي إدساك اىعالقخ ث األضبء تفسشب0 19 تاج ف اىعواألحب تقع اىحو ىيطنالد اىت أستطع ف مخش 20