The empowerment–organizational performance link in local governments

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how to raise organizational performance in public sector organizations through human resource management. Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the link between structural empowerment and organizational performance, and the mediating role of the psychological empowerment of employees. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply multilevel structural equation modeling using a sample of 103 local governments’ managers and 461 employees from Spain. Findings The results show that structural empowerment is positively associated with organizational performance. Surprisingly, this relationship is not mediated by psychological empowerment, although it is a powerful antecedent of organizational performance. Originality/value In the context of new public management, structural empowerment emerges as a useful component of human resource management for improving organizational performance in public sector organizations. Nevertheless, scant research has combined structural empowerment practices and employees’ feelings of empowerment, which would create a global view to shed light on their role to increase organizational performance. Therefore, this paper examines the mediating function of psychological empowerment (individual level) in the structural empowerment–organizational performance link (organizational level) in the context of public sector organizations.