Psychol Stud
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-018-0456-8
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
Psychological Empowerment and Workforce Agility
Ashutosh Muduli1 • Ganes Pandya2
Received: 3 October 2017 / Accepted: 5 June 2018
Ó National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2018
Abstract Unpredictable, dynamic, and constantly chang-
ing environments require an ‘agile organization.’ The
notion of an agile workforce has been discussed as critical
to creating an agile organization. Despite the increasing
recognition that workforce agility is critical to achieve
competitiveness, the concept of workforce agility has not
yet been systematically studied. The current research has
been proposed on the assumption that employee cognition
can support agile attitude and behavior. The research has
been conceptualized considering psychological empower-
ment as an important employee cognition capable of pro-
moting workforce agility. Following the Spreitzer,
psychological empowerment, in the form of meaningful-
ness, self-determination, competence, and impact, has been
proposed as facilitators of workforce agility. Our result
supports the conceptualization implicit in the literature and
suggests that psychological empowerment must be con-
sidered as an important aspect of an organization’s effort to
foster workforce agility. Further, from among the psycho-
logical empowerment variables, impact is the most influ-
ential variable followed by self-determination, meaning
and competence on workforce agility. While the study
result agrees with few cognitive theories such as self-de-
termination theory, job characteristics theory, and sense-
making theory, the result has important managerial
implications.
& Ashutosh Muduli
ashuhrm@gmail.com; ashutosh.muduli@spm.pdpu.ac.in
1
School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal
Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
2
T.A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal, India
Keywords Workforce agility

Psychological empowerment
Meaningfulness

Self-determination
Impact
Introduction
Recently, most of the research papers on human resource
management start with an introduction stating that orga-
nizations are facing a dynamic environment. This state-
ment is even truer due to the economic turmoil resulting
from the recent financial crisis. The crisis has exposed
organizations struggling with unpredictable changes in
their environment which impacted the organization (Ni-
jssen & Paauwe, 2012). Organizations are realizing that
they must continually respond to their dynamic and com-
petitive environments to survive (Muduli, 2015). This has
encouraged a group of researchers to introduce the concept
of agility in industries as a means of responding to rapid
environmental changes.
Organizational agility has been defined as the rapid and
proactive adaption of organizational elements to uncertain
and unexpected changes (Kidd, 1994). Agility has two
features, which are (a) responding to dynamics and threats
in the best possible way and in the shortest possible time
(Rajan, Solairajan, & Jose, 2012; Sherehiy, 2008) and
(b) identifying and capitalizing on opportunities in the most
effective and timely manner (Sharifi & Zhang, 1999). An
agile approach believes more on individuals and interac-
tions as the focus is to do the best for the ‘customer’ and
deliver something timely and tangible (Highsmith, 2001).
The notion of an agile workforce has been discussed as
critical to creating an agile organization (Ambler, 2003;
Breu, Hemingway, & Bridger, 2001; Ragin-Skorecka,
2016; Sherehiy, Karwowski, & Layer, 2007). A firm cannot
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become agile without properly addressing workforce agi-
lity (WA) in its agility programme (Jones, Dixon, Chonko,
& Cannon, 2005).
Despite the increasing recognition that workforce agility
is critical to achieving competitiveness, the concept of
workforce agility has not yet been systematically studied
(Gunasekaran, 1998; Muduli, 2013; Sherehiy & Kar-
wowski, 2014). Whenever studied, agility research has
mainly sought to understand workforce agility by confining
to speed and flexibility from an operation perspective only
(Goldman & Nagel, 1993). Very few studies have been
conducted on the antecedent or facilitators of workforce
agility. Whenever conducted, most of them tend to explore
the organizational characteristics (Muduli, 2008, 2013;
Sherehiy & Karwowski, 2014). Rarely, the cognitive per-
spective has been adopted to study workforce agility.
The current research assumes that employee cognition
can support agile attitude and behavior. The research has
been conceptualized considering psychological empower-
ment (PE) as an important employee cognition capable of
promoting workforce agility. The proposed relationship
finds support from Thomas and Velthouse (1990), where
the researchers opine that when individuals feel empow-
ered, proactive behavior such as flexibility, resilience, and
persistence ensues.
Conceptualization
Workforce Agility
Despite the increasing importance of workforce agility in
the context of a dynamic business environment, a theory or
accurate definition of workforce agility could not be
established (Alavi, Abd. Wahab, Muhamad, & Shirani,
2014; Breu et al., 2001; Sherehiy, 2008). Different authors
and researchers have defined workforce agility as either a
specific ability or attitude or behavior demonstrated or
required by workers in a volatile global business environ-
ment perspective. Considering workforce agility as an
ability of workforce, Kidd (1994) commented that work-
force agility involves two main elements: the ability of the
workforce to respond to changes in proper ways and in due
time; and the ability of the workforce to exploit changes
and take advantage of them as opportunities. Zhang and
Sharifi (2000) defined agile workforce as ‘people with a
broad vision and capabilities to deal with marketplace
turbulence by capturing the advantageous side of such
dynamic conditions, such as occasional abrupt shifts in
customer preferences and account structure.’ From an
attitude perspective, Plonka (1997) observed that agile
workforce has a positive attitude toward learning and self-
development; good problem-solving ability;
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Psychol Stud
comfortableness with change, new ideas, and new tech-
nologies; and ability to generate innovative ideas and is
always ready to accept new responsibilities. Researchers
like Dyer and Shafer (2003), Griffin and Hesketh (2003),
Sherehiy and Karwowski (2014) defined workforce agility
from a behavioral perspective. Dyer and Shafer (2003)
defined workforce agility as the proactive, adaptive, and
generative behavior of workforce. Proactive behavior
consists of two aspects: initiate and improvise. Proactive
initiative means an active search for opportunities to con-
tribute to organizational success and take the lead in pur-
suing those opportunities that appear promising. Adaptive
behaviors require the assumption of multiple roles to per-
form in different capacities across levels, and often projects
simultaneously move from one role to another very
quickly. The employees have to simultaneously learn in
multiple competency areas and educate by actively sharing
information and knowledge. Based on the models of Griffin
and Hesketh (2003) and Dyer and Shafer (2003), Sherehiy
and Karwowski (2014) grouped the behavior of agile
workforce in three dimensions: proactive, adaptive, and
resilience. The proactive behaviors refer to the anticipation
of problems related to change; initiations of activities that
lead to a solution of the change-related problems and
improvements in work; and a solution of the change-related
problems. Adaptive behavior requires professional flexi-
bility, which is the ability to assume multiple roles, change
easily from one role to another, and the ability and com-
petency to work simultaneously on different tasks in dif-
ferent teams. Resilience behavior includes a positive
attitude to the changes, new ideas, and technology; toler-
ance of uncertain and unexpected situations, differences in
opinions, and approaches; and tolerance to stressful situa-
tions and coping with stress.
Psychological Empowerment
Liden and Arad (1996) interpreted empowerment as the
psychological outcome of structural changes in the orga-
nization designed to provide power. It is a process of
enhancing feelings of self-efficacy among organizational
members through the identification of conditions that foster
powerlessness and through their removal by both formal
organizational practices and informal techniques providing
efficacy information (Conger & Kanungo, 1988).
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) extended this approach
by viewing power as energy: To empower is to energize.
Psychological empowerment has been defined as ‘an
individual’s experience of intrinsic motivation that is based
on cognitions about him- or herself about his or her work
role’ (Spreitzer, 1995). Thomas and Velthouse (1990)
defined psychological empowerment more broadly as
increased intrinsic task motivation manifested in an asset of
Psychol Stud
four cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation to his
or her work role: meaningfulness, competence, self-deter-
mination, and impact. Thus, for psychological empower-
ment, we accepted meaning, competence, self-
determination, and impact as the construct of psychological
empowerment.
Hypotheses
Psychological Empowerment and Workforce Agility
Psychological empowerment as employee cognition can
promote workforce agility. Psychological empowerment in
the form of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy can pro-
duce proactive, adaptive, and resilience behavior of
workforce. Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan (1986) commented that
the degree of intrinsic reward orientation among sales-
people is related to their motivation to practice adaptive
selling. The researcher found that intrinsically oriented
salespeople are likely to be motivated to learn more about
selling by varying their behavior from customer to cus-
tomer in an attempt to adapt effectively to customer needs.
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) argued that when individu-
als feel empowered, proactive behavior such as flexibility,
resilience, and persistence ensues. Empowered employees
are more likely to be more adaptive because of increased
flexibilities that accompany empowerment (Scott & Bruce,
1994). Further, empowerment and autonomy in decision
making are seen to be key in making the workforce truly
agile (Goldman & Nagel, 1993; Kidd, 1994; Van Oyen,
Gel, & Hopp, 2001). Decentralized decision making among
largely autonomous organization members will allow
speedy coordination and action (Gunasekaran, 1998).
While studying the contribution of employee involvement
practices to workforce agility, Sumukadas and Sawhney
(2004) observed that only high-power practices such as Job
enrichment, Job enlargement, Self-managed teams con-
tribute to workforce agility. Kathuria and Partovi (1999)
observed that higher-order employee involvement practices
support plant flexibility. Hopp and Van Oyen (2003) con-
cluded that power-sharing practices offer the greatest
potential to support the workforce agility architecture, such
as by improving efficiencies of training, switching, multi-
tasking, and collaboration.
Based on these findings, we propose the following
hypothesized relationship:
Hypothesis: 1 Psychological empowerment will posi-
tively relate to workforce agility.
Meaningful task motivates workforce to be agile. High
levels of meaningfulness result in high commitment, more
involvement and preparing workers for more speed and
flexibility (Sjoberg, Olsson, & Salay, 1983). Agility
behavior is directly related to intrinsically motivated and
satisfied people. Management actions in the area of job
designing (job enlargement, job enrichment, and job rota-
tion), performance management system, employee coun-
seling, and feedback help in evolving a fit between the
requirement of a work goal and belief, values, and behavior
of the workforce. The more the fit, the stronger is the
agreeableness of workers to be agile.
Based on these findings, we propose for the following
hypothesized relationship:
Hypothesis 1a Meaningfulness will positively relate to
workforce agility.
Workforce competency level influences their readiness
to be agile. Competencies refer to the acquisition of skills,
in particular IT and software skills, management and
business process integration skills, and their continuous
alignment with an evolving business direction (Breu et al.,
2001). Agile workforces have been claimed to capitalize on
skills by proactively innovating their skills base just ahead
of need (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Yusuf, Sarhadi, &
Gunasekaran, 1999). Managerial actions like competency
assessment, training, and development, etc., enhance
competency level of workforce leading to feeling compe-
tent. Employees can perform a flexible range of tasks only
if they have the necessary skill sets. Cross-training and job
rotation can help workers adapt better to new jobs.
Based on these findings, we propose for the following
hypothesized relationship:
Hypothesis 1b Competence will positively relate to
workforce agility.
Self-determination is represented by behaviors that are
initiated and regulated through choices as an expression of
oneself, rather than behaviors that are forced by the envi-
ronment (Bell & Staw, 1989). Self-determination presup-
poses intelligence. Intelligence concerns the collective
environmental responsiveness of a workforce regarding its
ability to read and interpret external change (e.g., in cus-
tomer needs, market conditions, emerging business
opportunities, and competitor strategies), to adjust objec-
tives accordingly, and to act speedily in line with the
resulting strategic direction. Employee perception of self-
determination is connected with intrinsic motivation.
Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan (1986) found that the degree of
intrinsic reward orientation among salespeople is related to
their motivation to practice adaptive selling. Researchers
argued that intrinsically oriented salespeople are likely to
be motivated to learn more about selling by varying their
behavior from customer to customer in an attempt to adapt
effectively to customer needs. Condry and Chambers
(1978) suggested that intrinsically oriented people have
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 Psychol Stud

little trouble accepting failures because they view failures flexibility, development, collaborativeness, competence,
as natural occurrences en route to solutions. speed, and information.
Based on these findings, we propose for the following
hypothesized relationship: Psychological Empowerment
Hypothesis 1c Self-determination will positively relate
Psychological empowerment was measured by a 12-item
to workforce agility.
scale developed and validated by Spreitzer (1995). The
Impact is the degree to which an individual can influ- scale has four subscales: meaning, competence, impact,
ence strategic, administrative, or operating outcomes at and self-determination, each of which has three items. The
work (Ashforth, 1989). Impact refers to the degree to rating scale ranged from 1-strongly disagree, 2-neither
which behavior produces intended effects in one’s task agree or disagree, and 3-strongly agree. An example item
environment (Thomas & Velthhouse, 1990). When indi- from each subscale is ‘The work I do is very important to
viduals feel that they can influence the work environment, me’ (meaning); ‘I am confident about my ability to do my
their willingness to collaborate effectively across the pro- job’ (competence); ‘I have significant autonomy in deter-
ject, functional, and organizational boundaries increases. mining how I do my job’ (self-determination); and ‘My
This may further increase agility. impact on what happens in my department is large’
Based on these findings, we propose for the following (impact).
hypothesized relationship:
Workforce Agility
Hypothesis 1d Impact will positively relate to workforce
agility.
To measure workforce agility, we improved the workforce
agility scale prescribed by Breu et al. (2001). The improved
scale had seven subscales: adaptive, flexible, develop-
Method
mental, collaborative, competent, speed, and informative.
Respondents were asked to share their assessment on a
Sampling
three-point scale (1-low, 2-medium, and 3-high). An
example item from the scale is ‘I am flexible to quickly
A total of 600 questionnaires were administered to exec-
change from task to task, job to job and place to place.’
utives and nonexecutives working in selected public and
private sector enterprises operating in selected manufac-
Statistical Techniques
turing and service sectors of India. Out of these 600
questionnaires, 386 were done through personal contacts.
Structural equation modeling (Amos 16) was used to test
Another 214 were done through personal visits to the
the suggested model (Fig. 1). Structural equation modeling
organizations. Out of 600 questionnaires, only 344
(SEM) is a family of statistical models that seek to explain
responses were received. Care was taken to cover both
the relationship between multiple variables and more
executives and nonexecutives (executives-216 and nonex-
effective when testing models that are path analytic with
ecutives-128). From among the respondents, 69.2% were
mediating variables and contain latent constructs that are
male and 30.8% were female, whereas around 51.5% were
being measured with multiple indicators (Hair et al., 2006).
from manufacturing sector, and the remaining 48.5% were
Because our model contains several latent variables and
from service sector.
involves mediating variables, SEM was considered
appropriate.
Measures
Structural equation modeling researchers proposed a
two-step procedure when testing theoretical models
Based on extensive review of the literature, the survey
(Medsker et al., 1994). The first step was to examine and
instrument included items that assessed psychological
validate the measurement model, with the second step
empowerment (12 items) and workforce agility (seven
testing the structural model and conducting hypothesis tests
items). Psychological empowerment was measured by ‘an
(Garver & Williams, 2009). Following Garver and Wil-
individual’s experience of intrinsic motivation based on
liams (2009), at the first step, confirmatory factor analysis
cognitions about himself or herself and about his or her
(CFA) has been used to refine and validate the measure-
work role’ through four subscales: meaning, competence,
ment model. This helped us to evaluate the contribution of
impact, and self-determination. Workforce agility was
each item to the construct (latent variables). The mea-
measured by employee self-assessment of agility attributes,
surement model also provided an assessment of convergent
attitude, and behavior perception regarding adaptability,
and discriminant validity, while the full model provided an

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Psychol Stud
Fig. 1 Hypothesized model
with path coefficients. Notes:
p \ 0.10, *p \ 0.05,
**p \ 0.01
Meaning
Competence
Impact
Self
Determination
assessment of predictive validity. Then, at the second step,
the structural model was tested to determine the strength of
the hypothesized relationships between the constructs.
Measurement Model: Validity and Reliability
CFA has been used for a simultaneous assessment of
overall and specific elements of measurement validity and
reliability. CFA showed that all factor loadings and path
coefficient were statistically significant. The t values were
above the required value of 1.96. Reliability estimates from
the CFA all exceed the 0.60 cutoff value suggested by
Bagozzi and Yi (1988), providing evidence of scale relia-
bility (PE = 0.625 and WA = 0.714). Reliability of all
constructs was above 0.60 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988). These
high and significant loadings indicated good convergence
validity (Bagozzi et al., 1999). Discriminant validity
assesses the extent to which the individual constructs are
discrete (Bagozzi et al., 1999). Crocker and Algina (1986)
indicated that discriminant validity is shown when the
correlations of individual factors do not exceed the alpha
(reliability) coefficients. CFA also helped us in assessing
common method bias (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). Two
factors with eigenvalues [ 1.0, factors with combined
variance accounted for were 77.16%. The first factor
accounted for 53.10% of the variance, while the second for
24.6%. Common method bias is less of an issue if more
than one factor is identified, and none of the factors
account for the majority of the variance explained. The
overall fit statistics of the CFA were: CMIN = 81.112;
Psychological
Empowerment
H1.(+)
0.373(*)
H1.a.(+)
0.223(*)
H1.b.(+)
0.148(*)
Workforce
H1.c.(+)
0.547(*) Agility
H1.d.(+)
0.289(**)
df = 71; p = 0.089; CFI = 0.956; GFI = 0.932;
RMSEA = 0.071; CMIN/df = 1.142 RMR = 0.037; and
NFI = 0.935 (Table 1). The model fits the data very well,
and all the indices were within the recommended ranges.
Discriminant validity has been measured by comparing
the square root of the average variance extracted to the
correlation between constructs (Braunscheidel & Suresh,
2009). As indicated in Table 2, square-root of the average
variance extracted of each construct was higher than the
corresponding inter-construct correlations estimates, sug-
gesting good discriminant validity. Moreover, the correla-
tion coefficients among the study constructs do not exceed
0.85, indicating that multicollinearity does not appear to be
a problem (Kline, 2005).
Structural Model
Before the path coefficients can be assessed, the fitness of
the structural model must be evaluated. As shown in
Table 3, the goodness-of-fit statistics indicated a good fit to
the data. The CMIN statistic was nonsignificant (CMIN =
101.156; df = 79; p = 0.01) indicating an acceptable fit
(Kline, 2005). Each one of the remaining model fit indices
shown in Table 4 (CFI, GFI, and NFI) exceeded the
acceptable fit level of 0.90 (Kline, 2005). The RMSEA
does not exceed the acceptable fit measure of 0.08 (Browne
& Cudeck, 1993), nor does the RMR exceed 0.05 (Kline,
2005). The probability value that the model is a close fit is
convincing at 0.950. Jöreskog and Sörbom (1996) sug-
gested that the p value for this test should be [ 0.50.
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 Psychol Stud

Table 1 Measurement fit model

Overall model measure Model score Acceptable model fit Acceptable range

CFI 0.956 Passed [ 0.90

GFI 0.932 Passed [ 0.90
RMSEA 0.071 Passed \ 0.10
CMIN/DF 1.142 Passed \3
RMR 0.037 Passed [ 0.05
NFI 0.935 Passed [ 0.90

Table 2 Correlations between psychological empowerment and workforce agility variables

Workforce agility Meaning Competence Impact Self-determination

Workforce agility 1
Meaning 0.189(**) 1
Competence 0.022 0.222(**) 1
Impact 0.343(**) 0.282(**) 0.681(**) 1
Self-determination 0.340(**) 0.473(**) 0.510(**) 0.803(**) 1
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

was found to be significantly related to WA (r = 0.189,

Table 3 Measurement structural model p \ 0.01), Impact (I) was found to be significantly related
Overall model Model Acceptable model Acceptable range to workforce agility (r = 0.343, p \ 0.01), and Self-deter-
measure score fit mination (SD) was found to be significantly related to
workforce agility (r = 0.341, p \ 0.01). Competence (C)
CFI 0.914 Passed [ 0.90
was not found to be significantly related to workforce
GFI 0.926 Passed [ 0.90
agility (r = 0.022, p \ 0.01).
RMSEA 0.089 Passed \ 0.10
Multivariate regression analysis was done to assay the
CMIN/DF 2.198 Passed \3
influence of psychological empowerment variables on
RMR 0.021 Passed [ 0.05
workforce agility. Here, we regarded workforce agility as
NFI 0.918 Passed [ 0.90
the dependent variable and the psychological empower-
ment variables such as meaning, competence, impact, and
self-determination as the independent variables. As shown
Table 4 Regression results for psychological empowerment and
workforce agility
in Table 4, the adjusted R2 is 0.233, indicating that the
model has a moderately good explanatory level. We also
Variables Model 1 b T value considered the beta value to distinguish the magnitude of
Meaning 0.223* 2.492 the effect of psychological empowerment variables on
Competence 0.148* 4.159 workforce agility by each parameter (Hypothesis 1.a to
Impact 0.547* 4.433 1.d.). We found that impact (b = 0.547) is the most influ-
Self-determination 0.289** 2.468 ential parameter followed by self-determination
R2 0.233 (b = 0.289), meaning (b = 0.223), and competence
F 15.573 (b = 0.048). The path coefficient is shown in Fig. 1.

Dependent variable—workforce agility

p \ 0.10, *p \ 0.05, **p \ 0.01 Discussion

Additionally, all of the path estimates were significant The literature to date has espoused several practices to
and in the expected direction. Thus, as H1 predicted, PE promote workforce agility, but empirical testing has been
was found to be significantly related with WA (r = 0.215, sparse. This paper provides empirical evidence to the role
p \ 0.01). In more detail, PE in the form of Meaning (M) of employee empowerment as an independent variable in

123
Psychol Stud
promoting workforce agility. Employee empowerment is
conceptualized as a feeling of empowerment or otherwise
known as ‘Psychological empowerment.’ The much pop-
ular definition of Thomas and Velthouse (1990) defining
psychological empowerment as increased intrinsic task
motivation manifested in an asset of four cognitions
reflecting an individual’s orientation to his or her work
role—meaning, competence, self-determination, and
impact—is considered to identify the empowerment vari-
ables. The potential of the empowerment variables to
promote workforce agility is explored through an extensive
literature survey. Empirical evidence is collected from
selected public and private sector undertakings to examine
the evidence of such relations in corporate India.
Psychological empowerment explained 23% of the
variance in workforce agility. Our result supports the
conceptualization implicit in the literature and suggests that
psychological empowerment must be considered as an
important aspect of an organization’s effort to foster
workforce agility. This finding shows that it is important
for managers, irrespective of the sector, interested in fos-
tering agility within the workforce to understand and pro-
mote employee empowerment. Leaders across the sectors
should put more thrust on nurturing and creating a work
environment conducive to employee empowerment. In
other words, suitable empowerment climate by adopting
structures and practices such as information sharing, skill
acquisition and development, autonomy through bound-
aries, team accountability, reward system, and workplace
independence and flexibility (Muduli, 2008) is necessary
for enhancing psychological empowerment which has
potential to foster workforce agility.
The magnitude of the effect of psychological empow-
erment variables on workforce agility by each parameter
(Hypothesis 1.a to 1.d) is evident from the findings that
impact (b = 0.547) is the most influential variable followed
by self-determination (b = 0.289), meaning (b = 0.223),
and competence (b = 0.148).
Impact promotes workforce agility (b = 0.547). In other
words, an individual’s feeling that he or she can influence
the strategic, administrative, or operating outcomes at work
can make him or her agile. And as the impact is influenced
more by work context (Wolfe & Robertshaw, 1982), we
recommend the corporate practitioners to develop an
appropriate work context suitable to promote the psycho-
logical feeling of impact among the working population.
More specifically, practitioners can adopt team account-
ability, autonomy through boundaries, reward system, and
workplace independence and flexibility as specific work
context variables to foster impact-oriented feeling among
the people at work (Muduli, 2008).
Agreeing with the earlier research (Moller, Ryan, &
Deci, 2006), self-determination is found strongly related to
workforce agility. The results of the study confirm that
employees self-determination plays an important role in
making workers truly agile (b = 0.289). In other words,
employees feeling of higher self-determination can moti-
vate them intrinsically, encouraging them to contribute to
the organization proactively and flexibly. The result agrees
with the organismic perspective which believes that
humans are inherently motivated to develop their interests
and skills and move toward their fullest potential when
they are intrinsically motivated (the desire to engage in an
activity because one enjoys or is interested in the activity)
(Angyal, 1941). When performing an action, a self-deter-
mined person may view his or her behavior as self-insti-
gated rather than instigated in response to an inducement
by an external agent (Dholakia, 2006). Self-determined
people show behaviors that are initiated and regulated
through choices, rather than behaviors that are forced by
the environment. Further, following the self-determination
theory propounded by Edward Deci (Deci & Ryan, 1985),
we recommend the management to explore the conditions
that can undermine ‘intrinsic motivation’ such as perfor-
mance-contingent rewards, time pressures, the threat of
punishment, and competitions.
Agreeing with the previous studies, meaningfulness is
found strongly related to workforce agility (Sjoberg, Ols-
son, & Salay, 1983). Meaningful task motivates workforce
to be agile (b = 0.223). As people who find their job
meaningful are intrinsically motivated and satisfied, we
may conclude that the more the workforce is intrinsically
motivated and satisfied, the more suitable will be the cli-
mate to develop an agile workforce. Further, the result may
encourage the managers to optimize meaningfulness for
enhancing agile attitude and behavior of workforce. Man-
agers should explore various internal and external sources
such as work context, social environment, and under-
standing self-motives for promoting the feeling of mean-
ingfulness among the workforce (Grant & Parker, 2009).
The study result has important theoretical implications
from the theories of job characteristics and sense making
(Weick, 1993). Considering the job characteristics theory,
meaningfulness of a job can be enhanced. For example,
hospital cleaners may enhance the meaning they derive at
work by changing the core characteristics of the job, such
as by increasing task significance (Barrick, Mount, & Li,
2013). Similarly, in the theory of sense making, Weick
(1993) proposed that comprehending, understanding, and
extrapolating cues are captured by employees to make
meaning of their job, roles, and selves at work.
We are surprised to find that the competency dimension
is less related to workforce agility (b = 0.148). This is
particularly surprising given that the competency dimen-
sion is considered to be the key dimension of agility in
much of the literature on agility (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990;
123

Yusuf et al., 1999). We feel that improper competency
assessment, ineffective training and development pro-
gramme, unplanned cross-training, and job rotation pro-
gramme might have caused a low-level competency
leading further to lesser effect on workforce agility. For
example, Unhelkar (2016) emphasized the significant role
of IT-based formal and planned project management and
development processes vis-a-vis traditional structured
approach. Taking clues from the findings of Unhelkar
(2016), competency development intervention not focusing
on IT-based formal and planned project management and
development processes may be responsible for the
insignificant relationship of competency and agility. The
practitioners are suggested to adopt a systematic approach
aiming at continuous enhancement and development of
agility-related competencies following the four important
phases of competency life cycle: competency mapping;
competency diagnosis; competency development and
competency monitoring (Draganidis & Mentzas, 2006).
In sum, the empowerment dimensions are differentially
related to workforce agility. While the first three dimen-
sions (meaningfulness, impact, and self-determination)
contribute significantly to workforce agility, competence
has a very little contribution to workforce agility. However,
such an understanding is yet premature. As Cherry
observed, picking some practices, and discarding others,
ignores any interdependencies that may exist among the
practices. Understanding these interrelationships is essen-
tial to understanding management actions that promote
employee empowerment.
Limitations of the Study
As with all research, the research is not free from limita-
tions. The first limitation that could potentially affect the
result of the study is the number of participant units and the
participant size. The participant consists of four units (three
public sector and two private sector units, of which two are
from the service sector and the other three from the man-
ufacturing sector) of India, and the sample size is only 344
employees across the five units. As such, the findings may
not generalize in a global context. For example, Nijssen
and Paauwe (2012) imagined that ‘one would compare
organizations that survive in a dynamic environment with
organizations that did not.’ Hence, future research can be
conducted by comparing high-performance organizations
and low-performance organizations. Secondly, the current
research has focused more on survey-based data collection,
and the collected data are self-reported. The participants
may have completed the survey to the best of their
knowledge and ability, but the responses may not have
been completely accurate. Future research can be planned
to adopt a case-based methodology as case-based methods
123
Psychol Stud
can help in exploring the factors related to either organi-
zation or any other related variables. Thirdly, in the current
research, psychological empowerment is being adopted as
the only independent variable for promoting workforce
agility. Future research may identify and empirically
examine different antecedents of psychological empower-
ment and may investigate the consequence of each
dimension of empowerment concerning workforce agility
(Muduli, 2013). Finally, the current research has not
examined psychological empowerment and workforce
agility from varying cultural and contextual perspective. As
suggested by the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan,
1985; Ryan & Deci, 2001), a supportive social context can
enhance individuals experience of the basic psychological
needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Hence,
future research can be conducted to explore and identify
social context which facilitates or blocks the feeling of
empowerment and hence agile behavior. However, within
the said limitation, the study attempts its level best to
conceptualize the construct of workforce agility and is able
to provide a prima facie impression to the organizational
practices important for enhancing the level of psychologi-
cal empowerment.
Conclusion
Among proposals of how organizations can successfully
deal with unpredictable, dynamic, and constantly changing
environments, the notion of ‘agile enterprise’ is the most
predominant and popular. Enterprise agility is not possible
without an agile workforce. An agile workforce is a
proactive, adaptive, flexible, and resilient workforce which
has a positive attitude toward learning and self-develop-
ment; good problem-solving ability; comfortableness with
change, new ideas, and new technologies; and ability to
generate innovative ideas and is always ready to accept
new responsibilities. Psychological empowerment in the
form of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy can produce
proactive, adaptive, and resilience behavior of workforce.
Workforce agility is not possible unless workers are
intrinsically motivated. The result of the study reveals that
among the empowerment factors contributing to workforce
agility meaningfulness, self-determination and impact are
the most dominant factors. Employees feelings that the job
is quite meaningful, they can take their own decision, and
their behavior can have an impact on organizational output
are possible through enhancement of the psychological
feeling of empowerment. Although adopting empowerment
in the organization is very easy to prescribe but practically
very difficult to implement. The journey of empowerment
from ‘illusion’ to ‘reality ‘can be started only by under-
standing the nature of human systems (organizational
Psychol Stud
climate, management practices, and people) operating in
organizations from a cultural perspective (Saini & Khan,
2007). As research in empowerment in Indian contexts has
explored information sharing, skill acquisition and devel-
opment, team accountability, autonomy through bound-
aries, reward system, and workplace independence and
flexibility as work context related to psychological feeling
of empowerment, suitable steps may be taken to foster
empowerment climate by adopting and implementing the
above practices (Muduli, 2008). As Suresh Pandit, CEO,
Pandit Associates, observed ‘Implementing empowerment
also requires a basic change in the approach of managers.
They must change from people-pullers to people-
nurturers.’
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