The influence of empowering leadership, empowerment and engagement on affective commitment and turnover intentions in community health service workers: Test of a model

Purpose – This study seeks to extend research on the relationship between empowering leadership, empowerment and outcome variables by examining the mediating role of employee engagement. More specifically, the study sets out to test whether employee engagement mediates the effects of empowering leadership and empowerment on affective commitment and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approach – The sample on which conclusions are based consisted of 139 employees of a community health service. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equations modelling (SEM) were used to test the measurement and structural models proposed.Findings – CFA showed acceptable fit indices for the measurement model after respecifying a reduced number of items for the explanatory variables. Structural equations modelling of a respecified model also yielded acceptable fit indices and showed that empowerment mediated the influence of empowering leadership on engagement. Engagement was shown to partially mediate the influ...