“Linking resonant leadership, psychological ownership, and organizational commitment: The mediating role of employee empowerment”

ARTICLE INFO Mahfuz Judeh, Jassim Al-Ghasawneh, Hasan Al-Zu’bi and Abdul Hafaz Ngah (2022). Linking resonant leadership, psychological ownership, and organizational commitment: The mediating role of employee empowerment. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 20(1), 153-163. doi:10.21511/ppm.20(1).2022.14 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.20(1).2022.14 RELEASED ON Wednesday, 02 February 2022 RECEIVED ON Thursday, 02 December 2021 ACCEPTED ON Wednesday, 19 January 2022


INTRODUCTION
Leaders can be considered the main key factor in making organizations successful and articulating the shared vision and mission to all followers. When leaders are equipped with emotional intelligence, the relationship between leaders and followers can drive any organization to produce better results (Ramos-Villarreal & Holland, 2011). Resonant leaders, through utilizing their emotional intelligence, build an environment that motivates employee commitment to their organizations (Squires et al., 2010). Similarly, Wagner et al. (2013) demonstrated that there was a significant association between resonant leadership and commitment.
In general, psychological ownership and organizational commitment may depend on the treatment that employees get from their leaders. Organizations can have better performance through their committed employees who feel proud to be working with organizations. On the contrary, employees with low commitment tend to be associated with negative organizational outcomes. Furthermore, psychological own-ership may be affected by the leadership style and the employee empowerment level as well. Employee empowerment can be referred to as the delegation of power process by a manager to subordinates. Empowerment is attached to training subordinates, sharing information with them, and giving them the confidence to make decisions. The results of Hanaysha (2016) proved that empowerment has a significant effect on employee productivity.
The concept of employee empowerment has been an area of interest for scholars in the last three decades because it can be considered as a key factor in affecting subordinates' positive attitudes and behaviors in organizations. Mubarak et al. (2018) proved that there was a significant relationship between the authentic style of leadership, engagement, and empowerment.
Moreover, it was suggested that highly empowered individuals had a deeper feeling of psychological ownership and were more committed to the organization. This paper seeks to establish whether psychological ownership or organizational commitment is directly related to empowerment and indirectly related to resonant leadership. Most studies on resonant leadership have been done in the Western context. Therefore, there is a need to conduct studies on the precedents and effects of resonant leadership in the Jordanian context. The resonance between teams may be considered as the synchronization of concepts and passions among team members in the workplace (Laschinger et al., 2014), especially during the processes or stages of restructuring and organizational change.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
A resonant leader should be harmonic with her/ his subordinates, which results in the matching of their emotions and their way of thinking. In general, they can read others' minds and perceive their emotions, individuals, and teams, and accordingly, resonant leaders can build good relations with their subordinates and give hope for the future. Bawafaa (2014) proposed that resonant leaders can build empowering climates that improve job satisfaction.
Briefly, it can be stated that a leader who uses her/ his emotional skills to reflect on followers' emotions is considered a resonant leader. The resonant leaders can drive connections between them and enhance a synergistic environment in which followers are optimistic about the future and motivated to achieve common goals. In general, an effective leadership style can contribute to a higher degree of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, which, in turn, can lead to organizational success.

Employee empowerment
Reviewing the literature on empowerment, two perspectives are used when defining empowerment. A psychological perspective focuses on the employee's psychological state that is associated with intrinsic motivation and based upon employee perception that she/he has the authority to perform a job. A structural perspective indicates applying the organizational policies regarding delegating authority and providing autonomy at work.
From the psychological perspective, empowerment expresses the psychological state of subordinates. Empowerment is a psychological state concerning subordinates' perceptions (Forrester, 2000); subordinates should feel empowered when decisions are delegated to them, if not, they are not aware that they have been powered to take decisions.
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) stated that empowerment is referred to as increased task motivation categorized in four types: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. Meaningful actions entail all actions perceived by followers as contributing to the organizational goals and objectives. Empowering leaders have a significant effect on the followers' competence since they provide the followers with learning that will enhance their competence. Moreover, empowering leaders can have a significant effect also on self-determination and impact. Higher degrees of empowerment may result in followers' understanding of extended decision effect; therefore, improving the experience of self-determination.
Employee empowerment is a management exercise through which a manager delegates some of her/his authority to employees, supports them, equips them with knowledge and resources required, and allows them to make independent decisions regarding their delegated authority.
In general, empowerment is changing over time. In other words, the level of empowerment may vary due to the work environment. The review of the literature supports the claim that structural empowerment has an impact on the psychological empowerment of subordinates (Laschinger et al., 2001;Ahadi & Turiman, 2014 ). The current study will investigate the structural perspective.
Employees need to have the feeling that they are accountable for their decisions. The level of empowerment varies depending on organizational culture, qualifications of subordinates, confidence in subordinates, and manager's wish to delegate authority. Empowerment assists subordinates realize the importance of their contribution to overall organizational goals. It also can be considered as a motivation tool because the empowering leader expresses her/his confidence in the subordinate's competence and give her/him a chance to have autonomy in work.
Empowered subordinates have been shown to improve efficiency and decrease costs; it also positively affects job satisfaction, job involvement, loyalty, performance, and better delivery (Nielsen & Host, 2000). Employee empowerment can increase the level of loyalty to an organization and build a sense of belonging, which leads to better organizational performance. Taking a sample of 564 individuals, García-Juan et al. (2019) proved that employee empowerment was associated with organizational performance.
Peng (2013) suggested that psychological ownership theory can interpret organizational commitment among members in any organization. Depending on the psychological ownership concept, employees' attitudes and behaviors in the workplace can be predicted and interpreted.

Psychological ownership
The According to Pierce et al. (2001Pierce et al. ( , 2003, the motivational variables regarding psychological ownership include efficacy and effectance, self-identity, and having a sense of belonging. Efficacy and effectance in this connection are concerned with motivating employees through their needs to assess the surroundings, find rational solutions to problems with the perseverance to achieve the planned goals and accomplishments. When employees achieve the organizational goals, they are expected to feel a higher state of psychological ownership. Notwithstanding that an employee does not achieve some of the organizational goals; the cognitive-affective feel of psychological ownership is expected to exist. Furthermore, the state of psychological ownership can be also a motivational factor, because individuals are inclined to express their self-identity in front of other people in a way to identify themselves. Moreover, the sense of belonging focuses on the emotional needs of individuals to have the acceptance and support from other members of a certain group. When they feel an organization is theirs, it becomes a part of their self-definition and identity. A sense of belonging may motivate employees to more positive organizational behaviors, which, in turn, can affect performance. Hence, psychological ownership can be described by employees who feel more effectual about achieving the organizational target, feel more accountable for achieving the target, and feel more loyalty and personal identification in this concern (Avey et al., 2012).

Organizational commitment
Organizational commitment can be described as a state of a member in an organization where she/ he displays feelings of loyalty to the job to meet the target. A committed member of the organization is expected to continue working with the same organization, protect its property, and contribute to the organizational goals (Meyer & Allen, 1997). Furthermore, employees' commitment can be expressed as a type of obligation and attachment to the organization. A high degree of commitment in the workplace may reduce the rate of absenteeism, lower the turnover rate, and improve performance (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). Through understanding the role of commitment in the success of organizations, managers may direct all processes and activities more efficiently.
To enhance employee commitment, management should ensure that the physical and psychosocial work environment for the employees is adequate and effective. The provision of adverse working conditions can negatively influence employee commitment and job stability (Weiss, 1999;Danish et al., 2013). Accordingly, a good environment in the workplace can create a positive influence on members of the organization, boost levels of employee commitment, and enhance their job satisfaction. Finally, highly committed employees have positive attitudes towards their work, which is, in turn, reflected in their organizational behaviors and organizational performance.
Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) described three components of commitment in this regard: affective, normative, and continuance.
Affective commitment indicates the commitment that is pertaining to the emotional attachment, attachment to, and getting involved in the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997). An employee who shows a high degree of affective commitment tends to feel attached to and is expected to be pleased to be a member of the organization.
Normative commitment is based upon society's belief of obligation; therefore, an employee with a high level of normative commitment shows definite behavior developed on what she/he believes is right.
Continuance commitment can be described as the willingness of employees to continue working with the organization; this may be explained by the costs experienced when leaving the organization she/he works with. An employee with a high degree of continuance commitment shows a willingness to continue working with the organization.
Throughout the years, three accesses were adopted to discuss organizational commitment issues: commitment-related attitudes, commitment-related behaviors, and commitment-related effects. The commitment-related attitude focuses on the affective attachment to the organizational goals and to the organization she/he works with, while the commitment-related behaviors focus on the employee behavior which is attached to the strong motives and efforts excreted by the employee in work. Moreover, the commitment-related effects are associated with the positive effects of commitment on the results of the organization.
There is a certain influence of organizational commitment in the change management context in organizations. Darwish (2000) proved that organizational commitment might be an essential predictor for employees' low resistance or even nonresistance change management. In this connection, Iverson (1996) proposed that commitment was a very essential predictor of organizational change. Along with the theoretical literature, the present paper aims to assess the association of resonant leadership, empowerment, psychological ownership, and organizational commitment. Hence, the following hypotheses are shown in Figure 1.
H1: Employee empowerment is directly related to resonant leadership.
H2: Psychological ownership is directly related to employee empowerment.
H3: Organizational commitment is directly related to employee empowerment.
H4: Employee empowerment plays a mediation role between resonant leadership and psychological ownership.
H5: Employee empowerment plays a mediation role between resonant leadership and organizational commitment.

Sample and data collection
Participants in the study were employees selected from healthcare corporations listed in Amman Stock Exchange (2019) in Jordan. Questionnaires with a note to assure complete confidentiality were distributed to 400 employees and only 232 questionnaires were returned duly completed. The mean age of the sample chosen was 32.6, 51.7% of them were male, and 53.9% were married. Statements of the questionnaire were anchored on a seven-point Likert scale as choices of answers.

Measures
Employees filled out the questionnaires which included four variables. For resonant leadership, six items were adapted from Ferreira (2020) and Cummings et al. (2010). Employee empowerment was measured using six items of the instrument developed by Spreitzer (1995). Psychological ownership was rated by respondents using eight items from Avey et al. (2009). Organizational commitment was measured by the respondents using six items from Meyer and Allen (1997). Three demographic characteristics were assessed: gender, age, and tenure. Gender was assessed as a dichotomous variable, while age and tenure through responding in values and classifying in categories. Table 1 showed that 40.9 percent of the total 232 participants were male. The age average for the whole sample was about 31.8. Moreover, 45.3 percent of the participants had less than an 11-year tenure of service.

Demographic characteristics
Results from independent sample t-test and oneway ANOVA indicated that there were no relationships between each of the three demographic variables neither with psychological ownership nor with organizational commitment. In this case, it would be better to exclude demographic factors from analysis to avoid misinterpreting study results and conclusions.   Alpha reliabilities ranged between 0.85 and 0.95, which can be considered acceptable. All correlations are significant and proposed for further analysis.

RESULTS
Exploratory factor analysis resulted in four factors accumulating (67.589) percent of the whole variance. All item loadings as per the EFA ranged between 0.658 and 0.893 were acceptable as the level of factor loadings exceeded (0.40). However, when comparing the unstandardized direct relationship between resonant leadership and psychological ownership (β = 0.32; p < .01) with the unstandardized indirect relationship between the two variables (β = 0.08; p < .01) it was found that β coefficient decreased, suggesting mediation, and partially supporting H4. Furthermore, when comparing the unstandardized direct relationship between resonant leadership and organizational commitment (β = 0.27; p < .01) with the unstandardized indirect relationship between the two variables (β = 0.14; p < .01) it was noticed that β coefficient dropped down, suggesting mediation, and partially supporting H5. Although there was preliminary evidence that Model 2 was a good fit for data, it was probable that other paths could design a better model. An alternative model (Model 3) as shown in Figure 4 was presented by inserting psychological ownership as a mediator and empowerment as an independent variable to test if it can fit the data better.
The data fit of the alternative model (Model 3) was lower (CMIN/DF = 58.684; CFI = .748; TLI = .514; RMSEA = .500) than of M-2. Therefore, M-3 was rejected and M-2 was adopted in the current study. Based on the best fit of data in Model 2 ( Figure 3) and according to the output of the model, all direct paths supported H1, H2, and H3. Employee empowerment was directly related to resonant leadership (β = 0.34; p < .01). Psychological ownership was directly related to employee empowerment (β = 0.31; p < .01), and organizational commitment was also directly related with engagement (β = 0.45; p < .01).

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Psychological ownership and organizational commitment may depend on the treatment that employees get from their leaders. Organizations can have better performance by employing the help of dedicated employees who are glad to be associated with their organization. Therefore, the current study has hypothesized that employee empowerment is directly related to resonant leadership (H1), ownership is directly related to employee empowerment (H2), and commitment is directly related to employee empowerment (H3). Empowering employees presents the mediation role between resonant leadership and ownership (H4). Employee empowerment serves also as a mediator between resonant leadership and organizational commitment (H5). Based on the structural equation modeling outputs, the study found that all direct paths support H1, H2, and H3.
The positive relationship results between resonant leadership and empowerment were similar to the results of Bawafaa et al. (2015). Employees can get better access to information and knowledge required to do their tasks if their supervisors exhibit resonant leadership behaviors. Furthermore, leaders who exhibit emotional intelligence seem to be consistent with the emotions of others, utilize compassion, and efficiently express feelings to create better, trusting relationships, and foster an environment of enthusiasm that incites employees to effectively complete their tasks. The result concerning the positive relationship between employee empowerment and psychological ownership agreed with Lu et al. (2017). When employees establish possessive feelings towards their organizations, this feeling motivates them through their needs to assess the surroundings, find rational solutions to problems with the perseverance to achieve the planned goals and accomplishments. Likewise, when employees achieve the organizational goals, they are expected to feel a higher state of psychological ownership and this makes them more committed to their organizations because of this ownership feeling. Employee empowerment and organizational commitment have a positive relationship, according to AlKahtani et al. (2021), which explains that em- Furthermore, the results of the current study found that employee empowerment significantly mediated the relationship between resonant leadership and the feeling of ownership. Resonant leaders are mature enough to know how to affect employees and use emotional intelligence to help and support their employees; this provides employees with a certain degree of confidence in themselves and in their leaders, which, in turn, lead to boost the psychological ownership inside them.
Finally, results found that employee empowerment mediated the relationship. Resonant leaders understand that utilizing emotional intelligence with employees can influence them and, in turn, lead to making them more committed to the job and the organizational goals.
Based on the above discussion, the current study theoretically contributes to the existing knowledge regarding the influence that resonant lead-ership has on employee empowerment and the influence that employee empowerment has on psychological ownership. Research findings enlighten the situation of organizational behavior in the Jordanian environment, especially the role of employee empowerment as mediation between resonant leadership and psychological ownership and between resonant leadership and organizational commitment.
As for the practical aspect, the current paper is expected to assist leaders and health institutions management to focus on following resonant leadership that influences both psychological ownership and commitment. Additionally, findings can make policymakers aware of the study findings that employee empowerment mediates the relationship between resonant leadership and psychological ownership and organizational commitment. Practical advantages are gained by organizations whose leaders follow a leadership style based on emotional intelligence to enhance good organizational behaviors, such as employee empowerment, psychological ownership, and commitment.

CONCLUSION
The current study aimed to describe the emotional intelligence and caring climate of practicing resonant leadership and its effect on different behavioral outcomes, such as employee engagement, psychological ownership, and organizational commitment. This study demonstrated that psychological ownership and organizational commitment positively correlated with resonant leadership. Moreover, the study proved that employee empowerment played a significant mediating role in these correlations.
Findings implied that employees are expected to be more committed to their organizations in the climate of resonant leadership when having adequate empowerment. Similarly, employees can have better feelings of psychological ownership in the climate of resonant leadership when they are adequately empowered. Therefore, it is important to encourage resonant leadership and increase the level of empowerment in healthcare organizations because this can lead to better organizational behavior. The study emphasizes the need for healthcare institutions in the context of Jordan in particular and the developing countries in general to adopt the necessary strategies to enhance the psychological ownership feeling and improve the sense of belonging to the organization.