Empowerment through self-improvement skills: The role of learning goals and personal growth initiative

Abstract Previous research has mainly investigated the influence of the work context rather than personal factors on psychological empowerment. Building on the framework of self-determination theory, this study examined the mediating role of personal growth initiative (i.e., self-improvement skills) in linking learning goal orientation and developmental job experience to psychological empowerment. A three-wave longitudinal survey of nurses in a Japanese hospital (N = 365) was conducted to test the study hypotheses. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analyses showed that learning goal orientation directly and indirectly enhanced psychological empowerment through personal growth initiative. Developmental job experience had a direct positive influence on psychological empowerment, while there was no significant relationship between developmental job experience and personal growth initiative. This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the mechanism underlying how personal factors affect psychological empowerment after controlling for the effect of job characteristics.