Disentangling the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement: Employee empowerment as a mediator and work experience and gender as moderators

Figures & data

Figure 1. Conceptual model.

Table 1. Confirmatory factor analysis

Constructs and the sources of the measures	Alpha	CR	Standardized Loadings (λyi)	Reliability (λ^2yi)	Variance (Var(εi))	Average Variance- Extracted Estimate Σ (λ^2yi)/ [(λ^2yi) + (Var(εi))]
TL (Carless et al., 2000)	0.89	0.92				0.66
My supervisor communicates a clear and positive vision of the future			0.84	0.71	0.29
My supervisor treats staff as individuals, supports and encourages their development.			0.83	0.68	0.32
My supervisor gives encouragement and recognition to staff.			0.79	0.62	0.38
My supervisor fosters trust, involvement and cooperation among team members.			0.78	0.61	0.39
My supervisor encourages thinking about problems in new ways and questions assumption			0.80	0.64	0.36
My supervisor is clear about his/her values and practices which he/she preaches.			0.83	0.70	0.30
Empowerment (Chiles & Zorn, 1995; Spreitzer et al., 1997)	0.77	0.93				0.76
I feel competent to perform the tasks required for my position.			0.90	0.80	0.20
I feel adequately prepared to perform my job.			0.86	0.73	0.27
My manager trusts me to make the appropriate decisions in my job.			0.85	0.71	0.29
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job.			0.88	0.78	0.22
WE (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004)	0.91	0.93				0.69
At my work, I feel bursting with energy.			0.86	0.74	0.26
At my job, I feel strong and vigorous.			0.82	0.67	0.33
I find the work that I do full of meaning and purpose.			0.89	0.79	0.21
I am proud on the work that I do.			0.86	0.74	0.26
I feel happy when I am working intensely.			0.80	0.64	0.36
Time flies when I’m working,			0.77	0.59	0.41

Table 2. Descriptive statistics: means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations

	Mean	Standard Deviation	1	2	3	4	5
1. Gender	1.32	0.47	1
2. Work experience	3.41	1.17	− 0.29***	1
3. TL	3.71	0.76	0.021	0.19***	1
4. Empowerment	3.81	0.74	−0.043	0.014	0.16***	1
5. WE	4.02	0.63	−0.15*	0.18***	0.51***	0.22***	1

*** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05.

Gender: 1 = Male; 2 = Female.

Work experience: 1= Less than 2 years; 2 = 3–5 years; 3 = 6–10 years; 4 = 11–15 years; 5 = Above 15 years.

Table 3. Testing H1, H2, H3, and H4

	DV= WE				DV = Empowerment H2				DV = WE
	Step 1				Step 2				Step 3
	Coeff	se	t	p	Coeff	se	t	p	Coeff	se	t	p
Constant	2.4694	0.1686	14.6461	0.0000	3.2326	0.2273	14.2186	0.0000	2.0824	0.2234	9.3202	0.0000
TL H1	0.4172	0.0445	9.3782	0.0000	0.1560	0.0600	2.5997	0.0099	0.3985	0.0446	8.9415	0.0000
Empowerment H3									0.1197	0.0460	2.6019	0.0098
R-square	0.257				0.161				0.276
F	87.95				16.75				48.35
df1	1				1				2
df2	254				254				253
p	0.0000				0.0099				0.0000
Total Effect
			Total Effect		se	t	p	LLCI	ULCI
			0.4172		0.0445	9.3782	0.0000	0.3296	0.5048
Direct Effect
			Direct Effect		se	t	p	LLCI	ULCI
TL→ WE			0.3986		0.0446	8.9415	0.0000	0.3108	0.4863
Bootstrapping Indirect Effect (H4) (To verify mediation)
			Indirect Effect		BOOT se	BOOT LLCI	BOOT ULCI
TL →Empowerment→WE			0.0187 [0.1560 × 0.1197 = 0.0187]		0.0112	0.0013	0.0447

Notes: N = 256. Boot LLCI, Boot ULCI = Bootstrapping confidence lower limit confidence interval, upper limit confidence interval. The results were based on 20,000 bootstrapping samples [p < .05].It is recommended to use four decimal digits because some values may be very close to zero.

Table 4. Testing of hypothesis 1a (two-way interaction) Hayes (2018) PROCESS macros (model number 1)

			DV=WE
Variables			Coeff	se		t		p		LLCI		ULCI
Constant			1.4017	0.4938		2.8388		0.0049		0.4293		2.3741
TL			0.6682	0.1345		4.9685		0.0000		0.4033		0.9331
Work experience			0.3415	0.1444		2.3655		0.0188		0.0572		0.6258
TL x Work experience H1a			−0.0802	0.0384		−2.0853		0.0380		−0.1559		−0.0045
R-square			0.278
F			32.17
df1			3
df2			252
p			0.0000
Conditional effects of the focal predictor at values of moderator (Work experience)
Work experience			Effect	se		t		p		LLCI		ULCI
3–5 years			0.5078	0.0671		7.5697		0.0000		0.3757		0.6400
11–15 years			0.3475	0.0524		6.6359		0.0000		0.2444		0.4506
Over 15 years			0.2673	0.0794		3.3684		0.0009		0.1110		0.4236

Figure 2. Work experience as a moderator in the relationship between TL and WE.

Table 5. Testing of hypothesis 2a (two-way interaction) Hayes (2018) PROCESS macros (model number 1)

	DV= Empowerment
Variables	Coeff	se	t	p	LLCI	ULCI
Constant	1.4580	0.6753	2.1592	0.0318	0.1282	2.7879
TL	0.6595	0.1783	3.6998	0.0003	0.3085	1.0106
Gender	1.2812	0.4635	2.7644	0.0061	0.3684	2.1939
TL x Gender H2a	−0.3639	0.1218	−2.9888	0.0031	−0.6037	−0.1241
R-square	0.247
F	54.89
df1	3
df2	252
p	0.001
Conditional effects of focal predictor at value of the moderator (Gender)
Gender	effect	s.e	t	p	Boot LLCI	Boot ULCI
Male	0.2956	0.0752	3.9325	0.0001	0.1476	0.4437
Female	−0.0683	0.0958	−0.7131	0.4764	−0.2569	0.1203

Figure 3. Gender as a moderator between TL and empowerment.

Figure 4. Empirical model.

Table

Indicator	VIF	Indicator	VIF	Indicator	VIF
EM1	1.18	TL1	2.71	WE1	2.81
EM2	1.86	TL2	2.34	WE2	2.47
EM3	1.61	TL3	2.37	WE3	3.52
EM4	2.02	TL4	2.24	WE4	3.18
		TL5	2.12	WE5	2.48
		TL6	2.49	WE6	2.22

Abbreviations: EM = Empowerment; TL = Transformational Leadership; WE = Work Engagement; VIF = Variance Inflation Factor.

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