Do empowered employees absorb knowledge? : An empirical investigation of the effects of psychological empowerment dimensions on absorptive capacity

Purpose – The present study aims to contribute to the limited empirical research regarding the individual level antecedents of absorptive capacity (AC). In this vein, the authors examined the impact of employees' psychological empowerment (PE) dimensions on their AC. Moreover, the authors explored the magnitude of the relationship between one of PE four dimensions, namely competence, and AC compared to that of the rest three dimensions of PE. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collected data from 100 private employees working in two manufacturing organizations. In order to investigate the hypotheses, the authors conducted hierarchical regression and usefulness analysis. Findings – As predicted, the present results showed that all four PE dimensions affected employees' AC. Furthermore, competence demonstrated the strongest impact among all PE dimensions. Research limitations/implications – Data were drawn from two manufacturing organizations located in specific geographical area. Thus, this may constrain the generalizability of the results. Also, the cross-sectional analysis of the data cannot directly assess causality. Originality/value – To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study examining the relationship between PE and AC.