Role of lifestyle orientation and perceived organizational functioning in psychological empowerment of IT professionals

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of lifestyle orientation and perceived organizational functioning in psychological empowerment perceptions of information technology (IT) professionals. Design/methodology/approach - This study is a cross-sectional survey of 242 IT professionals across ten software product and services companies based in India. Established scales of the research instruments were used for data collection. Findings - Findings indicate that professionals with aggressive, individualistic and resistive lifestyle orientation are likely to feel more psychologically empowered. Organizational functioning is also found to have a strong effect on psychological empowerment perceptions of IT professionals. Research limitations/implications - Use of self-reported measures for all the variables may cause desirability bias on the part of participants. Future studies may explore demographic differences and incorporate empowerment climate as well. Practical implications - Insights from the study would help organizations facilitate employee performance using the empowerment tool and consequently gain competitive advantage by retaining skills and experience within the organization rather than outside it. Originality/value - Studies of such nature being few in the Indian IT context, findings present both opportunities and challenges for IT human resource managers and can also be taken up for future research work.