Linking Job Characteristics and Mental Health among Middle Level Indian Managers: Testing the Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

The present study examined the relationship between job characteristics and mental health by testing the mediating role of psychological empowerment. Data were obtained on a sample of middle level Indian managers (n=290) from two manufacturing organizations of North India. Results of the hierarchical regression analyses revealed that all the core job characteristics significantly positively predicted psychological empowerment and mental health after controlling for the effects of demographic variables. The results also showed that psychological empowerment significantly positively predicted mental health over and above the demographic variables. The mediated regression analyses procedure developed by Baron and Kenny (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51:1173–1182, 1986) was used to test the mediating effect of psychological empowerment. Results of mediated regression analyses indicated that psychological empowerment significantly mediated the relationship between overall job characteristics and mental health. Further it partially mediated the relationship between core job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance, feedback from work) and mental health. In addition the Sobel test for mediation confirmed the statistical significance of the mediated relationships. The implications of the findings are discussed in order to confirm the importance of core job characteristics to empower employees.