Linking organizational trust with employee engagement: The role of psychological empowerment

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational trust, psychological empowerment, and employee engagement. In addition, the study seeks to test the moderating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between trust and engagement. Design/methodology/approach: Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out on a sample of 715 employees from seven commercial banks and four pharmaceutical companies in south-eastern Nigeria who participated in the survey. Findings: The results showed that organizational trust and psychological empowerment were predictors of work engagement. There was a moderating effect of empowerment on the relationship between trust and engagement. Research limitations/implications: The findings show that organizational trust and psychological empowerment that predict positive job behaviour in Western cultures are also critical in understanding Nigerian workers' positive organizational behaviour such as work engagement. Practical implications: For practical purposes, the results suggest that organizational trust may be a significant component of organizational interventions. Given that psychological empowerment is strongly related to work engagement, empowerment intervention programs is therefore important in building employees that would be engaged in their work. Originality/value: This study was one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the direct relationship among organizational trust, psychological empowerment and employee work engagement. Additionally, most previous studies on engagement have been conducted in developed economies of North America and Europe. This study was carried out in a Nigerian business environment where organizational behaviours have been scarcely investigated and comparing these findings with earlier studies may help further clarify the emerging work engagement concept. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.