On the basis of the hierarchical organizational structure, this study investigated how empowering leadership influences hotel employees' proactive work behavior through multiple cross-level mediation processes. This study also investigated whether psychological empowerment, positive psychological capital, job characteristics and job embeddedness can activate the linkage of the aforementioned trickle-down effects.
This study draws data from 826 international tourist hotel employees at different times with hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses.
Multiple cross-level mediation analyses indicate that (1) psychological empowerment mediates the cross-level influences of empowering leadership on job characteristics and positive psychological capital; (2) positive psychological capital mediates the cross-level influences of empowering leadership on job embeddedness and proactive work behavior; and (3) job embeddedness mediates the cross-level influences of psychological empowerment and job characteristics on proactive work behavior.
In the post-pandemic era, the valuable trickle-down effects of empowering leadership could spill over into employees' positive beliefs of psychological empowerment, which ultimately benefit working responsibility and organizational operations.
The results support and suggest that maximizing the benefits of empowering leadership could eventually foster proactivity and performance in the workplace under hospitality and tourism settings.
