The Relationship between Leader-Member Exchange and Organizational Commitment with Psychological Empowerment as a Mediator in the Public Organization

The purpose of the study aims at investigating the relationship between LMX and OC with overall PE as a mediator using a sample of 227 public employees from public organizations in Kyungnam Province of Korea. The study also examined LMX as antecedents to PE, and PE(meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) as antecedents to OC. The measures were proven to have reliability through the results based on previous researches arguing that the result is highly reliable if the Cronbach α value is between .68 and .90. The empirical results show that LMX is positively related to OC while PE also produces some significant accentuation effects on the relationship between LMX and OC. An important implication of this study's findings is, consequently, that LMX should be positively enhanced for the purpose of increasing the level of OC through using the mediating role of PE. Furthermore, the study, proved by reviewing the role of PE on OC, that the process of psychologically mutual exchange between leader and followers may incite public employees to be affected, then which, in return, leads followers into emotional dependence and commitment towards organizations.