Psychological Safety and Empowerment: Literature Review and Proposed Conceptual Model for Examining the Antecedents and Consequences
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Abstract
This article presents the theoretical concept and conceptual model through literature review for exploration of causal factors and consequences expected to contribute to psychological safety and empowerment. The contents of this article are presented in the form of critical narrative analysis. The results from synthesis of literature review for structuring of a conceptual model indicated that humble leadership was the causal factor affecting employees’ psychological safety and the empowerment. These factors were also found to subsequently affect good adaptive performance in challenging work situations. The key suggestion of this article for modeling of theoretical propositions in psychological capital study is that psychological safety and empowerment factors could play a key role in mediating the relationships between independent variables and dependent variables. Examining of a conceptual model with empirical data, therefore, could be one of research methodologies used to strengthen such theoretical variables obtained from the study. Correspondingly, interview and group discussion could lead to better understanding of in-depth data and various dimensions of structural relationships.
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