From Structural Empowerment to Performance: A Sequential Mediation Model of Job-Design Empowerment, Psychological Empowerment, and Managerial Motivation among Bank Managers in a Developing Economy

Purpose: In an era of intense competition and rapid organizational change, perceived empowerment has become a critical lever for improving employee behavior and firm-level outcomes. This study examines how three empowerment approaches—perceived structural empowerment, perceived job design empowerment, and psychological empowerment—shape the task performance, contextual performance, and organizational commitment of middle-level managers in Pakistan's public and private commercial banks. Intrinsic motivation is modeled as a mediator and extrovert personality as a moderator of these relationships. Design/Methodology/Approach: Survey data were collected from 900 managers using convenience sampling, yielding 814 usable responses; data were analyzed with SPSS and AMOS using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings: Results show that perceived structural empowerment and perceived job design empowerment significantly and positively predict task performance, contextual performance, and organizational commitment, and that psychological empowerment partially mediates the effects of both forms of empowerment on these outcomes. Intrinsic motivation further mediates the relationship between psychological empowerment and the performance behaviors, while extrovert personality moderates the psychological empowerment–task performance and psychological empowerment–organizational commitment relationships but not the psychological empowerment–contextual performance relationship. Implications/Originality/Value: The findings offer banks an empowerment-based motivational framework for human resource policy that can strengthen employee performance and organizational commitment simultaneously.