Employee empowerment practices in the public sector. The impact on employee satisfaction.

As a growing body of evidence suggests that employee empowerment can be used to improve job satisfaction this paper examines the influence of empowerment on job satisfaction in public sector organizations in Cyprus. Several previous studies have shown that there is a positive impact of empowerment on job satisfaction. However, such research has never been conducted in public sector organizations in Cyprus.
A 28-item questionnaire, measuring empowerment and job satisfaction, was distributed to 66 employees in the Ministry of Interior organizations. Correlation analysis determined the statistical relation of empowerment with job satisfaction and regression analysis determined the impact of empowerment on job satisfaction.
The results revealed that empowerment has a positive and significant impact on job satisfaction. Of the four empowerment practices under investigation, three (information, knowledge, power) have a positive impact on job satisfaction while the practice of offering rewards has no impact on job satisfaction.
The study concludes with the presentation of a new model of six new employee empowerment practices that emerged through the statistical analysis.