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Published: Nov 1, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.12525
Issue: Vol. 51 No. 11 (2023)
Keywords:
millennial employees, voice behavior, empowering leadership, intrinsic motivation, autonomous job design, social exchange theory

How empowering leadership promotes millennial employees’ voice behavior

Main Article Content

Wenqiong Xu

School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Yakun Zhang

School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Minghui Yan

School of Sports Science and Physical Education, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Jianbo Zhang

School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Xinru Fan

School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Cite this article:  Xu, W., Zhang, Y., Yan, M., Zhang, J., & Fan, X. (2023). How empowering leadership promotes millennial employees’ voice behavior. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 51(11), e12525.


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Based on social exchange theory, the aim in this paper was to provide theoretical guidance and empirical evidence on how to optimize a motivational voice mechanism for millennial employees. Data from 141 millennial employees in China offer considerable support for our hypothesized moderated mediation model. Results revealed that (a) empowering leadership is positively related to millennial employees’ voice; (b) millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation partly mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and the employees’ voice; (c) autonomous job design moderates the direct relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation; and (d) autonomous job design moderates the indirect relationship between empowering leadership and employee voice behavior via the employees’ intrinsic motivation, such that the relationship is stronger when job design is highly autonomous rather than less autonomous. Our findings not only elucidate the motivating factors and intrinsic mechanisms of millennials’ voice, but also hold the means to motivate millennials in practical contexts.

Article Highlights

  • Empowering leadership promotes millennial employees’ voice behavior.
  • Millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and the employees’ voice behavior.
  • Autonomous job design positively moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation.

Employees’ traditional work content and methods are constantly being innovated as the breakthrough process of internet technology has made organizational structure more flexible and elastic. Millennials are those born between 1980 and 2000, and represent a generation who have grown up in a digital age and possess distinct personality traits and characteristics (Glazer et al., 2019). Cennamo and Gardner (2013) argue that, to some extent, the distinctions between millennials and earlier generations can be attributed to the fact that they grew up in tandem with the development of internet technology, which constitutes their generational backdrop. As the first generation to have grown up with this technology as an integral part of their lives, they are typically comfortable with digital devices, social media, and online communication tools, which has shaped their way of working, socializing, and problem solving. Millennials are highly educated, creative, and imaginative, and bring to their work inexhaustible motivation for corporate innovation activities (D. Liu et al., 2016).

Although existing research has accumulated on generational differences, there is a lack of targeted exploration of predictors of millennial behaviors. Because they came of age during the rapid rise of the internet and the proliferation of digital technology, this has had a profound impact on their approach to communication, information access, and problem solving. Millennials tend to be early adopters of new technologies and are comfortable using them to navigate various aspects of life. Therefore, in comparison to earlier generations, they possess a wider array of information acquisition channels and exhibit greater adaptability in the utilization of various forms of information. Scholars have mostly focused on innovation and work performance (Glazer et al., 2019; Walden et al., 2017), and less on voice behavior, when elaborating on millennial employees’ behaviors. Their unique ideas and keen insight—for example, employee voice—tend to effectively promote innovation (Liang et al., 2019), and millennials have a stronger innovation orientation than earlier generations do, because of the diverse, digital, and global social context of the past two decades, which influences their values, lifestyle, and social interactions. Compared to earlier generations they have more requirements for work freedom and satisfaction, and a more relaxed working atmosphere is more conducive to their stepping up to meet challenges (Glazer et al., 2019).

Given those findings, managers of organizations must shape and sustain a culture that attracts, engages, and successfully interacts with this population (Bogosian & Rousseau, 2017). Among many leadership styles, Gao and Jiang (2019) confirmed that empowering leaders emphasize employee autonomy and personal development, and provide learning opportunities. Alongside this, millennial employees not only value a workplace where there is teamwork and collaboration, continuous learning, flexible work arrangements, feedback and recognition, a climate of diversity (Mencl & Lester, 2014), and workplace fun (Woodward et al., 2015), but also focus on high achievement and promotion (Glazer et al., 2019). Thus, we proposed a hypothesized moderated mediation model to further explore (a) the relationship of empowering leadership and millennial employees’ voice behavior, (b) the internal mechanism underlying the aforementioned relationship, and (c) if there is any moderating effect that leads to variations in the impact of empowering leadership on millennial employees’ voice behavior according to the circumstances.

To address the above important but unexplored aspects of this topic, drawing on social exchange theory, in this study we considered intrinsic motivation and autonomous job design as a mediator and moderator, respectively, to explore how empowering leadership affects millennial employees’ voice behavior.

Theory and Hypotheses

Social Exchange Theory

Homans (1958) first introduced the concepts of social exchange theory, holding that one party will promote and maintain a relationship of reciprocity with another party in anticipation of receiving a reward. Reciprocity rules in social exchange theory determine the relationship quality and interaction patterns between the giver and the beneficiary. In this study we drew on social exchange theory for three reasons: (a) it has been confirmed as an important perspective in explaining the leader–employee relationship in general; (b) it is inseparable from the assessment of expected risk–benefit; and (c) the process of reciprocity is completed through employee voice only if the important prerequisites of having something to say and being willing to say it both occur simultaneously.

Empowering Leadership and Millennial Employees’ Voice

Voice behavior, as conceptualized by Hirschman (1972), refers to individual employees engaging in proactive and constructive behaviors by offering suggestions, opinions, or ideas to improve the current situation within their team, department, or organization. Such behaviors fall under the category of extrarole behaviors with a constructive intent (Maynes & Podsakoff, 2014) and are characterized by their challenging and risky nature (Liang et al., 2012). Currently there is no systematic definition of millennial employee voice behavior. In this study we focused on understanding the characteristics of millennial employee voice behavior and considered it as a positive and constructive behavior that can facilitate innovation and improve the work environment of organizations, despite its inherent challenges and risks. Empowering leadership is a leadership style whereby the leader encourages employees to lead, to manage themselves, and to participate in setting organizational goals (Cheong et al., 2019). Findings of research have shown that the presence of both having something to say and being willing to say it is a critical factor in predicting voice behavior (Morrison, 2014). Only when these two conditions occur simultaneously can social exchange be positively related to voice. Thus, by understanding the characteristics of millennial employees’ voice behavior and how it relates to empowering leadership, managers can create a positive workplace environment in which innovation and constructive feedback are encouraged, ultimately leading to improved organizational outcomes.
 
Gao and Jiang (2019) confirmed that empowering leadership can positively influence employee voice behaviors. With cognitive flexibility and the competence of their creativity (Alif & Nastiti, 2022), millennials are more likely than other employees to analyze their current work in detail and dare to engage in outside-of-the-box type behaviors (Easton & Steyn, 2022). They show more self-development and independent action needs than do employees from other generations (Easton & Steyn, 2022). Thus, under the condition of measures such as encouraging independent action, teamwork, self-development, opportunity thinking, and self-reward that empowering leaders offer (Amundsen & Martinsen, 2015), the needs of millennial employees as described above are fulfilled and they feel obliged to generate voice behavior in return. In summary, this leads to the study’s first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Empowering leadership will be positively related to millennial employees’ voice behavior.

The Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation Between Empowering Leadership and Millennial Employees’ Voice Behavior

It has been shown that fulfillment of the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness is necessary to ensure intrinsic motivation (Fishbach & Woolley, 2022). Firstly, compared to older generations, including baby boomers and generation X, millennial employees place more value on their career development (Easton & Steyn, 2022) and learning opportunities (Paulin, 2018), show a stronger achievement orientation, and have higher expectations (Easton & Steyn, 2022). Empowering leaders offer various training and self-management practices to help employees reach their potential and to meet their needs for competence effectively. Secondly, under the condition of high autonomy that empowering leaders provide for their subordinates (Amundsen & Martinsen, 2015), a stronger sense of self-awareness and greater risk taking are born (Sabir et al., 2019), and in this environment millennial employees can set their own goals and make decisions, satisfying their need for autonomy in the self-leadership process, and thus stimulating intrinsic motivation. Finally, the trust and encouragement of empowering leaders, and the equitable environment meet the high demand of millennials for a climate that is fair and open, and respectful of the diverse needs of employees, where employees have a sense of identity, and there is interpersonal interaction (Mencl & Lester, 2014).
Hypothesis 2a: Empowering leadership will be positively related to millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation.
 
Morrison (2014) confirmed that voice is a motivation-driven workplace behavior. Thus, with strong intrinsic motivation, employees will find greater happiness and their emotional and cognitive attitude toward their work, the organization, and profession will be one of increasing job identification (Cheng et al., 2020), and they will develop high levels of creativity and conceptual thinking to produce excellent work performance and high productivity (Menges et al., 2017). Moreover, millennials are more likely to dare to challenge traditional norms compared to people of other generations (Easton & Steyn, 2022), and the challenge dimension of intrinsic motivation is positive in regard to building new ideas (Vu et al., 2021). Thus, the challenges they meet will exercise their critical thinking ability to generate high quality voice, and the workplace climate of diversity will promote them to dare to voice because they are not concerned that doing so will result in punishment. Therefore, millennials are more prone than those of other generations to choose voice as a form of social exchange that is driven by intrinsic motivation.
Hypothesis 2b: Intrinsic motivation will be positively related to millennial employees' voice behavior.
 
Firstly, stimulated by empowering leadership, millennial employees show the full perception of their competence, autonomy, and relevance to others to gain intrinsic motivation. Under the principle of reciprocity, armed with the capacity to engage in voice behavior, employees treat the process as a gift and reciprocate voluntarily (Y. Liu et al., 2021). Secondly, when employees perceive that speaking up will not result in workplace rejection or bullying (Rai & Agarwal, 2018), they are more likely to generate ideas. Lastly, extrarole behavior is also driven by instrumental motivation (Lu et al., 2019). Employees are likely to regard voice as an important form of investment in the hope of obtaining higher levels of social exchange and long-term benefits. In line with the above discussion, the following hypothesis was proposed:
Hypothesis 2c: Intrinsic motivation will mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ voice behavior.

The Moderating Role of Autonomous Job Design

Based on Foss et al. (2015), we defined autonomous job design as the degree of freedom, independence, and self-determined design that employees have when able to work without constant supervision or direction. Leaders can affect employee motivation and attitudes by adjusting job design (Foss et al., 2015), and researchers have found that having job autonomy facilitated employee satisfaction, creativity, and happiness (Robert & You, 2018; Sekiguchi & Hosomi, 2017), to explore and implement new ideas (Dhar, 2016). Therefore, we hypothesized as follows:
Hypothesis 3: The positive influence of the relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation will be strengthened when the autonomy of job design is increased.

A Moderated Mediation Model

Grounded in H2 and H3, we proposed a moderated mediation model. Specifically, we proposed that the indirect effect of empowering leadership on millennial employees’ voice behavior through the employees’ intrinsic motivation would be moderated by autonomous job design. According to social exchange theory, autonomy in the job design promotes the employee’s perception of opportunities and stimulates the exploitation of new ideas, which ensures the effectiveness of the employee’s voice, triggered by strong intrinsic motivation. In addition, perceived trust and fair climate in the organization play the key role in predicting voice behavior (Fontenot Premeaux & Bedeian, 2003). Thus, when job design is highly autonomous, this ultimately leads to employees engaging in voice behavior after a decline in their own predictable voice risk. Finally, under the condition of autonomous job design employees have a strong sense of self-efficacy and organizational commitment, so that they may engage in voice behavior with a socially oriented motivation, even when postproposal risks are expected.
Hypothesis 4: The indirect positive relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ voice behavior through intrinsic motivation will be strengthened when job design is highly autonomous rather than when autonomy is low.
 

Table/Figure

Figure 1. Theoretical Model

Method

Sample and Procedure

We collected data from millennial employees in the real estate industry. We chose this industry because the proportion of the millennial generation employed in this field in China is gradually increasing. In addition, the Chinese real estate industry is an important component of the market economy, and most real-estate companies utilize performance-based pay to motivate employees, who are evaluated and rewarded based on individual and team sales performance and customer satisfaction, with contract rates and various talent incentive programs offered. Lastly, employees in this industry have a high degree of autonomy in their career, making it highly appealing to the millennial generation.

Before distributing our survey, we communicated with the human resource departments of the companies and introduced our research background to all participants in order to make sure the respondents had a thorough understanding of the survey. The data collection process was completely anonymous. After sorting out invalid survey forms, we obtained 141 samples for our empirical analysis. More than half the respondents (66%) were women. In terms of age, the largest group of employees was aged 26 to 30 years, followed by those aged from 31 to 35, indicating that the respondents were all people in the millennial generation of employees. The specific demographic characteristics are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographic Variables of the Sample

Table/Figure

Measures

All measures used had been validated in previous research. Given that all original items were in English, we followed Brislin’s (1986) translation procedure. Specifically, two translators with English to Chinese proficiency translated the English version into Chinese, the Chinese version of the scale was translated back into English, then the differences between the back-translated English version and the original English version of the scale were compared, and revisions made accordingly. Each measure used a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.
 

Empowering Leadership

To assess empowering leadership, we used the measure developed by Pearce et al. (2003). There are 24 items in six dimensions. A sample item for encourage self-development is “My supervisor is highly concerned about my personal growth and career development planning.” A sample item for encourage opportunity thinking is “My supervisor frequently enquires about the progress of my work.” For encourage independent action a sample item is “My supervisor grants full empowerment, allowing me to take complete responsibility for the tasks I undertake.” An example of an item for participative goal setting is “My supervisor sets goals for me and asks me to make sure they are met.” For encourage teamwork an item is “When faced with problems at work, my supervisor actively listens to my opinions and suggestions.” An item for encourage self-motivation is “When I met with difficulties in my work, my supervisor gave me timely help.” The overall Cronbach’s alpha in our study was .98.
 

Millennial Employees’ Voice Behavior

Millennial employees’ voice behavior was measured with Liang et al.’s (2012) scale (Cronbach’s α = .93 in the current study), and we used the five-item scale of promotive voice to measure the constructive comments of millennial employees. The items include “I will make recommendations for things that may affect the growth of the business.”
 

Intrinsic Motivation

To assess intrinsic motivation, we used Foss et al.’s (2015) four-item measure, which was adapted from Weinstein and Ryan’s (2010) measures (Cronbach’s α = .97 in our study). The items include “I work because I’m interested in the job.”
 

Autonomous Job Design

For autonomous job design, the three-item scale was adapted from Foss et al.’s (2015) measure (Cronbach’s α = .93 in this study). The items include “I can work autonomously as I see fit.”
 

Control Variables

In our empirical analysis, we controlled for gender, age, education level, position, department, and working tenure, because these six variables are widely used demographic and job-related variables in management research.

Results

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis via AMOS (version 23) to assess the discriminant validity of the measurement model. The results are shown in Table 2, which provided support for taking the four constructs as distinctive variables, and the four-factor model was thus retained for hypothesis testing.

Common Method Bias

Since all data were collected from a single source, it was necessary to examine the potential impact of common method bias. As shown in Table 2, compared to the one-factor model, our hypothesized four-factor model showed a better fit, indicating that common method bias is not severe in this research.

Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model Fit Results

Table/Figure

Note. RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; IFI = incremental fit index; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker–Lewis index. a Empowering leadership; Voice behavior; Intrinsic motivation; Autonomous job design. b Empowering leadership; Voice behavior + Intrinsic motivation; Autonomous job design. c Empowering leadership; Voice behavior + Intrinsic motivation + Autonomous job design. d Empowering leadership + Voice behavior + Intrinsic motivation + Autonomous job design.

Hypothesis Testing

Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics, correlations, and reliabilities of all the variables in our study. As expected, empowering leadership is significantly related to autonomous job design, and to millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation and voice behavior. Autonomous job design and millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation are significantly related to the employees’ voice behavior.

Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Reliabilities of Studied Variable

Table/Figure

Note. Gender: 1 = male, 2 = female; Age: 1 = 21–25 years, 2 = 26–30 years, 3 = 31–35 years, 4 = 36–40 years; Education level: 1 = senior high school, 2 = technical secondary school, 3 = junior college, 4 = undergraduate, 5 = master’s degree; Position: 1 = employee, 2 = first-line manager, 3 = middle manager, 4 = senior manager; Department: 1 = Sales department, 2 = Marketing department, 3 = Accounting.

We then conducted an ordinary least squares regression and PROCESS macro (version 3.3; Hayes, 2022) bootstrapping analysis via SPSS (version 26.0) to examine the hypotheses. All control variables (i.e., gender, age, education level, position, department, and working tenure in the organization) were included. The results are presented in Table 4. First, Model 3 showed that empowering leadership is positively related to millennial employees’ voice behavior, which supported Hypothesis 1. Second, using Hayes’s PROCESS macro, we tested a simple mediation model in SPSS. According to Models 1 and 4, empowering leadership is positively related to millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation and voice behavior. Model 4 also showed that millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation is positively related to their voice behavior. Therefore, we concluded that intrinsic motivation partially mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ voice behavior. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was supported. Further, in Hypothesis 3 we predicted a moderation role of autonomous job design. We used PROCESS to test this moderation model. After incorporating autonomous job design into the model, in Model 2, although the relationship of autonomous job design and intrinsic motivation is not significant, the interaction between empowering leadership and autonomous job design is positively related to intrinsic motivation, which indicates that autonomous job design moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation.

Table 4. Ordinary Least Squares Regression

Table/Figure
Note. N = 141; Statistics reported are unstandardized regression coefficients (and standard errors); CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit.
*** p < .001.

To further analyze the moderating effect of autonomous job design, we divided intrinsic motivation of the millennial employees into a high-score group (mean plus one standard deviation) and a low-score group (mean minus one standard deviation), and then followed the procedure outlined by Aiken and West (1991). In Figure 2 the pattern of the moderated results is depicted. By examining the slope of millennial employees’ voice behavior in relation to their intrinsic motivation, we found that this behavior was more frequent under the condition of high autonomy in job design compared to the low condition.

In Table 5 the moderated mediation results of bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples are presented. Specifically, we divided autonomous job design into three levels, high level (mean plus one standard deviation), mid-level (mean), and low level (mean minus one standard deviation). The results showed that empowering leadership had a significant positive moderating effect on millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation. However, the effect was smaller at the low level of job design autonomy than it was at the mid-level, and the effect was greatest at the high level. Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported. The more autonomous the job design was, the stronger the positive influence of empowering leadership on millennial employees’ intrinsic motivation.

Table/Figure

Figure 2. The Moderation Effect of Autonomous Job Design in the Effect of Empowering Leadership on Millennial Employees’ Intrinsic Motivation

Table 5. Moderated Mediation Results of Bootstrapping With 5,000 Resamples

Table/Figure

Note. CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit.

Discussion


Using social exchange theory as a framework, we investigated how empowering leadership promotes millennial employees’ voice behavior. In our participant group of millennial employees we found that empowering leadership was positively related to the employees’ voice behavior, that the employees’ intrinsic motivation mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and their voice behavior, and the indirect positive relationship between empowering leadership and millennial employees’ voice behavior through their intrinsic motivation was strengthened when the level of job design was highly autonomous compared to when the level of autonomy was low.

Similar to the studies on innovation and work performance (Glazer et al., 2019; Walden et al., 2017), our findings provide a broader foundation for further research on the behavioral outcomes of the millennial generation in the workplace. Social exchange theory provides a comprehensive explanation for our findings. When leadership is highly empowering, millennial employees have their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness met, then intrinsic motivation is generated, and they have the capability to engage in voice behavior and are willing to do so. Furthermore, job design that offers employees more room and lower risk, so they have more capability for planning tasks on their own, better fulfills their need for intrinsic motivation and their ability to use voice as a suitable feedback mechanism.

 

Theoretical Contributions

The theoretical implications of this study encompass three main aspects. Firstly, our findings provide further support for the increasing research focus on millennial employees rather than all employees. Because of the significant differences of millennials compared to other employees, it is necessary to conduct research on the behaviors of millennial employees and the mechanisms underlying these behaviors. In this study we have achieved a good test of behavior using a sample composed exclusively of millennials, and our research is a useful attempt to explore the intrinsic mechanisms of these behaviors in the Chinese context.

Secondly, the innovative moderated mediation research framework we tested further clarifies the necessity and achievability of study on millennial employees’ voice behavior. As there are certain risk characteristics in employee voice behavior compared to other job performance measures, research on millennials’ voice behavior is particularly relevant considering their strong autonomy and the trait of high-challenge orientation compared to earlier generations.

Finally, in this study we examined the primary driver and specific underlying mechanisms of the millennial employees’ voice. Drawing on social exchange theory, we have clarified how empowering leadership effectively promotes millennial employees’ voice through intrinsic motivation and explored how autonomy in job design moderates this process. This research not only fills the gap in understanding the impact of leadership style on voice behavior among the millennial generation but also extends the application of this theory to new contexts.

Practical Contribution

Firstly, considering the increasing proportion of millennials in the workforce population, managers of organizations should strive to select for managerial positions those individuals with a high potential for empowering their subordinates, or should enhance the empowerment capabilities of existing managers through training to facilitate voice among millennial employees.

Secondly, in order to clarify the mechanisms underlying intrinsic motivation of millennial employees, leaders should first understand the specific needs of these employees in terms of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. By doing so, leaders can select the most appropriate forms of empowerment and ensure that employees provide a greater number of valuable ideas.

Finally, to further stimulate millennial employee voice, leaders should increase employees’ control over their own work, allowing them to decide when and how to execute specific tasks based on their own circumstances.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

Firstly, although homogeneity bias was minimized in the development of the survey items, it was hard to avoid some limitations because of the cross-sectional data. Thus, to ensure accuracy the data could be collected at different time points in subsequent studies.

Secondly, using well-established scales that were developed in the context of Western culture may have the weakness of lacking consideration of cultural differences. Chinese millennial employees’ may have attitudes toward authority, collectivism, and individualism that are different from those of their Western counterparts. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct an open-ended exploration and develop a scale for use with millennial employees that is based on the Chinese cultural context to measure the target variables more accurately.

Finally, the focus of most of the research on employees’ voice has been on promotive voice, with less attention paid to prohibitive voice. Therefore, in future research the prohibitive voice of millennial employees could be examined, as well as comparing and contrasting the promotive and prohibitive voice of this generation of employees.

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Table/Figure

Figure 1. Theoretical Model


Table 1. Demographic Variables of the Sample

Table/Figure

Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model Fit Results

Table/Figure

Note. RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; IFI = incremental fit index; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker–Lewis index. a Empowering leadership; Voice behavior; Intrinsic motivation; Autonomous job design. b Empowering leadership; Voice behavior + Intrinsic motivation; Autonomous job design. c Empowering leadership; Voice behavior + Intrinsic motivation + Autonomous job design. d Empowering leadership + Voice behavior + Intrinsic motivation + Autonomous job design.


Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Reliabilities of Studied Variable

Table/Figure

Note. Gender: 1 = male, 2 = female; Age: 1 = 21–25 years, 2 = 26–30 years, 3 = 31–35 years, 4 = 36–40 years; Education level: 1 = senior high school, 2 = technical secondary school, 3 = junior college, 4 = undergraduate, 5 = master’s degree; Position: 1 = employee, 2 = first-line manager, 3 = middle manager, 4 = senior manager; Department: 1 = Sales department, 2 = Marketing department, 3 = Accounting.


Table 4. Ordinary Least Squares Regression

Table/Figure
Note. N = 141; Statistics reported are unstandardized regression coefficients (and standard errors); CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit.
*** p < .001.

Table/Figure

Figure 2. The Moderation Effect of Autonomous Job Design in the Effect of Empowering Leadership on Millennial Employees’ Intrinsic Motivation


Table 5. Moderated Mediation Results of Bootstrapping With 5,000 Resamples

Table/Figure

Note. CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit.


The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Jianbo Zhang, School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, 555 Liutai Street, Wenjiang, Chengdu, Sichuan 611130, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]

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