Impact of the Psychological Empowerment on the Employee Creativity

22 5. Discussion 5.1 Impact of the Structural Empowerment on the Employee Creativity Based on the result of the examination of hypothesis, it can be evidenced that the structural empowerment positively and significantly contributes to creativity, meaning that the better the structural empowerment which is felt by the key human resources of the manufacturing UMKM, the more creative they will be. This indicates that the key human resources in the manufacturing UMKM in Gianyar Regency has been well empowered, as can be identified from the support given by the companies by appreciating the innovative ideas given and attempts made by the key employees in their jobs. In addition, opportunities are given to them to improve their skills through internal trainings and the access to information. In addition, the support given to the employees to develop their innovative ideas for their jobs has also improved their creativities in creating new products, repairing the existing products, or making new combinations as their responsibilities. The empowerment which is felt by the employees can make them more motivated as the creative concepts proposed to the companies for which they work are appreciated. The companies also appreciate the concepts proposed by their employees as they are meaningful to the achievement of the companies’ objectives. The result of the study is supported by the result of the study conducted by Ayupp and Chung 2010 in which they affirmed that the effective empowerment program pays attention to important factors such as various types of information, the implementation of the participatory working environment and the performance-based appreciation. The atmosphere in which the structural empowerment is implemented in a company can develop the skills and creativities of its employees. Isaksen and Lauer 2002 in Wawan Dhewanto et al., 2014, stated that the main factors such as confidence, team motivation, and participation in making decisions contribute to creativity.

5.2 Impact of the Psychological Empowerment on the Employee Creativity

The result of the hypothesis examination proved that the psychological empowerment positively but insignificantly contributes to creativity, meaning that the better the psychological empowerment which is felt by the employees, the better their creativities will be. However, such an empowerment does not give any real contribution. The result of the study proves that the psychological empowerment which is felt by the key employees in the manufacturing UMKM in Gianyar Regency can be classified as good. In 23 this present study, there are four cognitions which reflect the psychological empowerment; they are meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. Among the four aspects, the aspect of meaning turns out to be the strongest indicator which shows such an empowerment, meaning that there is an opinion that the jobs done by the employees are important and highly meaningful to themselves. This is completed with competence, that is, being confident about the ability and skill which someone has to be able to do hisher job perfectly. Such a condition of empowerment positively contributes to the employee creativity. In this case, creativity mainly refers to the good motivation which someone has as the company for which heshe works highly appreciates the creative concepts heshe proposes. In addition, the company also appreciates the concepts given by its employees which can make the achievement of the company’s objective more valuable. Creativity is also related to the personal human resources who creatively make new combinations in their jobs, making the products produced more valuable to the company. Apart from that creativity is also related to the improved ways of doing someone’s job as hisher responsibility, making the products produced more valuable to the company. In this case, the result of the present study does not support the result of the study conducted by Sun et al. 2012 as far as the contribution of the psychological empowerment to creativity is concerned. In this present study, it turns out that the psychological empowerment significantly contributes to the creativity of subordinators. It is affirmed that one employee who feels that hisher job is meaningful and valuable to the objective of hisher life, strengthened by the competence heshe has, will become more creative in hisher job.

5.3 Impact of the Asta Brata Leadership on the employee creativity