The effects of organizational culture on perceived empowerment, workplace stress, discrimination and engagement of Thai employees in foreign subsidiaries in Thailand

Abstract

The objective of this research is to examine the effect of organizational culture, including autocratic leadership (LD), team participative decision-making (TP), and perceived organizational support (POS) for cultural diversity, on perceived empowerment, workplace stress, and discrimination. The levels of power distance and collectivism at the individual level were found to moderate the effects of organizational culture and employee perception. Furthermore, this study examined the effects of perceived empowerment (EM), workplace stress (WS), and discrimination (DC) on the level of employee engagement. This quantitative research was conducted with 379 Thai employees working for foreign subsidiaries in Thailand. The results showed that LD negatively influenced EM, and power distance alone strengthened this negative relationship. Conversely, TP was found to reduce perceived WS, while POS for cultural diversity minimized DC. Regarding engagement, only EM positively influenced the levels of both job engagement (JE) and organizational engagement (OE); meanwhile, WS and DC negatively affected organizational engagement but did not significantly affect job engagement.