Structural Relationships between Psychological Empowerment and Moral Behavior and Competitiveness

Attention to psychological issues has always been emphasized by psychologists and it has been mentioned as a field for predicting behaviors and identifying the causes of behaviors. The importance of psychological issues is so great that today, by examining the psychological dimensions of people, many problems and dilemmas of their lives can be identified and solutions can be applied to manage it. This has led to attention to the psychological dimensions of important and key people more than ever. In the meantime, psychological ability as one of the important characteristics of successful people has always played an important role in people's success. The use of psychological empowerment capabilities in individual domains has led to its use as an internal force to strengthen individual behaviors and attitudes. This issue has led to various studies to improve the psychological empowerment of individuals and extensive efforts to improve the level of psychological empowerment among all groups. One of the important issues that affect the behavioral aspects of people along with psychological empowerment is moral behaviors. Ethical behaviors play an important role in the development and promotion of ethics. Nowadays, ethical behaviors due to their impact on the environment have been identified as an important factor in the development of ethics. Ethical behaviors cause people to have an important understanding of the importance of morality and to do their utmost to develop and spread morality. Using the capabilities of psychological empowerment and ethical behaviors to improve individual performance can improve the productivity of individuals and groups. Understanding the role of psychological empowerment and ethical behaviors in some variables such as competitiveness, while creating scientific evidence in this area can lead to the formation of strategies to improve competitiveness. Due to the destructive nature of some aspects of competitiveness, the use of psychological empowerment capacities and ethical behaviors can play an effective role in the formation of desirable and positive competitiveness. In view of the above, in the present study, the researcher seeks to answer the question: Do psychological competence and moral behavior affect competitiveness?

The present research is a descriptive-survey research and from the purpose perspective, it is one of the applied researches that was conducted in the field. The statistical population of the present study included managers and deputies of municipalities in the north of the country (242 people). Also, to collect data in the present study, three questionnaires of psychological empowerment of Park and SEO (2019), which include 4 questions. In the present study, the reliability of this questionnaire was determined to be 0.81. Loser (2013) questionnaire was used to assess moral behavior. This questionnaire consists of 15 questions. In the present study, the reliability of this questionnaire was determined to be 0.84. Ozdemir and Aslan (2012) questionnaire with 11 questions was used to assess competitiveness. In the present study, the reliability of this questionnaire was determined to be 0.80. Finally, Kalmogorov-Smirnov test was used to investigate the natural distribution of data and structural equations were used using SPSS software version 20 and PLS version 3 software to analyze the data.

The results showed that psychological empowerment has an effect on competitiveness of 0.234. It was also found that ethical behavior has an effect on competitiveness of 0.694 (Table 2). It was also found that the research and model variables have a good fit (criteria higher than 0.7). On the other hand, considering that the desired value of this Q2 index is higher than 0.32, it can be said that the rate of Q2 index in the identified factors is in a favorable position (Table 4). Finally, considering that the desired value of GOF index is higher than 0.36, it was found that the research model has a good fit in all indicators.

The present study found that psychological empowerment improves competitiveness. In other words, improving the level of psychological empowerment increases the level of competitiveness in its positive aspect. Psychological empowerment seems to create positive capacities among people. Psychological empowerment means the release of forces, the inner strength of individuals as well as the provision of opportunities and opportunities for the development of talents, abilities and competencies. This has led to the psychological empowerment of positive capacities to improve the abilities of individuals and thus improve the skills to perform competitively. This issue has caused that in the present study, psychological empowerment due to its capacities and ability to influence the behaviors and attitudes of individuals improves the competitiveness. The present study also found that ethical behavior improves competitiveness. In other words, improving the level of ethical behaviors improves the level of competitiveness of individuals. It seems that moral behaviors by promoting values ​​and ethics cause people's behaviors to be done properly to improve success. In other words, moral behaviors cause people to have a good level of behavior and as a result, have a good performance in order to achieve success. Ethical behaviors will be the initial basis for the formation of a suitable atmosphere in groups and organizations in order to improve performance, and this issue causes ethical behaviors to improve the context for improving competitiveness. This issue has led to the present study to improve the ethical behaviors to improve the competitiveness of individuals.