Mediating role of work force performance and organizational trust in the effect of empowerment on process innovation: A research in local governments

The efficiency and quality level of the services provided by local governments to the citizens can be increased with a sustainable improvement. As a strategic method to achieve this, process innovation offers many important advantages. The customer satisfaction of local governments, which will increase the service quality by renewing their internal processes, will also increase. This is related to the effective and efficient use of human resources. Employee empowerment, organizational trust and workforce performance, which are effective in the management of human resources, can be considered as important concepts that explain process innovation. Therefore, in this study, it was aimed to determine the mediating role of organizational trust and workforce performance in the effect of employee empowerment on process innovation. In order to achieve this aim, data were collected from 248 employees of three central district municipalities in Erzurum Province by survey method. According to the results of the regression analysis made on the answers to the questionnaires; employee empowerment, organizational trust and workforce performance directly and significantly affected process innovation. In addition, employee empowerment directly and significantly affected organizational trust and workforce performance. Finally, while employee empowerment affected process innovation, both organizational trust and workforce performance played a mediator role.