Organizational Centralization and Employee Performance in SMEs: The Mediating Role of Perceived Autonomy : A Quantitative Study of Organizational Structure and Motivation in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Sammanfattning

Organizational structure is an important element that determines not only the experience of employees in organizations but also the performance of the task. The first one includes organizational centralization, and it might affect employees' perceptions of autonomy and, hence, their performance in work. According to previous studies, autonomy is an important issue for motivating employees and encouraging them in their activities, especially with respect to Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Nevertheless, the problem has rarely been analyzed in the context of SMEs. In order to achieve this aim, it is planned to study the effect of organizational centralization on the performance of employees in SMEs as well as the mediating role of autonomy. For this study, a quantitative approach has been used. For data collection purposes, an online survey was carried out on employees working for SMEs. This led to 51 respondents participating in this study. Analysis of data was done through SPSS and involved descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation, regression analysis, and mediation analysis using Hayes PROCESS Model 4. It has been found that organizational centralization is not significantly correlated with employee performance. On the other hand, organizational centralization has a negative influence on the perception of autonomy. Also, autonomous perception has been found to positively correlate with employee performance. More importantly, this study finds that autonomous perception completely mediates the link between organizational centralization and employee performance.