The Impact of Discretionary Authority on Enhancing Organizational Loyalty from the Employees' Perspective

Abstract

   The research titled "The Impact of Discretionary Authority on Enhancing Organizational Loyalty from the Employees' Perspective" aims to clarify the effects of discretionary authority policies on organizational loyalty among employees in the organization. Accordingly, the researcher formulated the null hypothesis as follows: "There are no statistically significant differences at the 0.05 significance level between discretionary authority and organizational loyalty from the employees' perspective." For this purpose, a sample of (80) employees from the Ministry of Planning, Karbala Statistics Directorate was selected. The researcher identified the descriptive approach as the methodology for the research and chose the questionnaire as the research tool, designing it according to the five-point Likert scale. He relied on SPSS programs to obtain the results using the one-sample t-test. The results showed that the calculated t-value for the loyalty dimensions under study was as follows: emotional (9.913), continuous (14.909), ethical (16.766), all of which are greater than the tabulated t-value of (1.96), indicating the presence of a statistically significant relationship between discretionary authority and organizational loyalty with a positive correlation favoring discretionary authority. The researcher attributes this to the strong functional connection among employees and the reluctance to leave the workplace, as well as the internal feeling of belonging to the institution. Consequently, the researcher suggests that discretionary authority should be mandated according to legislative texts to consider similar or repeated cases in other institutions that were taken in accordance with legal contexts. He also recommends conducting a study addressing the relationship between discretionary authority and its impact on job burnout.