Start-up Culture and Career Commitment among Young Indian Employees: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22207202
Venkatesh R, Dr. M R Jhansi Rani
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Keywords:
Organisational career growth; founder inclusive leadership; organisational purpose authenticity; psychological empowerment; start-up career commitment; young professionals; start-up culture; PLS-SEM
Abstract:
Start-ups increasingly attract young professionals by offering accelerated career development, close interaction with founders, meaningful organisational purpose and opportunities to influence organisational outcomes. This study examines how organisational career growth, founder inclusive leadership and organisational purpose authenticity shape start-up career commitment through the mediating role of psychological empowerment. Grounded in self-determination theory, the study adopted a quantitative, cross-sectional and explanatory design. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 435 young start-up professionals and college students with start-up internship experience in Karnataka, with particular emphasis on Bengaluru Urban. The proposed relationships were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The measurement model demonstrated satisfactory reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity. The structural model explained 62.4% of the variance in psychological empowerment and 68.8% of the variance in start-up career commitment. Founder inclusive leadership emerged as the strongest antecedent of psychological empowerment, followed by organisational career growth and organisational purpose authenticity. Psychological empowerment exerted the strongest direct effect on start-up career commitment. The mediation analysis further established complementary partial mediation in all three relationships, with the strongest indirect effect observed between founder inclusive leadership and start-up career commitment. The findings indicate that young employees remain committed to start-up careers when developmental opportunities, inclusive founder behaviour and authentic organisational purpose generate experiences of meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. The study offers an integrated framework for strengthening long-term career commitment among young employees in start-up organisations.