TAKING EMPOWERMENT TO THE NEXT LEVEL: A MULTIPLE-LEVEL MODEL OF EMPOWERMENT, PERFORMANCE, AND SATISFACTION.

Abstract

Most research to date has approached employee empowerment as an individual-level phenomenon. In this study we proposed a work-unit-level construct, empowerment climate, and tested a multiple-level model integrating macro and micro approaches to empowerment. Empowerment climate was shown to be empirically distinct from psychological empowerment and positively related to manager ratings of work-unit performance. A cross-level mediation analysis using hierarchical linear modeling showed that psychological empowerment mediated the relationships between empowerment climate and individual performance and job satisfaction. Employee empowerment has become a trend over the last decade, approaching the status of a movement or of a fad, depending on one’s perspective (Abrahamson, 1996; Block, 1987). At its core the concept of empowerment involves increased individual motivation at work through the delegation of authority to the lowest level in an organization where a competent decision can be made (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Thus, the empowerment concept has roots in such substantive issues as intrinsic motivation, job design, participative decision making, social learning theory, and self-management (Liden & Tewksbury, 1995). Empirical support has begun to accumulate regarding the relationship of employee empowerment to important work-related outcomes (Liden,