Employee Empowerment in the Workplace: The Power of Contextual Factors and Psychological Empowerment

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Employee Empowerment in the Workplace:

The Power of Contextual Factors and Psychological

Empowerment

Master thesis, MSc Human Resource Management

Faculty of Economics and Business

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Abstract

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Today’s business has been pushed to its limits. Managers are constantly looking for tools (Dess & Picken, 2000) to fight the increasing competition, the dynamic environment, economic difficulties and pressures from the external environment (Lasserre, 2003). Starting from the early 1980s, empowerment began to be practiced widely in the business domain (Sagie & Koslowsky, 2000), replacing gradually such concepts such as employee involvement and total quality management (Buelens et al., 2006) and promising higher organizational efficiency and performance. A recent empirical study of Mohrman and Benson in Spreitzer and Doneson article (2005) demonstrated a large growth of empowerment practices in the last decades where more than 70 percent of organizations adopted some kind of empowerment initiatives.

Although empowerment is a powerful tool and many organizations can harvest the benefits as mentioned above, not every empowerment program has proven to be a success. Many managers underestimate the time and resources such programs may need. According to Careless (2004) empowerment appears to be related to the context in which it occurs. Many empowerment programs are ineffective or even failed (Siegall and Gardner, 2000; Hardy & Leiba-O’Sullivan, 1998) because they neglected contextual factors (Careless, 2004) and/or employees’ personality traits (Spreitzer, 1995). Therefore, the central question of this thesis is to address these shortcomings and concentrate on processes that lead to empowerment in the workplace. In order to reach that goal, we review the theoretical and empirical literature on empowerment in the workplace and shed light on personality traits and leadership factors, which may help or are needed before any empowerment program could be successfully implemented.

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We have found two different streams of research on empowerment. The business literature, or the social-structural approach, focuses especially on the practices, interventions and the positive outcomes of empowerment. This stream of research has shown that the interventions of empowerment can improve organizational performance, efficiency (Spreitzer, Kizilos & Nason, 1997) and flexibility in turbulent environments (Hennestad, 1998). Empowerment also promises a medicine against work dissatisfaction (Spreitzer et al., 1997, Logan & Ganster, 2007), poor work quality, and high turnover (Buelens et al., 2006) and perhaps most importantly, empowerment is viewed critical in the process of reducing resistance to organizational change (Styhre, 2004). Rather than forcing people to change, empowerment provides an attractive way to motivate individuals to change, as they will have their own interests and ambitions in the change process (Spreitzer & Doneson, 2005). Empowerment has also been presented as a key foundation of self-managed teams, participative management (Abraham & Koslowsky, 2000) and other attempts to extend quality concepts into organizations (Prussia, Anderson & Manz, 1998).

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Chapter 2: Methodology

In order to answer our questions, we conducted a literature review. We searched the JSTOR, and EBSCOhost databases and the major psychological and managerial journals such as the Journal of Management, Academy of Management Journal, The International Journal of Human Resource Management and Journal of Organisational behaviour in order to look for theoretical and empirical articles on employee empowerment. Empowerment, psychological empowerment, structural empowerment, delegation, self-efficacy, leadership and the names of the main empowerment theorists were used as key words in the electronic databases and electronic journals. Conger and Kanungo (1988) and Thomas and Velthouse (1990) were the most cited (around 100 times) theorists in all the academic papers which dealt with empowerment in the workplace and/or psychological empowerment. Almost every paper that was written on the topic of empowerment included their theories as the foundations, and therefore their theories will be used for this thesis as well.

The search started with more than 400 hits on the topic. Not all found articles were useful. Hence we filtered the articles and skipped more than half of them. We eliminated those articles that did not address the topic of empowerment, personal traits and/or contextual factors in the workplace. This resulted in approximately 70 articles. We printed them out and used them as the basis for this literature review. Furthermore, all articles’ reference lists were checked as well in order to find related theories, articles and models on the topic. The Appendix contains the detailed information on the search results concerning the different topics (e.g. empowerment, conditions).

Chapter 3: The roots of empowerment

3.1 Introduction

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3.2 Defining and classifying empowerment

The term empowerment is a complex construct. Researchers are still struggling with properly defining the construct and wondering if it is just a passing ‘fad’. However, Lee and Koh (2001) concluded in their research that empowerment is a really new concept, which evolved from practices such as TQM, employee involvement and participative management. The beginning of the concept can also be found in practices such as job enrichment and job autonomy; however those practices concentrate especially on the job task and less on people (Honold, 1997). Perhaps, the main problem in the field is not the credibility of the new word but the ambiguity of the concept itself (Lincoln et al., 2002).

Empowerment has been researched for decades from two different angles: business and psychology. The business approach, which is also called the social-structural approach, is characterized by practices and interventions that decentralize power through the organizational systems (Smith & Mouly, 1998). In other words this approach is concerned with different practices which can assist employees in an organization to work independently from supervision. On the other hand, the psychological approach to empowerment is characterized by a constellation of experienced psychological states or cognitions (Careless, 2004). Advocates of this approach see empowerment as a psychological state: experienced empowerment. So far, these two approaches have been studied separately and despite growing interest, academia has not reached consensus on one, specific definition. The literature proposes several definitions, which all offer slightly different perspectives.

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from the managers”. Harari (1994) and Boren (1994) see empowerment as behavior of supervisors, who decide to empower their employees.

In contrast to the definitions from the business literature, the psychological empowerment approach sees empowerment as a motivational construct. Rather than delegating or distributing power, advocates of this perspective see empowerment as “enabling”. Enabling implies motivating employees (Conger & Kanungo, 1988) through enhancing their feeling of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), or as intrinsic task motivation (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).

Since both perspectives focus on different aspects and provide different definitions, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between them. In many instances the perspectives could be confused with each other in the literature or meanings may vary with the purposes. Consequently, a clear distinction and definition is needed. For that, we will study both perspectives, capture the main essences of each and draw a conclusion. The next section deals with the description of the two perspectives and explains the logic behind each of them.

3.3 The social-structural view on empowerment

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After Taylorism was questioned, Pfeffer (1981) and Kotter (1977) both became interested in the subject of power and looked for the conditions and techniques that promoted the reallocation of power. They noted that those who hold power were more likely to achieve desired outcomes. As everyone would have equal access to information and power, it would make the organization and its employees succeed better in achieving their goals. Therefore, researchers from the business domain started to focus on developing tactics and strategies which would help to increase the power and influence of less powerful parties and reduce the power of more powerful parties (Hammer & Stern, 1980; Conger & Kanungo, 1998). In other words, advocates of this approach tried to improve conditions of employees and maximize organizational performance by letting managers know that sharing power and giving more responsibility to employees would lead to better results. For instance, working in autonomous teams would speed up the decision-making process.

Having such a connection to power and control it is no wonder that most of the managerial scholars define social-structural empowerment simply as giving power or freedom through delegation and authority (Wilkinson, 1998). Likewise, Foegen (1999) defines empowerment as a part of participative management where authority is being pushed downward and thus ordinary employees have “influences” in the organization too. Klagge (1998) and Ford and Fottler (1995) agree with previous definitions and label empowerment as a means of giving increased power and authority to employees. Essentially, one can see that all the definitions point to the importance of the reallocation of power and resources through different strategies and techniques.

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behave in an autonomous way (Dewettinck, Singh & Buyens, 2003) as long as they get access to resources and support from the top. Therefore advocates of this perspective assume the more power employees receive the more empowered they will feel (Spreitzer & Doneson, 2005).

The last assumption could be questioned as this practice takes for granted that employees will welcome every type of empowerment and commit to it. In fact, there is evidence that despite the fact that some employees were provided with knowledge, information and authority, they still did not feel empowered (Siegall & Gardner, 2000; Spreitzer & Doneson, 2005). The reason according to Conger and Kanungo (1988) and Thomas & Velthouse (1990), is that the social-structural approach lacks understanding of human psychology and pays too little attention to how the social-structural empowerment is experienced by the employees. This led to the emergence of another perspective, psychological empowerment, which takes into account the limitations of the former one.

3.4 The psychological view on empowerment

Psychological empowerment refers to a set of psychological processes which are necessary for individuals to feel in control of their destiny (Spreitzer & Doneson, 2005). Although this perspective uses power as a starting point as well, it suggests a different point of view. In the psychological empowerment view power refers to an intrinsic need, in a belief in personal efficacy (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Bandura, 1997) and self-determination (Deci, Conell & Ryan, 1989). When individuals do not have power they may feel frustrated as they may feel not having control over events and environments (Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

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empowerment and not to the interventions or techniques of empowerment like the former approach.

The work of Conger and Kanungo was continued by Thomas and Velthouse (1990) who argued that psychological empowerment is a more complex construct and cannot be defined unidimensionally (Spreitzer, 1997) as just a concept of self-efficacy. For that reason, they proposed a new point of view and defined psychological empowerment as an intrinsic task motivation which consists of four cognitions reflecting an individual’s orientation towards his or her work role (Thomas & Velthouse 1990). It is argued that these four cognitions (meaningfulness, competence, self-determination and impact) reflect an active rather than a passive orientation to a work role (Thomas & Velthouse 1990; Spreitzer, 1997). In other words, it means that an individual that feels psychologically empowered feels able to control his/her working environment.

3.4.1 Four dimensions of psychological empowerment

The four dimensions of psychological empowerment as defined by Thomas and Velthouse (1990) are seen as having additive motivational effects which means that they promote individuals’ feelings of empowerment.

Meaningfulness involves a fit between the needs of one’s work role and an employee’s own ideas and standards (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990; Spreizer 1995). It refers to congruence between the requirements of a work role and an employee’s own beliefs, values and behaviors (Dewettinck et al. 2003). In other words, if an employee sees the task he/she needs to perform as worthwhile, the task becomes meaningful (Kirkman & Rose, 1999) and in the opposite case the task becomes meaningless (Jawahar, 2008). When a task has a meaning, it counts in an individual’s value system and the individual starts to care about the task more (Careless, 2004). In contrast, a low degree of meaningfulness is believed to result in apathy and feelings of being detached (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).

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self-efficacy concept. If employees have faith in their competency, they will believe in their own mastery to handle the job and consequently put forth more effort to perform the job effectively (Jawahar, 2008). People with high perceived self-efficacy approach difficult tasks as challenges and do not avoid complex situations (Bandura, 1977). As a result they set high goals and sustain strong commitments (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli, 1996).

Self-determination reflects autonomy or the choice over the initiation and continuation of work behavior and processes of meaning that a worker can decide upon (Deci et. al., 1989; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), for instance, what methods to use to get the work done (Spreizer, 1997). It reflects autonomy in decision making on how and when tasks are performed. High self-determination produces greater flexibility, creativity and initiative, whereas low determination is linked to tension and decreased self-esteem (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).

Impact is the degree to which one can influence strategic, administrative or operational outcomes of work (Lee & Koh, 2001). It is also seen as a degree of behavior that can make a difference in terms of accomplishing the purpose of a task (Kirkman & Rose, 1999; Siegall & Gardner, 2000). It must be noted that this dimension is influenced by the work context (Jawahar, 2008).

3.4.2 Research on consequences of psychological empowerment

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purpose of this thesis is not to study the relationship between the psychological dimensions and outcomes but to make clear that those dimensions have a great influence on the end outcomes of empowerment.

3.5 Conclusion: integration of both approaches

Above we have reviewed both perspectives and discerned that both views have made important contributions to the early literature on empowerment. Throughout the exploration of the theory on psychological empowerment it became clear that employees’ perception of empowerment either can promote or block the feeling of being empowered. The lack of a single dimension of psychological empowerment can deflate the overall degree of felt empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995). On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that employees respond to organizational actions, interact with others, interpret and evaluate their environment. For that reason it can be argued that empowerment does not exist in a vacuum but is influenced by organizational actions or contextual factors (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Wilkinson, 1998; Yeh-Yun Lin, 2002, Seibert et. al., 2004; Hon & Rensvold, 2006) like leadership and structure.

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Empowerment is the process of enhancing feelings of meaning, efficiency, self-determination and impact among organizational members through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by formal organizational practices and informal techniques.

After adaptation, the definition illustrates that while taking into account employees’ feeling about their jobs and the perspective on the work role, one still needs to provide proper organizational settings (Jawahar, 2008) to practice empowerment successfully. Therefore all the constraints which may make employees feel powerless and harm practices of empowerment should be removed. In general, the definition focuses on the social-structural approach which consists of management’s empowerment practices. However, it also includes psychological empowerment, which represents a psychological state of an employee (Seiber et al., 2004). This is shown in our conceptual model (Figure 1). It sees empowerment in a wider context and attention is paid to leadership and personality traits which moderate the relationship between the interventions of social-structural empowerment and the dimensions of psychological empowerment.

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Chapter 4: Conditions for employee empowerment

In this part we explain how the sub-parts of social-structural empowerment (access to information and organizational HR practices) are connected to the dimensions of psychological empowerment. Moreover, we point out that certain conditions like employees’ personality traits (self-esteem and locus of control) and leadership factors (supportive leadership behavior and transformational leadership) may hinder or promote a feeling of being empowered.

Firstly, access to information, organizational HR practices and policies are key components of social structural empowerment and establish a platform for employee empowerment (Howard & Foster, 1999). Secondly, we believe that leadership and support from supervisors are crucial variables (Smith & Mouly, 1998; Bhatnagar, 2005), which have a moderating effect on the relationship between social-structural

Psychological Empowerment: Meaning Competence Self- determination Impact Personality Traits: Self-esteem and locus of control Outcomes of empowerment

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empowerment and the dimensions of psychological empowerment. Finally, personality traits such as locus of control and self-esteem are shown to have an impact on the psychological dimensions of empowerment too, however, not much attention has been paid to them yet. We have a strong belief that they may play a key role in the whole empowerment process and explain why some employees feel empowered and some not, although everyone has similar working conditions.

Access to information

In order for employees to be able to work autonomously and feel empowered, information is a central component (Wilkinson, 1998; Ramus & Steger, 2000) in social-structural empowerment. One of the ideas behind any empowerment program is to provide important or necessary information for employees to enable them to perform autonomously (Hammuda & Dulaimi, 1997). An individual who has access to such information is more ready to make decisions concerning the organization and thus feels more confident and competent. When an employee does not possess the necessary information, a good decision making process becomes difficult and uncertainty increases (Siegall & Gardner, 2000). Important information (Hammuda & Dulaimi, 1997) includes everything about an organization that could enable employees to perform their work autonomously and effectively. Without access to information one cannot act autonomously and cannot influence events in the organization. In this case, technical, financial and organizational performance information is considered to be vital (Seibert et al., 2004).

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Information about performance works as feedback and reinforces employees´ feelings of competence (Howard & Foster, 1999) as employees can check the performance of themselves or their own units in the reports. Based on the information from the reports, employees can make appropriate decisions and maintain this performance resulting in an enhanced feeling of impact (Seibert et al., 2004) and self-determination (how and when to act) as well (Spreitzer, 1995).

H1. Access to information is positively related to all dimensions of psychological empowerment.

Organizational HR practices

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Additionally, companies’ policies should emphasize self-determination, collaboration and high-performance standards (Conger and Kanungo, 1988) if the company plans to obtain long-term benefits of empowerment programs. With such policies, companies will provide employees with an environment and atmosphere where empowerment can flourish. With the help of that, companies can also ensure its employees and the public that they are taking empowerment programs seriously.

Incentive pay and other forms of reward are examples of HR motivational activities. Adequately designed reward systems should positively influence employee involvement in organizations (Ramus & Steger, 2000). Incentives provide motivation that may enhance competency and meaningfulness of the job as well. A managers’ job is also to emphasize the structure which provides rewards for participation instead of punishment, as well as, ongoing involvement programs and learning and development programs (Honold, 1997). It is argued that reward systems that highlight innovation, high performance and high incentives values foster a greater sense of self-efficacy (Conger & Kanungo, 1988), whereas a contingent reward system with such components as employee stock option programs and pay for performance (Honold, 1997) could enhance a feeling of meaningfulness, self-determination and impact.

H2. Organizational HR practices are seen as a second key component of social-structural empowerment. We argue that adequately designed organizational HR practices have a direct, positive effect on all dimensions of psychological empowerment.

Supportive leader behavior

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empowerment programs and attempts to increase psychological empowerment could fail unless employees perceive that their supervisors are supportive of them (Logan & Ganster, 2007).

According to several studies, supportive leader behavior includes delegating responsibility, enhancing individuals’ sense of control, encouraging individuals’ goal setting and building trust within employees (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Within supportive work environments, employees are energized to act (Consun & Enz, 1999; Kim, 2002) and are believed to reach their full potential (Consun & Enz, 1999; Careless, 2004). Based on the literature research we propose that supportive leader behavior influences the relation between social-structural empowerment all four dimensions of psychological empowerment. Individuals are likely to experience more meaning, and impact of their work, and self-determination (Siegall & Garden, 2000) as leaders show trust towards employees and give them enough space for deciding on work routines. It can also enhance feelings of self-efficacy or competence (Ramus & Steger, 2000). Trust and responsibility will enhance employees’ feeling in believing more in their capabilities, abilities and mastery. Organizations with a supportive environment usually encourage innovative thinking and risk taking (Ramus & Steger, 2000) the voicing concerns and open communication (Kim, 2002). Employees actually contribute ideas and their ideas are applied within the organization. Thus, their ideas could have an impact on the strategic, administrative or operational outcomes of work and evidently lead to a greater empowerment experience.

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In contrast, in an environment where fear and distrust are ruling, employees submit to the authority, and feel more dependent and helpless. They will try to avoid risks and responsibilities at any cost (Consun & Enz, 1999). Therefore the feeling of competence, meaning, self determination and impact in such an environment diminishes (Consun & Enz, 1999).

H3. The expected positive relation between social-structural empowerment and psychological empowerment is moderated by supportive leader behavior in the sense that there will be a positive relationship between social-structural empowerment (interventions) and psychological empowerment when a leader is perceived supportive of his/her employees. A good relationship with a leader and support from his or her side is positively related to all four dimensions of psychological empowerment. However, the relation will be less positive when a leader will be perceived less supportive.

Transformational leadership

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“representative character” (Shamir, House & Arthur, 1993). These qualities of a leader and the effects on their followers are considered extremely important especially for organizations which undergo a transformation into an empowered organization and where employees are expected to work autonomously.

A major goal of such leaders is to develop followers’ management and self-development (Bass, 1900), make employees less dependent on supervision (Dvir et al., 2002), and to prepare a workforce that is able to work in an empowered organization. Transformational leaders enhance employees’ capacity to think on their own and develop new ideas. According to Yukl (1989) the effect of such transformational influence is to empower subordinates to participate in the transformation of an organization. The most important component of this leadership is the clarity of direction, a direction with a higher purpose. Leaders increase followers’ self-esteem and competence (Spreitzer et al., 1999) by expressing high expectations and the followers’ ability to meet such expectations. They inspire employees to accomplish assignments with extra effort (Bass, 1990). Furthermore, the feeling of making a contribution, the feeling of making the difference in the organization produces a feeling of impact as well (Conger et al., 2000).

In addition, such leadership encourages employees to make use of personal choices and decisions, thereby enhancing employees’ self-determination (Spreitzer et al., 1999). Through the use of a strong vision they also create a sense of meaning (Spreitzer et al., 1997) for employees. They give meaningfulness to their work by infusing their work and the organization with moral purposes and commitments (Shamir, House & Arthur, 1993) rather than with hierarchy and punishment. Therefore, after the interventions of social-structural empowerment together with the guidance of transformational leaders employees should feel empowered and more qualified to work in an empowered environment.

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of psychological empowerment. However, there will be no relation or even a negative one if a leader is not transformational.

Personality traits: self-esteem and locus of control

In the empowerment literature little attention has been given to personality traits and attitudes of employees. Although organizational behaviorists have investigated the influence of personality traits on organizational dynamics, few have investigated the direct influence on the dimensions of psychological empowerment. Especially two personality traits, self-esteem and locus of control, seem closely related to empowerment (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990; Spreitzer, 1995) and work-related variables (Szilagyi Jr., Sims Jr. & Keller, 1976) because these two traits are assumed to shape individuals’ view on life and the work environment (Spreitzer, 1995).

Empowerment programs usually consist of interventions such as decentralization of decision making power or working in autonomous groups. These interventions are clearly parts of social-structural empowerment and thus require employees to take initiative and be competent to work in an autonomous environment. However, not everyone is capable to do so. In this section we point out that variation in personality traits may explain why not every employee feels empowered when empowerment programs are introduced in the organization. In our conceptual model personality traits are conditions under which empowerment programs may fail or succeed.

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literature review suggests that individuals with low self-esteem need more support, supervision and positive feedback in order to strengthen their belief in themselves. Consequently, they also score lower on the dimensions of psychological empowerment than individuals with high self-esteem.

In contrast, individuals with high levels of self-esteem are more likely to be or feel capable and feel more meaningful in their work environment (Lane, Lane, & Kyprianou, 2004) than those with low self-esteem. They see themselves as important, effective and worthwhile individuals with abilities to perform all kinds of tasks within their employer’s organization (Pierce et al., 1989). This allows them to have an impact on the organization. Employees with high self-esteem also see themselves as valuable resources with ideas worth contributing and thus are assumed to have a more active orientation towards their work. They have a more positive work attitude and behave more productively, because of such behaviors they are also perceived as people of high competence (Gist & Mitchell, 1992).

On the other hand, individuals with low self-esteem picture themselves with unfavorable work attitudes and unproductive work behaviors (Pierce et al., 1989). They blame themselves for their failures and perpetuate negative self-evaluation. They also lower expectations of themselves and exert reduced effort in contrast to high self-esteem individuals (Brockner & Guare, 1983). Employees with low self-esteem may not feel able to influence their work and the organizations where they are expected to work autonomously after the interventions of social-structural empowerment on the same level as high self-esteem individuals. For example, individuals with low self-esteem are less able to deal with delegation. Besides that, they feel less competent, experience less meaning and impact of their work. Thus, it is assumed that high self-esteem employees will feel more empowered when they are confronted with social-structural empowerment or empowerment program.

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psychological empowerment when an individual has high self-esteem. However, there will be no relation or even a negative one if an individual has low self-esteem.

Locus of control is the degree to which people believe to what extend they can control their own lives and events (Buelens et al., 2006). Individuals with an internal locus of control believe that they have control over their environment and that they are capable of shaping and influencing their work and work environment (Sims & Szilagyi, 1976). In contrast, individuals who view events as being independent of their own actions but more dependent on fate or luck are said to belief in external control (Szilagyi Jr. et al., 1976). This means that individuals with an internal locus of control are more able to work autonomously after the interventions of social-structural empowerment practices.

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H6. Locus of control moderates the relationship between social-structural empowerment and the dimensions of psychological empowerment, in the sense that there will be a positive relationship between social-structural empowerment (interventions) and psychological empowerment when an individual has an internal locus of control. However, there will be no relation or it even can be a negative one if an individual has external locus of control.

Discussion

In this thesis, we reviewed approximately 70 theoretical and empirical studies on empowerment. Our main objective was to develop a clear definition of empowerment and study the conditions which promote the feeling of being empowered after the interventions of social-structural empowerment. We identified two main approaches in the literature on empowerment: social-structural empowerment and psychological empowerment. After reviewing the literature it became clear that empowerment is multidimensional and that it refers to different things in different disciplines. We propose that it is important to take advantage of the differences and to integrate them into one definition and conceptual model which facilitates us to see empowerment as a complete construct.

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reach desired outcomes. For instance, HR practices such as development and training programs facilitate individuals’ transition in an empowered organization and provide them with knowledge and tools which are required for working in an empowered organization. Furthermore, adequately designed reward systems work as a signal and direct employees’ behavior.

Furthermore, we identified two variables (supportive leader behavior and transformational leadership), which moderate the relation between the interventions of social-structural empowerment and the dimensions of psychological empowerment. The results reveal that especially transformational leadership plays an important role. Whereas supportive leader behavior can be seen on a continuum, transformational leadership cannot because the opposite of it would be authoritarian leadership. It means that some leaders can be less supportive than others and there still will be a relation between social-structural empowerment and psychological empowerment, though a much weaker one. However, when leadership is not being transformative and is more authoritative there will be no relation or even a negative relation. Authoritarian leaders cannot provide a basis for an organization which undergoes the interventions of social-structural empowerment because they cannot guide a workforce through the transformation process. Mostly, such leaders or supervisors resist changes themselves (Kubr, 2002) and do not give enough space for self-development and self-management as they are afraid of losing power and authority Thus, authoritarian leadership works as a blocking factor and cannot enhance the feeling of being empowered during and after the interventions of social-structural empowerment.

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Therefore it is important for managers to cooperate with the HR-department in matters such as recruitment, selection and training in order to guarantee for an organization the right candidates/employees.

Theoretical and practical implications

The results of our literature review have several theoretical and practical implications. Firstly, the study reveals that both empowerment perspectives should be seen together. It would be wrong to separate perspectives, since they both offer essential components for an effective empowerment program implementation. Many organizations misunderstand the usage of empowerment interventions as they believe that these interventions can empower a workforce. However in reality it does not always work and no one can be empowered just by “instructions” or “authority”. Instead, managers and supervisors should provide the appropriate settings and atmosphere in their organizations. One needs to have suitable settings and also pay equal attention on human factors. Leadership and support from leaders have shown to create the right atmosphere for empowerment programs. Such a work environment is found to be associated with the emergence of empowered employees in our results. Those employees who feel trust, support, good communication and praise (Spreitzer & Doneson, 2005) from their leaders during the interventions of social-structural empowerment are one step closer to psychological empowerment.

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motivate the workforce but also heightens employees’ self-esteem and self-worth. That gives one more reason to practice transformational leadership in organizations. Because of these relatively new findings our study contributes to the growing body of empowerment literature and helps managers to deal better with the implementation of empowerment programs.

Limitations and future research needs

Our study suggests new directions for future research. However, it has some limitations which need to be acknowledged. First, although for this study we used the theoretical and empirical evidence, the conceptual model is still not tested empirically and therefore cannot be validated. We took some empirical articles but most of them were tested in the nineties. In addition to that, most of the studies used the theories of Conger and Kanungo (1988) and Thomas and Velthouse (1990) and were done in similar settings, thus it could limit the generalizability of our findings. Firstly, we believe that if theories could be “refreshed”, perhaps the results can be affected as well. Secondly, because the studies have been done in the settings of the private sector and mostly in English speaking countries, we believe that sectoral and cultural differences may affect the results too. For example, collectivistic cultures or a public sector could be less open for the ideas of working in an open and empowered environment since they are more prone to authority and bureaucracy. Therefore such matters need to be taken into account.

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Appendix

Table 1. The search results.

Empowerment (1000)

Empowerment in the workplace (6) Psychological empowerment (30) Structural empowerment (50)

Theorists:

Conger & Kanungo (7) Spreitzer (10)

Thomas & Velthouse (4)

Antecedents:

Leadership, transformational leadership (300) Leadership and support (80)

Locus of control and self esteem (50) Self-efficacy and self determination (1150)

Other key words:

Delegation and empowerment (20) Autonomy and empowerment (30) Decision making and empowerment (40) Participation and empowerment (50)

Keywords used (number of resulting hits in the brackets)

Employee Empowerment in the Workplace: The Power of Contextual Factors and Psychological Empowerment