This paper examines the contribution of each of the four dimensions in Thomas and Velthouse's (1990) multidimensional conceptualization of psychological empowerment in predicting three expected outcomes of empowerment: effectiveness, work satisfaction, and jobrelated strain. The literature on the four dimensions of empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) is reviewed and theoretical logic is developed linking the dimensions to specific outcomes. The expected relationships are tested on a sample of managers from diverse units of a manufacturing organization and then replicated on an independent sample of lower-level employees in a service organization using alternative measures of the outcome variables. The results, largely consistent across the two samples, suggest that dcrerent dimensions are related to different outcomes and that no single dimension predicts all three outcomes. These results indicate that employees need to experience each of the empowerment dimensions in order to achieve all of the hoped for outcomes of empowerment.
Employee involvement is a popular approach to improve organization performance. It moves decision making downward in the organization so employees can make decisions and solve problems as quickly and close to their source as possible. One of the most developed and referenced approaches to involvement is Edward E. Lawler's model of "high-involvement work processes" (HIWP). It describes organizational attributes that contribute to employee involvement and explains how they work together to increase organization performance. Although extensive attention has been paid to Lawler's model in the literature, empirical tests of the model are still in a preliminary stage. Our study describes and tests a mechanism through which HIWP increases organization performance, organizational citizenship behavior. We find that organizational citizenship behavior mediates the relationship between HIWP and organization performance in a sample of 143 consumer-products organization units. Results also confirm that the HIWP attributes work together synergistically to create opportunities for employee involvement.
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