Differential effects of empowering leadership on in-role and extra-role employee behaviors: Exploring the role of psychological empowerment and power values

Abstract

In this research we examined the impact of empowering leadership behaviors (ELBs), psychological empowerment, and individual-level power values on a broad range of employee behaviors. Drawing on self-determination theory (Gagné and Deci, 2005), we hypothesized that ELBs would have direct effects on in-role and affiliative extra-role behaviors, but that the impact of ELBs on challenging extra-role behaviors would be mediated by psychological empowerment. Further, we hypothesized that individual-level power values (Schwartz, 1992) would moderate the mediated effect of ELBs on challenging behaviors. Responses to questionnaires from 541 employees and their supervisors were obtained from 16 hotel properties located in 11 Middle Eastern and Asian countries. Results supported our hypotheses of direct and mediated effects of ELBs on employee behaviors, and supported moderated mediation involving psychological empowerment and power values such that psychological empowerment was more strongly related to challenging behaviors for individuals low in power values.Empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that empowerment can have a significant impact on a broad range of important outcomes in many organizational contexts. Empowerment is associated with job satisfaction (Sparrowe, 1994;Spreitzer et al., 1997), managerial effectiveness (Spreitzer et al., 1997), creativity (Zhang and Bartol, in press), and team performance Kirkman and Rosen, 1999;Kirkman et al., 2004) and negatively related to strain (Spreitzer et al., 1997) and turnover intentions (Sparrowe, 1994). Moreover, in a recent large-scale longitudinal study, Birdi et al. (2008) found that empowerment was the strongest predictor of organizational productivity among the seven management practices examined.Researchers have approached the notion of empowerment from a variety of theoretical perspectives (Leach et al., 2003;Menon, 2001). One approach conceptualizes empowerment as a set of practices or managerial techniques in which empowering leadership behaviors play a central role (Arnold et al., 2000;Conger and Kanungo, 1988;Manz and Sims, 1987). A second approach focuses on psychological empowerment as a cognitive motivational state reflecting individuals' psychological reactions to empowering techniques and leadership behaviors (Spreitzer, 1995;Thomas and Velthouse, 1990).Psychological empowerment has been depicted as 'a consequence and necessary adjunct to situational empowerment' (Leach et al., 2003: 28). However, very little research has attempted to investigate empowering leadership and psychological empowerment in conjunction (Zhang and Bartol, in press, is an exception), and the notion that empowering leadership behaviors can be effective only insofar as they lead to increased psychological empowerment has never been explicitly tested. Indeed, although recent research on empowerment has examined very different behavioral outcomes, at least one study shows an effect of empowering leader behaviors that is not mediated by psychological empowerment (e.g. Ahearne et al....

Leadership Oriented: The Role Of Innovative Planning And Work Culture Toward Corporate Productivity

“…This is different from Raub and Robert (2010) who found that the effects of workplace culture on the in-role behavior affiliative extra-role behavior on a sample of employees in front line manufacturing companies are directly. Work culture conceptualization can be deemed to include the full spectrum of in-role behavior until challenging extra-role behavior.…”

Empowering leadership: Construct clarification, conceptualization, and validation of a new scale

“…This also implies that "for the empowering behavior of a leader to have its intended effect, the focal employee must, in turn, feel psychologically empowered" (Zhang & Bartol, 2010, p. 110). The positive association between EL and psychological empowerment has been supported empirically in a EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP 14 number of studies, which additionally found psychological empowerment to be a mediating mechanism between EL and employee outcomes such as challenging extra-role behaviors (Raub & Robert, 2010), behavioral empowerment (Boudrias et al, 2009), job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Konczak et al, 2000), creativity (Zhang & Bartol, 2010), and intention to stay (Dewettinck & van Ameijde, 2011). …”

The Impact of Employee Empowerment on the Success of Organizational Change: A Study in Privatized Enterprises in Jordan

“…Hence, the common factor between all the definitions mentioned above is the emphasizing of the importance of employee"s participation in decision-making and giving them powers and adequate information in order to increase their motivation and encourage them to execute their tasks well.Based on the previous definitions, and according to the researchers" opinion, the empowerment of employees can be defined as "The process that the organization management implement benefiting from the ideas, energies, and knowledge of its member employees. Also train, motivate, and encourage the employees to use their creativity in work, and involving them in the decision-making process, in order to achieve the goals of the organization, and raise its efficiency in the competitive environment in proportion to its technological, cultural and environmental capacity".According to Raub and Robert, (2010) "empowerment is associated with job satisfaction, managerial effectiveness (Spreitzer , 1997), creativity, and team performance (Kirkman and Rosen, 1997 ) and negatively related to strain (Spreitzer, 1997) ".…”