Managerial Use of Power Bases in a Model of Managerial Empowerment Practices and Employee Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

This paper explores the potentially central role that managers play in a model of empowerment. Issues of organizational goal accomplishment and employee trust often plague application of empowerment practices, and managers likely play a vital role in the successful implementation of empowerment. In this study, managerial use of power bases (reward, expert, referent, legitimate, coercive) was proposed to impact the relationship between managerial empowerment practices and employee psychological empowerment. We found a positive relationship between empowerment practices and psychological empowerment. Managerial use of power bases (as perceived by subordinates) was related to empowerment practices and psychological empowerment. Finally, managerial use of power bases fully mediated the relationship between managerial empowerment practices and employee psychological empowerment. We call for further research into the managerial use of power bases in developing a more complete model of empowerment.Keywords behavior management, leadership behavior, organizational behavior

Employees’ Perceived Use of Leader Power and Implications for Affect and Work Intentions

“…For example, Raven et al () grouped different types of power into hard and soft power bases. Randolph and Kemery () more broadly referred to expert and referent power as personal power, and legitimate, reward, and coercive power as position power. Lunenberg () combines these five power bases the same way but labels Randolph and Kemery's position power as organizational power.…”

“…Randolph and Kemery () recently reported updated alpha coefficients (N = 195) for the five power bases. Reward power (e.g., “influences how much a pay increase others may receive”) was reported to have an alpha coefficient of .74.…”

“…Power is now frequently examined empirically in the psychological and leadership literature according to the types of power commonly enacted by leaders, when types of power are effectively used, and why leaders tend to move away from effective shared leadership in favor of acting in self‐interest (e.g., DeCelles, DeRue, Margolis, & Ceranic, ; French & Raven, ; Lammers & Stapel, ; Maner & Mead, ; Pitesa & Thau, ). A second prevalent line of investigation has emerged through the examination of the effects of the distribution of power on employee perceptions of empowerment (e.g., Randolph & Kemery, ; Seibert, Silver, & Randolph, ; Tjosvold, ).…”

Positive effects of laissez-faire leadership: conceptual exploration

“…Leaders are assumed to have a central role in the empowerment process of employees (Randolph & Kemery, 2011), whether through direct interventions and practices by the organization and managers or by psychological empowerment based on employee perceptions of their work role (cf. Spreitzer, 1995;Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).…”

Self–other agreement in empowering leadership: Relationships with leader effectiveness and subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover intention

“…Previous research has identified a positive association between EL and leader effectiveness (Tekleab et al, 2008) and favorable employee outcomes including performance (Vecchio, Justin, & Pearce, 2010), self-leadership (Amundsen & Martinsen, in press), psychological empowerment (Randolph & Kemery, 2011), job satisfaction (Konczak, Stelly, & Trusty, 2000), affective commitment (Dewettinck & van Ameijde, 2011), and creativity (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). However, several contingencies may theoretically affect such relationships, and one of these is self-other agreement (SOA), typically defined as the degree of congruence between a leader's self-rating and the ratings they receive from others (Yammarino & Atwater, 1993).…”