Antecedents and Consequences of Psychological and Team Empowerment

Journal of Applied Psychology 2011, Vol. 96, No.
5, 9811003
2011 American Psychological Association 0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0022676
Antecedents and Consequences of Psychological and Team Empowerment in Organizations: A Meta-Analytic Review
Scott E. Seibert, Gang Wang, and Stephen H. Courtright
University of Iowa
This paper provides meta-analytic support for an integrated model specifying the antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment. Results indicate that contextual antecedent constructs representing perceived high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership, and work characteristics are each strongly related to psychological empowerment. Positive self-evaluation traits are related to psychological empowerment and are as strongly related as the contextual factors. Psychological empowerment is in turn positively associated with a broad range of employee outcomes, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and task and contextual performance, and is negatively associated with employee strain and turnover intentions. Team empowerment is positively related to team performance. Further, the magnitude of parallel antecedent and outcome relationships at the individual and team levels is statistically indistinguishable, demonstrating the generalizability of empowerment theory across these 2 levels of analysis. A series of analyses also demonstrates the validity of psychological empowerment as a unitary second-order construct. Implications and future directions for empowerment research and theory are discussed. Keywords: empowerment, teams, high-performance work systems, job satisfaction, performance Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022676.supp
The concept of employee empowerment was introduced to the management literature over thirty years ago by Kanter (1977). Surveys have shown that empowerment has had a major impact on management practice, as more than 70% of organizations have implemented some form of empowerment for at least some part of their workforce (e.g., Lawler, Mohrman, & Benson, 2001). The concept of empowerment also continues to generate considerable research interest. Still, a number of important questions remain unanswered (Spreitzer, 2008). It is therefore important to develop a fuller understanding of the nature of empowerment, the factors that lead to employee feelings of empowerment, and the consequences associated with an empowered workforce. Two major perspectives on the empowerment phenomenon have emerged (Liden & Arad, 1996; Spreitzer, 2008). Early, sociostructural approaches regarded empowerment as a set of structures, policies, and practices designed to decentralize power and authority throughout the organization, enabling employees at lower levels in the organization to take appropriate action (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Block, 1987; Kanter, 1977, 1983). Conger and Kanungo
This article was published Online First March 28, 2011. Scott E. Seibert, Gang Wang, and Stephen H. Courtright, Department of Management and Organizations, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, Illinois, August 2009. We thank In-Sue Oh and Amy Colbert for advice on data analyses. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Scott E. Seibert, Department of Management and Organizations, Tippie College of Business, 108 John Pappajohn Business Building, Iowa City, IA 522421994. E-mail: scott-seibert@uiowa.edu 981
(1988) were the first to introduce a psychological perspective on empowerment. They argued that empowering organizational practices result in greater employee initiative and motivation only to the extent that these practices provide informational cues that enhance the employees effortperformance expectancies (Lawler, 1973) or feelings of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986). Thomas and Velthouse (1990) expanded upon this work by articulating a more complete theoretical framework for psychological empowerment. On the basis of their synthesis of a range of cognitive motivation theories, they identified meaning, choice, competence, and impact as the set of employee task assessments associated with intrinsic task motivation. Spreitzer (1995b) was the first to develop a multidimensional instrument to assess psychological empowerment. On the basis of the work of Thomas and Velthouse (1990), she defined psychological empowerment as intrinsic task motivation reflecting a sense of control in relation to ones work and an active orientation to ones work role that is manifest in four cognitions: meaning, self-determination, competence, and impact. Meaning refers to the alignment between the demands of ones work role and ones own beliefs, values, and standards (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Selfdetermination is ones sense of choice concerning the initiation or regulation of ones actions (Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989). Competence refers to ones belief in ones capability to successfully perform work activities (Bandura, 1989; Lawler, 1973). Finally, impact is ones belief that one can influence strategic, administrative, or operational activities and outcomes in ones work unit (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Ashforth, 1989). Consistent with previous theorizing (e.g., Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), the highest levels of intrinsic task motivation were proposed to emerge only when all four cognitions are high.
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SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT
Spreitzers (1995b) formulation has proved seminal to research on psychological empowerment. It is therefore surprising that, over thirty years since the introduction of the empowerment concept and fifteen years since the emergence of a dominant psychological empowerment instrument, no quantitative review of the literature has been performed (Spreitzer, 2008). Thus, our primary purpose in this paper is to conduct a meta-analytic review of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of psychological empowerment in work organizations. This meta-analysis contributes to the literature on empowerment in at least three ways. First, we integrate a broad range of theoretical perspectivesincluding sociostructural (e.g., Kanter, 1977), psychological (e.g., Spreitzer, 1995b), and team-based (e.g., Kirkman & Rosen, 1999) approaches to empowermentthat have emerged over the last thirty years. By testing the relationships specified in this model, we examine the nomological network surrounding the empowerment construct at the individual and team levels of analysis. We also explicitly compare the relative contribution of the contextual and individual difference constructs as antecedents of psychological empowerment. Furthermore, we examine the parallel relationships surrounding empowerment at the individual and team levels to assess the extent of multilevel homology demonstrated by psychological empowerment theory (Chan, 1998; Chen, Bliese, & Mathieu, 2005). The second contribution of our paper is to examine several potential boundary conditions on the effectiveness of psychological empowerment. Understanding the influence of contextual variables on the effectiveness of a construct such as psychological empowerment can greatly contribute to theory and practice (Johns, 2006). On the basis of speculations and debates in the literature, we investigate the potential moderating effect of industry, occupation, and culturally distinct geographic region on the relationship of psychological empowerment and key outcomes. Finally, the third major contribution of this study is an examination of the validity of psychological empowerment as a unitary construct. Spreitzer (2008, p. 64) asked, Is the potency in empowerment in the gestalt or the individual dimensions? and noted
that confusion regarding the structure of the psychological empowerment construct can be an impediment to future research progress. We therefore investigate this issue by conducting a meta-analytic confirmatory factor analysis, examining discriminant validity among the four subdimensions of psychological empowerment, and assessing the relative strength of the unitary psychological empowerment construct relative to the four subdimensions on our key dependent variables. Together, these three contributions will help guide future theoretical and empirical work on psychological empowerment.
Theoretical Framework
A legacy of Kanters (1977, 1983) original work on empowerment is that early researchers regarded organizational structures and practices as indicators of empowerment. Current scholars now view these factors as contextual antecedents of psychological empowerment, rather than as empowerment itself (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Seibert, Silver, & Randolph, 2004; Spreitzer, 1996, 2008). We categorize variables that capture employees perceptions of the organization or work environment into one of four contextual antecedent categories (see Figure 1). For example, several researchers (e.g., Combs, Liu, Hall, & Ketchen, 2006; Liao, Toya, Lepak, & Hong, 2009; Patterson, West, & Wall, 2004) have suggested that high-performance management practices (e.g., Lawler, 1986) would lead to higher levels of psychological empowerment through both cognitive and affective mechanisms. Kanter (1977, 1983) identified social-political support as an important contextual antecedent of psychological empowerment. Subsequent researchers (e.g., Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kraimer, Seibert, & Liden, 1999; Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000) have identified leadership and work design characteristics as additional contextual antecedents enabling employee feelings of psychological empowerment. The same set of constructs has been identified as contextual antecedents to team-level empowerment as well (e.g., Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, & Rosen, 2007; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Figure 1
Contextual Antecedents High-Performance Managerial Practices Socio-Political Support Leadership Work Design Characteristics
Attitudinal Consequences Job Satisfaction Organizational Commitment
Psychological Empowerment
Meaning Self-Determination Competence
Strain Turnover Intentions Behavioral Consequences Task performance OCB
Individual Characteristics Positive Self-Evaluation Traits Human Capital Gender
Impact
Innovation
Team Empowerment
Team Performance
Figure 1.
Integrated individual and team empowerment framework.
EMPOWERMENT META-ANALYSIS
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therefore depicts a set of parallel contextual antecedents at the individual and team levels of analysis. In addition, a range of personality traits and individual characteristics have been identified as correlates of psychological empowerment. These relationships are depicted on the left side of Figure 1. As indicated in Figure 1, a broad range of attitudinal and behavioral outcomes has been associated with psychological empowerment (e.g., Spreitzer, 1995b, 2008). Because psychologically empowered work is likely to fulfill intrinsic needs for autonomy and growth (e.g., Hackman & Oldham, 1980), researchers have frequently proposed job satisfaction, commitment, and retention as outcomes of empowerment (e.g., Kraimer et al., 1999; Liden et al., 2000). A core proposition of the theory is that psychological empowerment will be related not only to work attitudes but to positive forms of work performance as well due to the more active orientation psychologically empowered employees are said to take toward their work (Spreitzer, 1995b, 2008). Thus, both in-role task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors have been proposed as individual-level behavioral outcomes. Innovation behavior at work, in particular, has been seen as a key outcome because of the active, persistent, and changeoriented behaviors associated with psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995b). Researchers have also linked team empowerment to team performance, as depicted on the right side of the figure. This framework thus integrates over thirty years of theory and empirical research on empowerment and guides the development of the hypotheses below.
Hypotheses Contextual Antecedents of Psychological Empowerment

High-performance managerial practices. Several different but overlapping research streams (e.g., strategic human resource management, Delery & Shaw, 2001; high-performance work system, Huselid, 1995; high-involvement management, Lawler, Mohrman, & Ledford, 1998; competitive advantage through people, Pfeffer, 1994) have tried to identify a small set of management and human resource best practices that organizations might use to optimize the value they derive from their employees. The practices that have been consistently identified in the literaturewhich we refer to as high-performance managerial practices in this paper include open information sharing, decentralization, participative decision making, extensive training, and contingent compensation (Combs et al., 2006; Liao et al., 2009; Pfeffer, 1998; Zacharatos, Barling, & Iverson, 2005). For this meta-analysis, we analyzed studies that included psychological empowerment and any of these practices (see Appendix A for details). High-performance managerial practices are thought to improve performance because they increase the amount of information and control employees have over their work; the level of work-related knowledge, skills, and abilities possessed by employees; and the level of motivation employees have to achieve the goals of the organization. As Spreitzer (1996) and others (e.g., Liao et al., 2009; Patterson et al., 2004) have suggested, high-performance managerial practices are likely to facilitate higher levels of psychological empowerment because they affect all four psychological empowerment cognitions. Increased information and control means that employees will
see their work as personally meaningful because they understand how their work role fits into the larger goals and strategies of the organization. More information should also allow employees to better determine for themselves what actions to take, thus increasing feelings of self-determination. Furthermore, the enhanced knowledge, skills, and ability resulting from high-performance managerial practices will be reflected in employees feelings of competence in work roles. Finally, the greater level of input and control associated with high-performance managerial practices means that employees will believe they have greater impact in their work unit or organization. Socio-political support. Socio-political support refers to the extent to which elements in the work context provide an employee with material, social, and psychological resources (Spreitzer, 1996). Many different sources of socio-political support have been associated with psychological empowerment by previous researchers (e.g., Gomez & Rosen, 2001; Liden et al., 2000; Sparrowe, 1994), including the supportiveness of the climate of the organization, the employees perception that the organization values and cares about him, and the level of trust the organization has in the employee (see Appendix A for details). Social support theorists (Hobfall, 1989; Taylor, 2007; Thoits, 1985) have suggested that social support is a valuable resource that shapes peoples perceptions and emotional reactions. Considerable research evidence has shown that this is true within organizational settings (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001; Ng & Sorensen, 2008; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Socio-political support is thus likely to enhance perceptions of psychological empowerment. For example, social support from peers and the organization will signify to the employee that she is a valued and accepted member of the organization, thus enhancing her feeling that her work is personally meaningful. Such support will also provide the employee with feelings of self-determination because it is appropriate for her, as an accepted member of the organization, to determine her own work goals and strategies. Sociopolitical support will also enhance employees feelings of task competence and impact because of the greater availability of the material resources, power, and influence needed to accomplish tasks and work-related goals. Leadership. Spreitzer (2008) concluded, based on her narrative review, that a supportive, trusting relationship with ones leader is an important contextual antecedent of psychological empowerment. In this meta-analysis we examine all studies that include psychological empowerment and any positive form of leadership behavior (see Appendix A for details). We expect these positive forms of leadership to increase employees perceptions of psychological empowerment because of the important role leaders play in shaping the work experience of followers (Liden, Sparrowe, & Wayne, 1997; Yukl, 2010). Leaders can supply information about strategic or operational goals that allows employees to see the value of their work and thus to enhance meaningfulness. They may also allow their followers greater participation and autonomy that will enhance the employees feelings of selfdetermination and impact. Finally, leaders can act as role models and provide employees with feedback and coaching. Role modeling and constructive feedback are important sources of selfefficacy information that enhances feelings of competence (Bandura, 1997). Thus, in our overall leadership category, we include
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all studies that examine the relationship of positive leadership behaviors to psychological empowerment. Work design characteristics. Although psychological empowerment theory has common roots with job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1980), it extends that theory in important ways (Spreitzer, 1996). For example, both theories incorporate the cognitions or critical psychological states of meaning and self-determination as part of their models. However, psychological empowerment theory also incorporates cognitions not included in the job characteristics model, such as feelings of competence and impact. Job characteristics theory explains how core job characteristics (e.g., task significance, autonomy) are related to meaning and self-determination, and meta-analytic results provide support for these propositions (Fried & Ferris, 1987; Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007). Core job characteristics are likely to be associated with the other components of psychological empowerment as well. Competence should be enhanced by work that is more challenging (i.e., higher in skill variety or task significance), along with feedback regarding the results of ones efforts. These factors support learning and enactive attainment, key factors promoting higher self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). The core job characteristics of autonomy and task significance should also promote the feeling that one has impact within ones work unit, because of the increased opportunity one has to personally make choices regarding methods to accomplish tasks that are seen as important to the organization. Thus, extending the logic of the job characteristics model, we expected that all five core job characteristics would be associated with psychological empowerment. Hypothesis 1: Contextual factors including (a) high-performance managerial practices, (b) socio-political support, (c) positive leadership, and (d) work design characteristics will be positively related to psychological empowerment.
Three mechanisms may explain this relationship. First, CSE may influence the situations into which individuals select themselves (Judge & Hurst, 2007). Individuals with high CSE may seek out challenging roles and therefore select themselves into organizations or jobs that provide greater opportunity to experience empowered work. Second, individuals with high CSE experience more positive emotions and subjective well-being (Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoreson, 2002). These positive feelings may influence the subjective task assessments that psychological empowerment perceptions represent (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Finally, previous research has shown that people with high CSE are more likely to choose self-concordant goals (Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005). Self-concordant goals are objectives that are consistent with the individuals enduring ideals, interests, and values and are thus associated with intrinsic motivation (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Individuals who have high CSE are therefore more likely to feel psychologically empowered because they are more likely to choose intrinsically meaningful goals at work. Hypothesis 2: Positive self-evaluation traits will be positively associated with psychological empowerment. Human capital and gender. We expected several other individual characteristics would have positive associations with psychological empowerment because they reflect the level of knowledge, skill, or experience the individual brings to her work. For example, ones level of education, age, and work tenure are typical human capital variables that reflects ones productive capabilities (Becker, 1964). Higher levels of individual human capital should be positively associated with ones ability to take action and have a positive impact in the workplace, key indicators of psychological empowerment. Higher level jobs are also likely to reflect greater human capital on the part of the position holder. They are likely to offer more discretion and more opportunities to have a meaningful impact at work. Finally, we included gender on an exploratory basis to see if any reliable differences exist in empowerment. Hypothesis 3: Human capital variables including (a) education, (b) tenure, (c) age, and (d) job level will be positively associated with psychological empowerment.
Individual Characteristics Associated With Psychological Empowerment

Positive self-evaluation traits. Thomas and Velthouse (1990) placed particular emphasis on individual differences and interpretive schemes as a significant influence on the subjective task assessments that make up empowerment perceptions. Spreitzer (e.g., 1995b, 2008) also took an explicitly interactionist perspective when she defined psychological empowerment as the way individuals see themselves in relation to their task environment. According to this view, both contextual variables and individual characteristics, especially those reflecting ones selfconcept, should be considered as antecedents to perceptions of psychological empowerment. Thus, we predicted that the core self-evaluation (CSE) trait identified by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997) would be an important antecedent of psychological empowerment. This is because CSE is thought to represent the fundamental appraisal one makes about ones worthiness, competence, and capabilities in relation to ones environment. The shared variance among four lower order traitslocus of control, selfesteem, generalized self-efficacy, and emotional stabilitymakes up this construct. We included all of these individual differences in the positive self-evaluation traits category for this meta-analysis and hypothesized that those with higher positive self-evaluations would report feeling more psychologically empowered.
Relative Effects of Contextual Factors and Individual Characteristics

A final important theoretical issue concerning the antecedents of psychological empowerment is the contribution of contextual factors relative to individual characteristics in the formation of psychological empowerment perceptions. The sociostructural approach tends to treat empowerment as an objective set of management structures and practices with little room for systematic variation in the way individual employees react. Psychological approaches also assume that contextual factors will have a powerful impact on psychological empowerment, but, as discussed above, they explicitly acknowledge a role for individual differences because of the perceptual perspective they take on empowerment (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Spreitzer, 1995b; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Thus, to more completely specify psychological empowerment theory, we compare the relative contribution of
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contextual antecedents (i.e., higher performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership, and work design characteristics) as a set to the individual difference correlates of psychological empowerment (i.e., positive self-evaluation traits, education, job level, age, and tenure) as a set. Because strong theorizing is not currently warranted, we propose the following as a research question: We expected the contextual variables to be more strongly related than the individual differences to psychological empowerment. Research Question 1: Are contextual factors more strongly related than individual characteristics to perceptions of psychological empowerment?
Attitudinal Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction has been conceptualized as the extent to which ones needs are fulfilled at work (Locke, 1976). A sense of meaning and self-determination allow one to fulfill important needs for growth through the experience of autonomy, competence, and self-control at work (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Hackman & Oldham, 1980). In addition, feelings of competence and impact augment the extent to which ones work serves to fulfill these innate needs, as they too reflect opportunities to experience competence and control at work. Thus, psychologically empowered workers are likely to experience more intrinsic need fulfillment through work and therefore report higher levels of job satisfaction. Organizational commitment. Meyer, Becker, and Vandenberghe (2004) noted a strong correspondence between intrinsic forms of motivation and affective commitment. The meaning dimension of psychological empowerment in particular invokes affective organizational commitment because it assesses the fit between the demands of the work role and the individuals needs and values (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005; Spreitzer, 1995b). In addition, feelings of autonomy, competence, and impact are likely to increase the individuals commitment to the organization, as they will further enhance the ability of the individual to express his values and interests through his work. Finally, psychological empowerment should also be associated with increased continuance commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991), because the loss of an empowering work arrangement may be viewed as the sacrifice of something valuable that is difficult to replace with another employer. Strain. An important debate concerns the level of strain experienced by empowered employees (Spreitzer, 2008). The labor process theory perspective (e.g., Harley, 1999; Harley, Allen, & Sargent, 2007) suggests that empowerment is a form of work intensification that involves increasing the scope of employee responsibilities without a concomitant increase in rank or pay. Hardy and Leiba-OSullivan (1998) further noted that little real power or control actually flows to empowered employees. According to this perspective, empowerment should lead to increased feelings of strain among employees. On the other hand, selfdetermination, competence, and impact should function together to reduce strain even if work demands go up because they increase feelings of control (Matteson & Ivancevich, 1987; Spreitzer, Kizilos, & Nason, 1997). Perceived control over potential stressors
reduces perceived strain (Karasek, 1979; Spector, 1986). Thus, our expectation was that psychologically empowered employees would report lower levels of strain due to an increased sense of control at work. Turnover intentions. Because individuals are likely to view psychologically empowering work as a valuable resource provided by the organization, employees will feel obligated to reciprocate such a beneficial work arrangement with increased loyalty to the organization and continued employment (Blau, 1964). Empowering work arrangements may also be difficult to find or establish with another employer. This lowers the net benefit associated with alternative job opportunities and thus further lowers the probability of turnover (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000). We thus expected that psychological empowerment would be related to lower turnover. Hypothesis 4: Psychological empowerment will be positively related to the employee work attitudes of (a) job satisfaction and (b) organizational commitment and will be negatively related to (c) strain and (d) turnover intentions.
Behavioral Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

Task performance. Theorists have argued that psychologically empowered employees anticipate problems and act independently in the face of risk or uncertainty, exert influence over goals and operational procedures so that they can produce high-quality work outcomes, and demonstrate persistence and resourcefulness in the face of obstacles to work goal accomplishment (Spreitzer, 1995b, 2008). Meaning and self-determination, two components of psychological empowerment, have already been shown to have a small but statistically significant relationship with job performance (Fried & Ferris, 1987; Humphrey et al., 2007), as explained by job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Psychological empowerment assesses feelings of competence and impact in addition to meaning and self-determination. Empirical research indicates that competency (i.e., self-efficacy) and impact beliefs increase performance by increasing task effort and persistence (e.g., Bandura & Locke, 2003; Sadri & Robertson, 1993; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998; for some limiting conditions, see Vancouver & Kendall, 2006). For these reasons, we expected psychological empowerment would be positively associated with task performance. Organizational citizenship behaviors. According to psychological empowerment theory, employees who feel a sense of empowerment are likely to take an active orientation toward their work and perform above and beyond the call of duty (Spreitzer, 2008). Meaningful work over which one has individual discretion is likely to lead to organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) because it fosters a sense of identification and involvement in the overall workplace, not just ones defined work role. Competence and impact are likely to further encourage OCBs because the employee will feel capable of achieving positive outcomes in her work unit if she tries (Bandura, 1997). Thus, psychological empowerment will likely be associated with OCBs. Innovation. A key objective of empowerment is to release the potential within employees to make a positive change in their work roles, work units, or organization (Block, 1987; Randolph,
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1995). In conjunction with the motivation to be creative associated with intrinsic motivators such as meaning and self-determination (Amabile, 1988), feelings of competence and impact are likely to enhance the ability of employees to implement their ideas and suggestions for change, resulting in greater innovation at work. We thus expected psychological empowerment would be positively associated with innovation (Kanter, 1983; Spreitzer, 1995b). Hypothesis 5: Psychological empowerment will be positively related to the employee work behaviors of (a) task performance, (b) OCB, and (c) innovation.
Homology of Empowerment Relationships Across Individual and Team Levels

Our final formal hypothesis examines the extent of multilevel homology across individual and team levels of analysis for empowerment theory. Comparisons across levels, while rare in the literature, are important because they extend a theorys parsimony, breadth, and explanatory power (Chen, Bliese, & Mathieu, 2005). According to a typology developed by Chen et al., metaphoric homology posits only that parallel relationships will be consistently significant across levels of analysis. Identical homology, on the other hand, predicts that parallel relationships will be statistically indistinguishable in direction and magnitude across levels. Because identical homology requires the most precise predictions, it represents the most mature stage of multilevel theory testing (Chen et al., 2005). Researchers have theorized that empowerment is a construct with very similar functional relationships at the individual and team levels (e.g., Chen et al., 2007; Kirkman & Rosen, 1997, 1999). Empowerment is a form of motivation, and the limited research on motivation at multiple levels that exists suggests that motivational mechanisms have similar antecedents and effects across individual and team levels of analysis (e.g., Chen, Thomas, & Wallace, 2005; DeShon, Kozlowski, Schmidt, Milner, & Wiechmann, 2004; Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001). Although processes related to the development of coordination in teams might weaken the positive effects of motivation at the team level, in established teams, such as those likely to be found in the field studies upon which this meta-analysis is based, coordination issues are likely to be worked out and individual motivation and effort are likely to become focused on team outcomes (Kozlowski, Gully, Nason, & Smith, 1999). On the basis of these theories and findings, we hypothesized identical homology for empowerment across individual and team levels of analysis. Hypothesis 8: Empowerment will demonstrate identical homology across levels.
Antecedents and Consequences of Team-Level Empowerment

The final set of hypotheses concerns the antecedents and outcomes associated with team empowerment. Empowerment has been conceptualized at the individual and team levels of analysis (e.g., Kirkman & Rosen, 1997, 1999). Individual psychological empowerment focuses on how empowered the individual feels personally, whereas team empowerment refers to shared perceptions among team members regarding the teams collective level of empowerment (Chen, Kirkman, et al., 2007). Teams that are more empowered feel that they have more intrinsically meaningful or worthwhile work and, as a group, have a higher degree of choice or discretion in deciding how they carry out their team tasks; they believe that they have the collective ability to accomplish workrelated tasks and that these tasks have an impact or significant importance for their organization. Although team performance is more than the simple aggregation of the individual performance of team members (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003), scholars have proposed that empowerment shares similar meanings and functional relationships at the individual and team levels (Chen, Kirkman, et al., 2007; Kirkman & Rosen, 1997). Thus, on the basis of the logic as developed in the hypotheses above for individual empowerment, we expected organizational high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support of the team, supportive leadership of the team, and team-level work design characteristics would be positively related to feeling of team empowerment. Team size was also included as an exploratory antecedent. Hypothesis 6: Contextual factors including (a) high-performance managerial practices, (b) socio-political support for the team, (c) positive leadership, and (d) work design characteristics will be positively related to team empowerment. Likewise, we expected team empowerment would be positively related to team performance (Chen, Kirkman, et al., 2007; Kirkman & Rosen, 1997). As with individuals, empowered teams are likely to be motivated by a sense of ownership or responsibility over their work; they are likely to take an active orientation toward their work and their work environment, seeking continuous improvement in work processes and seeking innovative solutions to work problems; and they are likely to strive to produce higher quality work products and services. Empowered teams are therefore likely to be more effective and productive. Hypothesis 7: Team empowerment will be positively related to team performance.
Boundary Conditions of Psychological Empowerment

Scholars have long speculated on the extent to which the positive effects of empowerment generalize across situations and settings (Spreitzer, 2008). Differences across context can have important implications for empowerment theory and practice (Bamberger, 2008; Johns, 2006). For example, evidence for contextual moderation would suggest additional variables and processes that may limit the influence of empowerment on employee attitudes and behaviors. On the other hand, failure to find moderation extends the parsimony and generalizability of psychological empowerment theory. A number of researchers have argued that certain types of industries (Batt, 2002; Combs et al., 2006), occupations (Avolio, Zhu, Koh, & Bhatia, 2004; Kraimer et al., 1999), and cultures (Ergeneli, Sag, Ari, & Metin, 2007; Seibert et al., 2004) may moderate the effectiveness of empowerment. Because little systematic theory has been developed in this area, we develop only a set of exploratory research questions below. With regard to industry differences, some scholars have speculated that empowerment is likely to be most effective in the service sector, because service workers tend to have more opportunity to
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engage in discretionary behavior (e.g., with a customer) than their counterparts in a manufacturing environment, where standardized procedures and bureaucratic structures tend to prevail (Batt, 2002). However, Combs et al. (2006) argued that more direct contact with customers itself provides work motivation, obviating the need for intrinsic motivation and thus empowerment. Due to these contradictory predictions, a direction is not specified for this moderation hypothesis; however, to the extent that there are differences, public sector employees would be expected to fall between the extremes of manufacturing and service employees. A similar logic regarding discretion, motivation, and employees ability to influence outcomes applies for occupational type. Early work by Kanter (1983) as well as Spreitzer (1996) focused on middle managers as the target of empowerment efforts, perhaps in the belief that managerial employees would have the greatest untapped ability and opportunity to impact work unit performance. On the other hand, work design theory and other approaches to high-involvement work systems have often focused on nonmanagerial employees (Hackman & Oldham, 1980; Parker & Wall, 1998). Empowerment might have a stronger effect among nonmanagers, due to a lower initial baseline for discretion and control among such employees (Kraimer et al., 1999). Again, we made no directional hypothesis but would expect results for the professional/technical employees to be most similar to those for managerial employees, due to the similar levels of skill and autonomy inherent in professional work. Finally, we explored culturally distinct geographic region as a moderator. Several scholars have suggested that cultural values may moderate the effects of empowerment (Avolio et al., 2004; Seibert et al., 2004). For example, high power distance cultures may react less positively to psychological empowerment because of its reliance upon power-sharing organizational structures and practices. Unfortunately, too few studies measuring psychological empowerment and cultural values have been conducted for us to make reliable comparisons. We therefore explored the moderating effects of broad geographic regions that are thought to be culturally distinct in hopes of stimulating future research on cultural values and psychological empowerment. Research Question 2: Do industry, occupation, or culturally distinct geographic region moderate the relationship of psychological empowerment to the outcomes of our model?
different hypotheses for the relationship of each of the four dimensions of empowerment with criterion variables (e.g., Ergeneli et al., 2007; Kraimer et al., 1999; Liden et al., 2000; Wang & Lee, 2010). This is a fundamental question for psychological empowerment theory (Spreitzer, 2008). If relationships with outcome variables differ by subdimensions, it would be appropriate to treat each subdimension as a separate construct. This would call into question the idea of a unitary psychological empowerment construct. On the other hand, if apparent differences across subdimensions are merely the result of differences in subscale reliability or sampling error (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004), substantive conclusions about the relationships of subdimensions to different outcomes are not well founded. Building upon an approach used by LePine, Erez, and Johnson (2002), we conduct three analyses with our meta-analytic data to examine the structure of the psychological empowerment construct. First, we explore the relationships of each separate empowerment subdimension with our dependent variables. Evidence of discriminant validity among the subdimensions is supplied if the subdimensions exhibit statistically different relationships with a given outcome. If differences in the direction or magnitude of these relationships are not in evidence, treatment of psychological empowerment as a single construct is supported. Second, we compare the strength of the unitary psychological empowerment construct as a predictor of our outcome variables to the strength of the four separate subdimensions. If any of the separate subdimensions demonstrate stronger relationships with an outcome variable than does the global unitary construct, use of the global construct is questionable. If not, use of the global construct is further justified. Finally, we use confirmatory factor analysis based upon meta-analytic correlations among the four subdimensions to directly assess the fit of the hierarchical model of psychological empowerment originally examined by Spreitzer (1995b) but rarely assessed in published studies since that time. Given the complex nature of these analyses, we posed only the following general research question: Research Question 3: Should psychological empowerment be treated as a unitary construct?
Method Identification of Studies and Criteria for Inclusion

We performed an extensive electronic and manual search using psychological empowerment and empowerment as the keywords to identify published articles, conference papers, working papers, and doctoral dissertations. For the electronic search, we used PsycINFO and Web of Science databases. In addition, all articles citing Spreitzer (1995a, 1995b, 1996; Spreitzer et al., 1997), as indicated by the Social Sciences Citation Index, were examined. We also obtained relevant paper presentations from recent scholarly meetings and performed a Google Scholar search to look for unpublished working papers. A manual search was conducted as of July 2010 to account for articles not yet included in the electronic databases. We searched in the following journals considered to be influential in the area (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Bachrach, & Podsakoff, 2005): Academy of Management Journal, Administrative
Construct Validity of Psychological Empowerment

Our final set of research questions addresses the appropriateness of viewing psychological empowerment as a unitary second-order construct rather than as four distinct constructs. Spreitzer (1995b) explicitly modeled empowerment as a second-order factor accounting for the shared variance among the four lower order factors of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. Following Spreitzer (1995b), many researchers have specified psychological empowerment as a single, unidimensional construct (e.g., Chen & Klimoski, 2003; Erdogan & Bauer, 2009; Zhang & Bartol, 2010). However, another early study by Spreitzer herself (Spreitzer et al., 1997) found results suggesting that the meaning and competence subdimensions of empowerment were related to attitudinal outcomes but only the impact subdimension was related to work effectiveness. As a result, other studies have formulated
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Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Leadership Quarterly. In addition, we sent e-mail solicitations to subscribers of the Academy of Management listservs to get in-press and unpublished studies. These searches uncovered more than 1,000 abstracts of published articles, dissertations, working papers, and conference presentations. The above abstracts were reviewed for content and considered for inclusion in the meta-analysis. For a study to be included in the present review, it had to meet the following criteria. First, the article had to report the statistical information needed to calculate the correlations among the variables. Second, a study must have investigated at least one relationship between psychological empowerment and its contextual antecedents or consequences at the individual or team level. Third, a study must have been based on adult participants and conducted in an organizational field setting rather than in a laboratory. This allowed us to generalize our results to the population of working adults. These exclusions resulted in a final set of 142 articles representing 151 independent samples, including 79 published studies and 63 unpublished dissertations and working papers. These articles are marked in the References section by an asterisk.
level empowerment, the consensus rate was 90%: All of our disagreements focused on how team antecedents were coded. Eventually, for both individual- and team-level studies, all discrepancies were resolved through discussion.
Meta-Analytic Techniques
We chose a random-effect model of meta-analysis implemented with hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) software (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992).3 This method provides parameter estimates and can be used to test the significance of differences between parameters based on the entire data set rather than subsets of the data (Erez, Bloom, & Wells, 1996). Prior research on metaanalytic methods (Erez et al., 1996; Field, 2005; Hunter & Schmidt, 2004; Schmidt & Hunter, 1999) has shown that random effect approaches, such as the one recommended by Bryk and Raudenbush (1992), generate more accurate parameter estimates than do fixed effect approaches. We followed the detailed procedure described in LePine et al. (2002, pp. 56 57) to conduct meta-analyses with HLM software. In particular, we performed two sets of analyses. The first set of analyses was based on an unconditional model (i.e., one without moderators) to estimate the meta-analytic correlations between psychological empowerment and its antecedents, correlates, and consequences as well as the meta-analytic correlations among the subdimensions of psychological empowerment. This is similar to estimating the grand mean for each relationship in a multilevel model. Finding significant between-studies variance ( 2) suggests that primary correlations are not homogenous and that study characteristics not included in the model may serve as moderators. We then back-transformed the grand means to normal correlations using Equation 14 in Erez et al. (1996, p. 289) and reported these correlations. The second sets of analyses were based on a conditional model in which covariates (moderators) were modeled by the use of dummy variables. For example, to compare the relative magnitude of the relationships of the four subdimensions with the consequences, we used one subdimension (meaning) as the reference group and used three dummy variables to capture the remaining three subdimensions of psychological empowerment. As in regression analysis, HLM outputs provide intercept coefficient for the reference group and regression coefficients for dummy coded groups. If a coefficient is significant, this means that the specific
1 To examine whether the use of different psychological empowerment measures may moderate the individual-level relationships in Tables 1 and 3, we constructed a conditional model in which studies that used Spreitzers (1995b) scale were coded as the reference group. The results showed no evidence of moderating effects. 2 Similarly, to test whether the use of different psychological empowerment measures may moderate the relationship between team-level empowerment and team performance (both self- and non-self-reports), we constructed a conditional model. Studies that used Spreitzers (1995b) scale was coded as the base group, and studies that used Kirkman and Rosens (1999) scale and all other scales were dummy coded as two categories. The results showed no evidence of moderating effect. 3 We thank the anonymous reviewer who suggested that we use HLM for these analyses.
Coding Procedures
Variables were coded into the prescribed contextual antecedents, correlates (individual characteristics), and consequences categories according to the category definitions and coding rules we established. For a detailed list of antecedent, correlate, and consequence variables within each category, please refer to Appendices A and B. For individual-level psychological empowerment, the majority of the studies (72%, or 92 studies) used Spreitzers (1995b) scale. For those studies that either developed their own measures (e.g., Chiles & Zorn, 1995; Menon, 1995) or used other measures of psychological empowerment (e.g., Short & Rinehart, 1992), we carefully examined the definition and wording of the measures. Only those measures that were explicitly labeled as empowerment (e.g., Wu, 1994), or psychological empowerment (e.g., Lawrence, 1997) and assessed the psychological states necessary for individuals to feel a sense of intrinsic task motivation were accepted as equivalent measures of psychological empowerment.1 To eliminate any potential contamination, we based all subdimension-level analyses (e.g., correlations among the four subdimensions) on studies that used Spreitzers (1995b) 12-item scales. For team-level empowerment, the majority of studies (63%, or 12 studies) used either Kirkman and Rosens (1999) team empowerment scale or Spreitzers (1995b) scale. All measures were conceptualized as team members shared perceptions of collective level of empowerment.2 To ensure coding accuracy and reliability, all three authors independently coded all of the articles. For individual-level psychological empowerment, the overall consensus rate was 90%. Our agreement on how contextual antecedents were coded was 83%; our agreement on coding of the effect sizes was 96%; and our agreement on the reliabilities of the variables was 92%. For team-
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dummy-represented group (e.g., competence) has a significantly different correlation with the consequence of interest (e.g., organizational commitment) than does the reference group (e.g., meaning). In addition, the sign of the regression coefficient indicates whether the specific dummy-coded group has a significantly higher relationship (if the sign is positive) or lower relationship (if the sign is negative) with the consequence than does the reference group. Reliability coefficients of variables reported in the original study were used to correct for measurement error in correlations before they were transformed into Hotellings and Fishers z to normalize their distribution (Erez et al., 1996). For team-level studies, ICC(2), an index of the reliability of group means, was used as the reliability estimate whenever such information was available (e.g., Combs et al., 2006, p. 512). For studies that did not report reliability information, we used the average reliability obtained from those studies that did report data for that variable. The average reliability coefficient for psychological empowerment and its antecedents and consequents was computed by taking the arithmetic mean of the reliability coefficients reported in primary studies. When we estimated true mean population correlations between psychological empowerment and its antecedents and consequences and the moderating effect of between-studies characteristics (e.g., occupation; see Tables 4 and 5), only one effect size was taken from each independent sample. If original studies reported multiple measures of the same construct-level relationship within a single sample (e.g., correlations of each subdimension of psychological empowerment with managerial effectiveness; Spreitzer, 1995b), we computed a composite correlation with the formula provided in Hunter and Schmidt (2004, p. 436). Otherwise, the average of the raw correlations was used. This reduces the influence of measurement error on within-studies variance (Erez et al., 1996). We present the uncorrected population correlation estimate (r), the population correlation corrected for unreliability (rc), the number of different studies (kd), the number for correlations (kc), the total number of participants in the studies (N), and the between-studies variance ( 2) whenever it is feasible. The null hypothesis that between-studies variance is zero ( 2 0) is assessed by a Cochran chi-square test (Cochran, 1937). If the chi-square test is statistically significant, potential moderators (e.g., industry, occupation) can be modeled and tested. We also present the 95% confidence intervals (CIs). If a 95% confidence interval does not include zero, this indicates that the corrected meta-analytic correlation is statistically significant at the .05 level. The cutoff value of the minimum number of primary studies to be included in each meta-analysis was set to three (Chambless & Hollon, 1998). We used LISREL Version 8 (Jreskog & Srbom, 2005) to conduct a hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis using the four components of psychological empowerment. The metaanalytically derived correlations among the four subdimensions and the harmonic mean sample size were used as inputs (Viswesvaran & Ones, 1995). Following the recommendations by Hu and Bentler (1999), we evaluated model fit using the joint criteria of the standard root mean residual (SRMR) and the comparative fit index (CFI), which do the best job of balancing Type I and Type II error rates. Hu and Bentler recommended
that a SRMR value less than or equal to .08 and a CFI values greater than or equal to .96 be regarded as a good model fit.
Results Antecedents of Psychological Empowerments

Table 1 presents the meta-analytic correlations among psychological empowerment and its antecedents. Results in Table 1 (see coefficients in column 5) show that all of the predicted antecedents were positively related to psychological empowerment. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, all of the contextual antecedents, namely, high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership,4 and work design characteristics, exhibited relatively strong relationships with psychological empowerment (Cohen, 1988). In addition, because the 95% CIs of all these meta-analytic correlations exclude zero, the positive relationships between these contextual antecedents and psychological empowerment are significantly greater than zero at the .05 level (Whitener, 1990). Hypotheses 2 and 3 referred to several individual characteristics thought to be correlated with psychological empowerment. Participants positive self-evaluation traits display a strong positive relationship with psychological empowerment (rc .48, N 5,273), and the 95% CI excludes zero. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported. Hypothesis 3 posits that human capital variables, including education, job level, tenure, and age, will have positive relationships with psychological empowerment. Results in Table 1 provide mixed support for this hypothesis. Job level, tenure, and age are positively related to psychological empowerment (rc .19, .11, and .11, respectively), and their 95% CIs did not include zero. However, the CI for education did include zero. Although not specifically hypothesized, we found that men and women did not significantly differ in feelings of psychological empowerment; the 95% CI of gender [ .10, .00] includes zero. Research Question 1 suggests that the effect size of the contextual constructs would be larger than the effect size of the individual characteristics as a set. The set of results shown in Table 2 supports this speculation. Although the individual characteristics are significantly related to perceptions of psychological empowerment (corrected coefficient .14, p .01), the positive and significant estimate for the contextual constructs (corrected coefficient .42, p .01) demonstrates that the set of contextual factors is more strongly related to psychological empowerment than are the individual characteristics. However, inspection of Table 1 suggests that positive self-evaluation traits have a stronger relationship than the human capital variables with psychological empowerment. To test this observation, we ran a conditional model with the positive self-evaluation traits as the reference group and each of the human capital variables as dummy-coded groups. The second set of results in Table 2 show that the human capital variables each have a
4
Given that transformational leadership and leadermember exchange theories have clear theoretical links to psychological empowerment, we examined their relationships with psychological empowerment separately. We found that transformational leadership and leadermember exchange yielded similar results to other positive leadership antecedents (rc .42, N 4,628; rc .54, N 7,331, respectively).
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Table 1 Meta-Analytic Antecedents of Individual-Level Psychological Empowerment (ILPE)

Variable Alpha of variable Alpha of ILPE r [95% CI] rc[95% CI] Kd; Kc; N
2
High-performance managerial practices Social-political support Leadership Work design characteristics
.82 .81 .88 .75
Contextual antecedents .80 .38 [.31, .44] .80 .37 [.31, .42] .82 .43 [.38, .47] .79 .45 [.34, .54] Individual characteristics .83 .33 [.23, .41] .84 .05 [ .09, .00] .82 .04 [.00, .07] .73 .17 [.02, .31] .84 .10 [.06, .13] .81 .10 [.06, .13]
.48 [.39, .56] .48 [.41, .54] .53 [.45, .60] .58 [.46, .68]
27; 49; 51; 12;
27; 49; 51; 12;
12,357 21,659 16,979 3,907
.075 .091 .131 .080
Positive self-evaluation traits Gender (M 0; F 1) Education Job level Tenure Age
.72
.48 [.26, .65] .05 [ .10, .00] .04 [.00, .07] .19 [.03, .34] .11 [.06, .15] .11 [.07, .15]
9; 9; 5,273 25; 25; 9,128 20; 20; 6,425 5; 5; 4,550 28; 28; 11,421 36; 36; 12,954
.129 .013 .003 .032 .008 .010
Note. r uncorrected population correlation; 95% CI for unreliability; Kd number of different studies; Kc p .05. p .01.
95% confidence interval around the population correlation; rc population correlation corrected number of correlations; N total sample size; 2 between-studies variance.
significantly weaker relationship with psychological empowerment than did the self-evaluation traits. We therefore reexamined Research Question 1, this time using only positive self-evaluation traits as the reference category. The nonsignificant results for each of the contextual variables indicate that no contextual variable is more strongly related to psychological empowerment than is the positive self-evaluation trait. Overall, these results indicate that the contextual antecedents and positive self-evaluation traits have effects on psychological empowerment that are not statistically
distinguishable from each other, but they are stronger than the effects of the human capital variables.
Attitudinal and Behavioral Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

Results in Table 3 summarize the relationships among psychological empowerment and its consequences. Psychological empowerment was positively related to job satisfaction and organi-
Table 2 Conditional Model Estimates for Relative Impact of the Antecedents on Individual-Level Psychological Empowerment
Fixed effect Individual-level psychological empowerment (Kd 109; Kc 237; N 41,900) Individual characteristicsa,b Contextual factorsc Individual-level psychological empowerment (Kd 52; Kc 98; N 21,657) Positive self-evaluation traitsa Education Job level Tenure Age Individual-level psychological empowerment (Kd 96; Kc 148; N 37,536) Positive self-evaluation traitsa High-performance managerial practices Socio-political support Leadership Work design characteristics Uncorrected coefficient Corrected coefficient
.12 .31
.14 .42
.33 .30 .16 .24 .23
.52 .49 .32 .41 .41
.34 .05 .05 .11 .14
.52 .00 .00 .07 .14
Note. Kd number of different studies; Kc number of correlations; N total sample size. a The base category. b Including positive self-evaluation traits, education, job level, tenure, and age. c Including work design characteristics, high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, and leadership. p .05. p .01.
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Table 3 Meta-Analytic Consequences of Individual-Level Psychological Empowerment (ILPE)

Variable Alpha of variable Alpha of ILPE r [95% CI] rc [95% CI] Kd; Kc; N
2
Job satisfaction Organizational commitment Strain Turnover intentions
.82 .79 .73 .85
Attitudinal consequences .81 .52 [.47, .56] .80 .49 [.45, .53] .80 .28 [ .36, .20] .79 .30 [ .37, .22] Behavioral consequences .80 .26 [.20, .31] .82 .21 [.15, .26] .76 .33 [.21, .44] .79 .28 [.19, .36] .80 .24 [.14, .33] .76 .36 [.18, .52] .82 .29 [.18, .39] .81 .24 [.18, .31]
.64 [.60, .69] .63 [.56, .69] .37 [ .48, .26] .36 [ .44, .27]
53; 31; 20; 17;
53; 31; 20; 17;
17,875 14,344 7,764 8,384
.078 .084 .082 .042
Task performance Task performancea Task performanceb OCB OCBa OCBb Innovation at work Innovation at worka
.80 .84 .74 .84 .84 .85 .92 .93
.36 [.24, .47] .27 [.20, .34] .54 [.21, .76] .38 [.23, .52] .34 [.14, .50] .47 [.21, .66] .33 [.21, .45] .28 [.20, .36]
34; 34; 8,774 22; 22; 6,118 12; 12; 2,656 17; 17; 7,461 11; 11; 3,174 6; 6; 4,287 9; 9; 3,110 8; 8; 2,027
.153 .028 .480 .123 .120 .133 .041 .010
Note. r uncorrected population correlation; 95% CI 95% confidence interval around the population correlation; rc population correlation corrected for unreliability; Kd number of different studies; Kc number of correlations; N total sample size; 2 between-studies variance; OCB organizational citizenship behavior. a b Results are based on non-self-rated outcome measures. Results are based on self-rated outcome measures. p .01.
zational commitment and negatively related to turnover intentions and strain. Because the 95% CIs exclude zero, these relationships are statistically significant (p .05). Thus, Hypothesis 4 was supported. In addition, results in Table 3 show that psychological empowerment was positively related to task performance, OCB, and innovation at work. All of these positive relationships are distinguishable from zero, thus supporting Hypothesis 5. Note that the results hold for both self-rated and non-self-rated (e.g., supervisor-rated) behavioral outcomes. Also note that the tausquares for all of the population level correlation estimates in Table 1 and Table 3 were statistically significant, justifying our search for moderators.
Antecedents and Consequences of Team-Level Empowerment

Table 4 shows that, consistent with Hypothesis 6, high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership, and work design characteristics were all significantly related to team empowerment (p .05). As shown in Table 4, and in support of Hypothesis 7, team empowerment was positively related to team performance (rc .51, N 1,854), and this result held for the subsample that included only non-self-rated performance measures (rc .43, N 1,561). These positive relationships were statistically significant (p .05). Note that tau-square was statistically significant for all of the relationships in Table 4,
Table 4 Meta-Analytic Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment

Variable Reliability of variable Reliability of team empowerment Antecedents .77 .82 .84 .78 .71 Consequences .82 .81 .88 r [95% CI] rc [95% CI] K d ; K c; N
2
High-performance managerial practices Socio-political support Leadership Work design characteristics Team size
.76 .73 .82 .76
.42 [.28, .54] .40 [.27, .51] .47 [.32, .60] .34 [.14, .51] .11 [ .28, .06]
.52 [.39, .63] .56 [.18, .79] .61 [.43, .74] .49 [.20, .70] .12 [ .31, .08]
7; 7; 875 3; 3; 519 11; 11; 1,162 6; 6; 829 6; 6; 328
.029 .147 .144 .157 .030
Team performance Team performancea Team performanceb
.76 .77 .87
.36 [.25, .45] .32 [.21, .41] .52 [.40, .63]
.51 [.35, .64] .43 [.26, .58] .60 [.48, .69]
20; 20; 1,854 18; 18; 1,561 6; 6; 583
.176 .156 .024
Note. r uncorrected population correlation; 95% CI 95% confidence interval around the population correlation; rc population correlation corrected for unreliability; Kd number of different studies; Kc number of correlations; N total sample size; 2 between-studies variance. a Results are based on non-self-rated outcome measures. b Results are based on self-rated outcome measures. p .01.
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again implying the potential existence of moderators. However, moderator analyses for team empowerment were not feasible, given the relatively limited number of primary studies and the lack of relevant information (e.g., task interdependence) reported in primary studies.
Homology of Empowerment Relationships Across Levels

Table 5 summarizes the results of Hypothesis 8, which proposes identical homology across individual and team levels. Our results show that the effect size for the four antecedents (i.e., high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership, and work design characteristics) and the one outcome (i.e., task performance) were not significantly different across levels of analysis. For example, the relationship of high-performance managerial practices to empowerment at the individual level was statistically significant (corrected coefficient .52, p .01) and the relationship at the team level was not significantly different from the individual-level relationship (corrected coefficient .05, ns). These results support the hypothesis of identical homology across levels, because they show that empowerment demonstrates relationships that do not differ in direction or magnitude at the individual and team levels.
Boundary Conditions for Psychological EmpowermentWork Outcomes Relationships

Table 6 presents the results of the exploratory moderator analyses for the effect of individual level psychological empowerment on work outcomes. Industry was the only variable that moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction. Employees in the service industry reacted to psychological empowerment more positively in terms of job satisfaction than did employees in manufacturing industries. Likewise, only one variable, culturally distinct geographic region, moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and task performance. In particular, psychological empowerment had a significantly higher correlation with task performance in Asia than in North America.5
Construct Validity of Unitary Psychological Empowerment

The next set of analyses addresses Research Question 3, which concerns the construct validity of the unitary psychological empowerment construct. First, we argued that evidence of discriminant validity among the four empowerment subdimensions would undermine the use of the unitary, second-order psychological empowerment construct, because it would suggest that each subdimension has a unique pattern of relationships with outcome variables. This set of analyses therefore examined the discriminant validity of the four psychological empowerment subdimensions against the available outcome variables of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, strain, task performance, OCB, and innovation at work. The results of the conditional random effect models are displayed in Table 7. Note that the meta-analytic correlations for the behavioral outcomes are based on the full set of studies (including self- and non-self-rated behaviors). The results suggest
that the four subdimensions did not significantly differ among themselves as predictors of any of the outcomes except organizational commitment. Subsequent analyses with competence used as the base category show that competence is a significant predictor of organizational commitment but is a significantly weaker predictor than meaning and impact.6 Overall, there is little evidence of discriminant validity among the four psychological empowerment subdimensions. This provides support for the use of a unitary psychological empowerment construct. Second, we directly compared the effect size (i.e., validity as a predictor) of the unitary psychological empowerment construct and the effect sizes of the four empowerment subdimensions as predictors of our outcome variables. To the extent that any of the subdimensions demonstrate a stronger relationship with an outcome variable than does the unitary construct, use of the unitary construct is less justifiable. A conditional model was examined in which the unitary measure of psychological empowerment was coded as the reference group and each of the subdimensional measures were coded with dummy variables. The results of the conditional model analyses are reported in Table 8. In no case did an empowerment subdimension demonstrate a stronger relationship with an outcome variable than did the unitary psychological empowerment construct. As one example, competence and self-determination are significantly weaker predictors of organizational commitment ( .37, p .01; .27, p .05, respectively) than is the unitary psychological empowerment construct. Eighteen of the 24 possible comparisons indicate no statistically significant difference in the variance explained by psychological empowerment relative to the empowerment subdimensions. As posited by LePine et al. (2002), when there is no difference in the validity of the global construct relative to the subdimensions, there is no advantage in using the separate subdimensions in an analysis. Therefore, our results again suggest that use of the unitary psychological empowerment construct is most appropriate. Finally, we argued that in order to justify use of the single, global psychological empowerment construct, the four subdimensions of empowerment should load together on a single higher order construct. In order to test this proposition, we computed the corrected meta-analytic correlations among the four subdimensions. The correlations among the subdimensions are presented in Table 9. The mean corrected correlation among the four subdimensions is .50, which is relatively high. A confirmatory factor model was specified in which the first-order constructs of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact were each loaded onto a single second-order latent construct representing psychological empowerment. According to standards specified by Hu and
5 We also examined conditional models with the other two groups (e.g., service and public) under each moderator (e.g., industry) as the base category respectively. However, we did not find any new significant differences than the two reported in Table 6. Therefore, the results of these additional analyses were not reported. 6 For all other dependent variables (i.e., job satisfaction, strain, task performance, OCB, and innovation), the same comparison analyses were conducted with the other three dimensions used as the base category. No significantly different relationships were found. Thus, the results of these comparisons were not reported.
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Table 5 Conditional Model Estimates of the Homology of Antecedent and Outcome Relationships With Empowerment Across the Individual and Team Levels
Fixed effect High-performance managerial practices Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Socio-political support Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Leadership Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Work design characteristics Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Task performance Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Task performancea Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Task performanceb Individual-level psychological empowerment Team-level empowerment Uncorrected coefficient .40 .05 .39 .02 .45 .06 .48 .12 .26 .11 .22 .11 .34 .22 Corrected coefficient .52 .05 .52 .11 .59 .11 .66 .12 .38 .19 .27 .19 .61 .04 K d; K c; N 27; 27; 12,357 7; 7; 875 49; 49; 21,659 3; 3; 519 51; 51; 16,979 11; 11; 1,162 12; 12; 3,907 6; 6; 829 34; 34; 8,774 20; 20; 1,843 22; 22; 6,118 18; 18; 1,561 12; 12; 2,656 6; 6; 584
Note. Individual-level psychological empowerment is the base category; Kd number of different studies; Kc number of correlations; N total sample size. a b Results are based on non-self-rated outcome measures. Results are based on self-rated outcome measures. p .01.
Bentler (1999), the resulting model demonstrated good fit, 2(2) 357.79, p .01, standardized root-mean-square residual .035, comparative fit index .97, and the loading for each of the subdimensions was statistically significant (see Figure 2). An alternative model in which the empowerment perceptions were each treated as independent factors (i.e., a four-factor model with no higher order factor) provided a poor fit to the data, 2(6) 12,786.57, p .01, standardized root-mean-square residual .39, comparative fit index .18. The one-factor hierarchical model was thus retained as the best representation of the data.
Discussion Summary of Findings and Theoretical Contributions

The present study represents the only meta-analytic assessment of psychological empowerment to date. Overall, our findings support and extend many of the key propositions of psychological empowerment theory. One of our theoretical objectives was to synthesize an integrated model of the antecedents and outcomes associated with the sociostructural (e.g., Kanter, 1977) and psychological (Spreitzer, 1995b; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990) approaches to empowerment. In terms of antecedents, a range of contextual variables was strongly associated with individual-level psychological empowerment, including perceptions of high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership, and work design characteristics. Human capital variables such as age, education, and tenure displayed a small positive association with psychological
empowerment. However, these individual characteristics show a weaker influence than the contextual variables on psychological empowerment, and we caution readers not to make substantive interpretations, given the small magnitudes of these associations. Although Kanters (1977) early observations were that women were given little power in organizations and thus did not feel psychologically empowered, gender has a small and statistically nonsignificant relationship with psychological empowerment. The exception to these weak effects for individual characteristics is the finding that positive self-evaluation traits are as strongly associated with psychological empowerment as any of the contextual antecedents. In terms of consequences, our findings reveal psychological empowerment to be strongly related to important employee attitudes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Consistent with Karaseks (1979) demands-control model, our results also show that more empowered individuals reported lower levels of strain. Our results further show that psychological empowerment has moderate effects on individual-level behavioral outcomes such as job performance, OCBs, and innovative performance. Together, these results show that psychological empowerment can be influenced by a range of contextual variables and individual traits and is in turn associated with important employee attitudes and work behaviors. We also examined antecedents and consequences of teamlevel empowerment. Our results show that all of the contextual antecedents that are correlated with individual-level psycholog-
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Table 6 Conditional Model Estimates of Moderation Effects for Industry, Occupation, and Geographic Region on the Relationship of Psychological Empowerment with Outcomes
Fixed effect Uncorrected coefficient Job satisfaction Industry (Kd 46; Kc 46; N 15,527) Manufacturinga Service Public Occupation (Kd 35; Kc 35; N 11,279) Nonmanageriala Professional Managerial Culturally distinct geographic region (Kd 43; Kc 43; N 15,465) Asiaa North America Latin America Task performance Industry (Kd 30; Kc 30; N 7,695) Manufacturinga Service Public Occupation (Kd 20; Kc 20; N 4,731) Nonmanageriala Professional Managerial Culturally distinct geographic region (Kd 30; Kc 30; N 8,420) Asiaa North America Middle East .35 .11 .10 .28 .05 .02 .37 .14 .16 .49 .10 .14 .37 .11 .01 .70 .39 .45 .43 .18 .13 .58 .02 .01 .57 .02 .25 .53 .28 .17 .71 .26 .04 .75 .10 .27 Corrected coefficient
Note. Kd number of different studies; Kc number of correlations; N total sample size. a The base category. All other coefficients represent the difference between each of the other categories and the base category. p .05. p .01.
ical empowerment also demonstrate strong relationships with team-level empowerment. Team empowerment also has positive effects on team performance. Further, we explored the extent to which homology (Chen, Bliese, & Mathieu, 2005) is demonstrated by empowerment across the individual and team levels of analysis. Our results show that parallel constructs have relationships that do not differ significantly across levels of analysis, at least for the constructs available for this meta-analysis. Almost since the inception of psychological empowerment theory, researchers have argued that empowerment is functionally equivalent across these two levels of analysis (e.g., Chen et al., 2007; Kirkman & Rosen, 1997, 1999), although they have been vague about the specific type of homology. Our results establish identical homology across levels, extending the parsimony, breadth, and explanatory power of empowerment theory. We also examined boundary conditions around the effectiveness of psychological empowerment. Results indicated that the effects of psychological empowerment on job satisfaction tend to be strongest in the service sector. However, this industry difference did not emerge against task performance. Thus, although empowerment allows service work to be experienced as more fulfilling, this satisfaction does not necessarily translate into higher performance. This may be due to the fact that performance in a service environment, such as a customer
purchase, is only indirectly affected by employee attitudes. Our results also provided evidence that psychological empowerment has relatively stronger effects on task performance (but not satisfaction) in Asia than in North America. We speculate that psychological empowerment might be more effective in collectivist cultures because members of such cultures may react more strongly to cues promoting identification and inclusiveness, such as psychological empowerment. On the other hand, this result may have less to do with cultural values and more to do with the standard work arrangements in the Asian settings sampled. A small increase in empowerment may lead to greater improvements in performance if the initial baseline for these arrangements is low. Either way, our results serve to reinforce calls for future research on cultural values or region and psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 2008). That said, perhaps the most important result of our moderator analyses is the robust positive effects of psychological empowerment across industry, occupation, and culturally distinct geographic region, which again extends the breadth of psychological empowerment theory by suggesting that the benefits of empowerment extend across a wide range of contexts. The final objective of the study was to assess the validity of Spreitzers (1995b) theoretical conceptualization of the psycho-
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Table 7 Conditional Model Estimates for Relationship of Psychological Empowerment Dimensions to Outcomes
Fixed effect Job satisfaction (Kd 17; Kc 58; N 6,207) Intercept (meaning) Self-determination Impact Competence Organizational commitment (Kd 9; Kc 34; N 3,215) Intercept (meaning) Self-determination Impact Competence Strain (Kd 8; Kc 32; N 2,681) Intercept (meaning) Self-determination Impact Competence Task performance (Kd 11; Kc 41; N 2,651) Intercept (meaning) Self-determination Impact Competence OCB (Kd 5; Kc 18; N 993) Intercept (meaning) Self-determination Impact Competence Innovation (Kd 3; Kc 11; N 896) Intercept (meaning) Self-determination Impact Competence Uncorrected coefficient .51 .08 .05 .17 .52 .11 .06 .31 .28 .04 .04 .04 .14 .13 .04 .01 .22 .05 .00 .17 .10 .07 .10 .05 Corrected coefficient .64 .08 .04 .19 .65 .14 .06 .33 .34 .05 .08 .02 .19 .07 .08 .01 .31 .08 .00 .32 .11 .09 .12 .07
Note. Meaning was the base category. All other coefficients represent the difference between each variable and the meaning base group. Kd number of different studies; Kc number of correlations; N total sample size; OCB organizational citizenship behavior. p .05. p .01.
logical empowerment construct. Conditional random effects models failed to provide evidence for discriminant validity among the four psychological empowerment dimensions but did show that the unitary or global psychological empowerment construct was at least as strongly related to outcomes as any of the subdimensions. A confirmatory factor analysis based on meta-analytically derived correlations supports the view that psychological empowerment forms a single, second-order latent construct. Together, these analyses provided strong support for Spreitzers (1995b) conceptualization of psychological empowerment as a single second-order construct made up of the four cognitions of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact.
Practical Contributions
One key practical implication of this study is the conclusion that empowerment is an effective approach for improving employee attitudes and work behaviors in a broad range of contexts (i.e., industries, occupations, and geographic regions). The concept of employee empowerment has stirred controversy almost since its introduction into the management literature. Although popular accounts have sometimes made exaggerated claims regarding the lightning-like ability of empowerment to revitalize organiza-
tions (e.g., Byham, 1997), others have noted high failure rates for empowerment interventions in organizations (e.g., Argyris, 1998; Hardy & Leiba-OSullivan, 1998; Randolph, 1995) and have cautioned practitioners that empowerment is a chimera, like the emperors new clothes (Argyris, 1998). Although we do not examine the effectiveness of empowerment interventions in this study, our research framework (see Figure 1) does provide a clear set of factors that practitioners might focus upon if they wish to increase psychological empowerment in their organization. For example, at the organizational level, it appears that high-performance managerial practices (i.e., extensive use of training, open information sharing, decentralization, participative decision making, and contingent compensation) can be used to promote a more psychologically empowered workforce. Promoting effective forms of leadership and supportive peer relationships within the work unit should also play an important role in empowering employees. Consistent with job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1980), the design of the work itself can be used to promote psychological empowerment. Finally, our results suggest that all of these factors will be effective in promoting empowerment whether employees work as individuals or as members of teams.
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Table 8 Conditional Model Estimates for Differences Between Studies Using Global Psychological Empowerment (PE) and Studies Using PE Dimensions
Fixed effect Job satisfaction (Kd 43; Kc 84; N 15,637) Global PE Meaning Self-determination Impact Competence Organizational commitment (Kd 21; Kc 45; N Global PE Meaning Self-determination Impact Competence Strain (Kd 18; Kc 42; N 7,281) Global PE Meaning Self-determination Impact Competence Task performance (Kd 29; Kc 59; N 7,993) Global PE Meaning Self-determination Impact Competence OCB (Kd 14; Kc 27; N 5,635) Global PE Meaning Self-determination Impact Competence Innovation (Kd 8; Kc 16; N 2,027) Global PE Meaning Self-determination Impact Competence Uncorrected coefficient Corrected coefficient .52 .01 .13 .06 .19 10,815) .50 .01 .14 .06 .29 .29 .07 .08 .09 .05 .30 .14 .10 .08 .13 .30 .14 .09 .08 .19 .27 .17 .10 .07 .12 .70 .06 .27 .15 .37 .40 .05 .10 .14 .08 .48 .29 .24 .21 .28 .37 .17 .12 .09 .21 .30 .19 .11 .07 .13 number of different studies; .66 .02 .16 .08 .21
Note. Global psychological empowerment was coded as the base category. Kd Kc number of correlations; N total sample size. p .05. p .01.
Both sociostructural and psychological approaches to empowerment have focused primary attention on contextual factors as antecedents of empowerment. However, our results show that positive self-evaluation traits are as strongly associated with psychological empowerment as any of the contextual antecedents. Therefore, a practical implication of our results is that organizations might consider selecting employees who have positive selfevaluation traits to help establish a workforce that is more willing and able to show initiative and take an active role in improving its own performance. An issue of practical importance, especially to employees and labor union leaders, concerns the extent to which empowerment may be a form of managerial rhetoric designed to increase topdown managerial control (e.g., Argyris, 1998; Barker, 1993) or camouflage a work intensification strategy (e.g., Harley et al., 2007). Our results show that psychologically empowered employees report experiencing less rather than more strain, suggesting that these employees at least perceive more control at work. However, we must caution readers that we do not know how often organi-
zations employ the rhetoric of empowerment but fail to follow through by altering any of the key antecedents that lead to a more psychologically empowered workforce. Dynamics around the implementation of empowerment and the rate of failure associated with empowerment change efforts are important areas for future applied research.
Limitations and Future Research

We should note several limitations of our study. First, caution should be exercised in interpreting causality among variables. Although we classified variables as antecedents or consequences based on theoretical considerations, the majority of the primary studies were cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. We therefore suggest that more longitudinal research be done on empowerment in order to better determine the causal direction of relationships inherent in empowerment theory (Spreitzer, 2008). Second, there is evidence that additional moderators may operate for virtually all of the relationships observed in our study, but
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Table 9 Population Correlations Among Psychological Empowerment Dimensions

Dimension 1. Meaning 2. Competence r [95% CI] rc [95% CI] K (N)
2
.41 [.35, .48] .50 [.43, .58] 30 (9,458) .079 .43 [.36, .48] .50 [.42, .56] 28 (8,225) .050 .40 [.35, .45] .46 [.40, .52] 28 (8,225) .033 .41 [.33, .47] .50 [.40, .57] 29 (8,282) .094 .34 [.26, .42] .41 [.30, .50] 29 (8,282) .104 .53 [.47, .58] .62 [.55, .67] 30 (8,331) .068
3. Self-determination r [95% CI] rc [95% CI] K (N)

2
4. Impact r [95% CI] rc [95% CI] K (N)

2
Note. r uncorrected population correlation; 95% CI 95% confidence interval around the population correlation; rc population correlation corrected for unreliability; K number of studies; N total sample size; 2 between-studies variance. p .01.
sufficient information to examine these moderators was not available in the primary studies. For instance, although we found some effects for geographic region, we were not able to examine the moderating role of specific cultural variables. Future cross-cultural research might include individualism collectivism and power distance variables to better understand the cultural region effects found here. Third, although our theoretical framework guided the choice of our study variables, we acknowledge that empowerment may have a broader range of antecedents and consequences than those included in our meta-analysis. For example, psychological empow-
erment may decrease the level of employee withdrawal or counterproductive work behavior, yet we were unable to examine this possibility due to the lack of primary studies. Additional studies relating empowerment to voice and other forms of proactive behaviors (Parker & Collins, 2010) also have the potential to significantly extend psychological empowerment theory. Also, a more complete set of wellness outcomes (Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, & Grant, 2005) should be highly relevant in future research. The need to consider a broader range of antecedents and consequence is even more pressing at the team level of analysis. We found enough primary studies to examine only one team empowerment outcome: team performance. Thus, we suggest an expansion of the criterion space of team empowerment to include outcomes such as team satisfaction or viability. Moreover, on the antecedent side, a number of other team structure, composition, and process variables might help scholars better understand how or when team empowerment is likely to arise or be effective. For example, how does team personality composition affect team-level empowerment (Bell, 2007; Stewart, 2006)? Do team members experience more conflict or burnout in empowered teams? Future research should examine the ways that team dynamics affect both team and individual empowerment. Finally, we were able to conduct this meta-analysis using only employee perceptions of organization-level antecedents of psychological empowerment. Recent research demonstrates the utility of examining individual perceptions of high-performance managerial practices (Liao et al., 2009), but a more complete model of empowerment would include both organizational level and individual level data. The strength of our findings suggests that future research might seek greater integration of psychological empowerment theory with other existing theories of work behavior. For example, our findings suggest that leadership is as strongly related to empowerment as other antecedents more traditionally associated with empowerment, such as organizational policies and work design characteristics. Although some of the earliest proponents of em-
Psychological empowerment
.65**
.63**
.81**
.73**
Meaning
Competence
Selfdetermination 1.0
Y3
Impact
1.0
Y1
1.0
Y2
1.0
Y4
Figure 2. Standardized factor loadings of the first-order subdimensions on the second-order psychological empowerment factor. Indices: 2(2) 357.79, p .01, standardized root-mean-square residual .035, comparative fit index .97. p .01.
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powerment emphasized the role of organizational leaders (e.g., Bennis & Nanus, 1985), only more recently have leadership researchers begun to regard psychological empowerment as an integral part of their models (e.g., Kark et al., 2003; Liden et al., 2000). Thus, closer integration of leadership and psychological empowerment theories appears to be an important development meriting further investigation. In addition, human resource strategy researchers (e.g., Combs et al., 2006; Liao et al., 2009) have begun to recognize psychological empowerment as a relevant individual-level outcome of high-performance managerial practices. Psychological and team empowerment should therefore be examined as an important mediator in research on leadership, human resource strategy, and other theories of employee behavior. Similarly, our findings regarding the strong effects of sociopolitical support suggest that psychological empowerment be more closely integrated into models of organizational support. Researchers in the stress area could examine whether psychological empowerment is more effective than control alone as a buffer of the stress or strain relationship. The strength of the relationships between psychological empowerment and various workplace attitudes and behaviors compares favorably with some of the most robust motivation theories in the field, such as goal setting (Mento, Steel, & Karren, 1987; Tubbs, 1986) and job design theory (Fried & Ferris, 1987; Humphrey et al., 2007). The inclusion of OCBs and innovation as outcomes suggests that psychological empowerment theory is relevant to a broader range of work behavior than is often found in these other prominent motivation theories. Future research might therefore explore greater integration between psychological empowerment theory and theories of motivation based on a self-regulatory framework, such as goalsetting theory (Locke & Latham, 2002), regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), or regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000). A number of important questions arise. For example, do empowered employees or teams set more difficult goals or demonstrate more commitment to those goals? Is empowerment more associated with regulatory focus or the strategy and means used to approach goals? Can empowerment interventions have unintended negative consequences if they alter regulatory strategies but not regulatory focus, thus producing regulatory nonfit? Integration of psychological empowerment theory with these theories of motivation might extend the range of processes and outcomes to which both sets of theories apply. Many multilevel theories in the field of organizational behavior remain metaphoric and thus lack precision of prediction (Kozlowski et al., 1999). Our findings demonstrate identical homology across individual and team levels and support efforts to establish such homology for other multilevel theories. Given our finding regarding the strong effect of positive self-evaluation traits, theories of team composition and performance might pay more attention to the way this trait affects team performance. From a methodological point of view, the conditional random effects models we used to test multilevel homology in this paper can be used as a template for other meta-analyses that examine theories with multiple level implications. Finally, our results provide strong support for Spreitzers (1995b) original conceptualization of psychological empowerment as a unitary construct or gestalt reflecting the four specific cognitions. Although it remains valid to develop more detailed
theories concerning the specific empowerment subdimensions (e.g., self-determination theory, social-cognitive theory), the strong intercorrelations among the subdimensions suggest that in workplace settings the four cognitions that make up psychological empowerment are likely to occur together; thus, little is to be gained by examining them as separate constructs. It is therefore appropriate to develop hypotheses for psychological empowerment as a global construct.
Conclusion
In sum, the results of this meta-analysis confirm psychological empowerment theory as an important approach to individual and team motivation in the workplace. They show that psychological empowerment can be conceptualized as a unitary second-order construct made up of four distinct subdimensions. Psychological empowerment perceptions can be shaped by contextual antecedents and individual characteristics and can have benefits for employees and for organizations across a variety of contexts. We hope these conclusions promote further research on and implementation of empowerment at work.
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(Appendices follow)
1002
Appendix A Primary Study Variable Labels Included in Antecedents, Correlates, and Consequences of Individual-Level Psychological Empowerment
High-performance managerial practices Organization learning orientation practices Organizational-level context factors (i.e., organizational rigidity and inflexibility) Empowerment management practices Participation in goal setting High-performance work system Participatory decision making Human resource practices (i.e., information sharing, pay-for-performance, participation) Reward, recognition, and training Incentives Rewards Information sharing and rewards Structural empowerment Management practices (i.e., organization helps Supervisor control of rewards (i.e., using a decentralized employees gain skills at work) reward system) Organizational empowerment Training and rewards Adequacy of training Competency-based reward Socio-political support Access to resources Organizational support Cohesion Peer support Communication and support of management Perceived organizational support Formalization (i.e. extent to which organization has Perception of accountability (i.e., extent to which managers formal rules) feel uncertain and exposed about meeting goals) Information privacy practices (i.e., organization seeks approval about how it uses employees personal information) Resource availability Innovative climate Social exchanges Justice/fairness perceptions (i.e., procedural, distributive, interactional) Social political support Organizational climate Supportive organizational environment Organizational culture Team member exchange Trust (i.e., in management and peers) Work group climate Positive leadership Managerial behaviors Managerial control (i.e., setting clear priorities for followers) Participative leadership Trust in leader Supervisor supportiveness Supervisory working alliance Transformational leadership Trust in leader
Authentic leadership Autonomy support from leader Charismatic leadership Communication with supervisor Developmental experiences from leader Empowering leadership Leader approachability Leadermember exchange Leader support
Work design characteristics Job characteristics Role overload Job enrichment Role clarity Job-related context factors (i.e., constant feedback about performance) Routineness of tasks Role ambiguity Task feedback Work characteristics Positive self-evaluation traits Need for achievement and need for power (i.e., confident being in charge) Self-consciousness
Core self-evaluation General self-efficacy Locus of control Motivation to lead
(Appendices continue)
1003
Appendix A (continued)
Attitudinal consequences Propensity to leave the organization Turnover intentions Strain Burnout Job pressure Job-related strain Perceived stress Psychological strain Psychological withdrawal behavior Time stress and anxiety Work stress consequences Work effectiveness Organizational citizenship behaviors Change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior Contextual performance Extrarole behavior Organizational citizenship behavior Submitting suggestions Innovation Creativity Creative performance Innovative behavior
Job satisfaction Job satisfaction Promotion satisfaction Work satisfaction Organizational commitment Affective commitment Commitment to quality Organizational commitment Organizational involvement Turnover intentions Intent to leave Intent to remain
Behavioral Task performance Behavioral empowerment (i.e., perseverance in achieving the standards of quality) In-role performance Job performance Managerial effectiveness Objective job performance Productivity Quality of patient care Service performance Task performance
Appendix B Primary Study Variable Labels Included in Antecedents and Consequences of Team-Level Psychological Empowerment
High-performance managerial practices Knowledge management system High performance work system Human resource decisions Socio-political support Executive management support Perceived organizational support Positive leadership Delegation (by leader) External leadership Leadership climate Performance management by external leader Work design characteristics Role clarity Routineness of tasks Task feedback Team task performance Customer service ratings (for team) Group performance Safety performance Team effectiveness Team performance Team productivity Work unit performance Task interdependence Team workload Work design Organizational support Socialized charismatic leadership Supervisor support Transformational leadership Organizational decentralization Empowerment climate
Received September 30, 2009 Revision received November 30, 2010 Accepted December 10, 2010

Antecedents and Consequences of Psychological and Team Empowerment

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Journal of Applied Psychology 2011, Vol. 96, No.

2011 American Psychological Association 0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0022676

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

Attitudinal Consequences Job Satisfaction Organizational Commitment

Strain Turnover Intentions Behavioral Consequences Task performance OCB

Individual Characteristics Positive Self-Evaluation Traits Human Capital Gender

Integrated individual and team empowerment framework.

Hypotheses Contextual Antecedents of Psychological Empowerment

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

Individual Characteristics Associated With Psychological Empowerment

Relative Effects of Contextual Factors and Individual Characteristics

Attitudinal Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

Behavioral Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

Homology of Empowerment Relationships Across Individual and Team Levels

Antecedents and Consequences of Team-Level Empowerment

Boundary Conditions of Psychological Empowerment

Method Identification of Studies and Criteria for Inclusion

Construct Validity of Psychological Empowerment

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

Results Antecedents of Psychological Empowerments

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

Table 1 Meta-Analytic Antecedents of Individual-Level Psychological Empowerment (ILPE)

High-performance managerial practices Social-political support Leadership Work design characteristics

.82 .81 .88 .75

27; 49; 51; 12;

27; 49; 51; 12;

12,357 21,659 16,979 3,907

.075 .091 .131 .080

Positive self-evaluation traits Gender (M 0; F 1) Education Job level Tenure Age

.129 .013 .003 .032 .008 .010

Attitudinal and Behavioral Consequences of Psychological Empowerment

.33 .30 .16 .24 .23

.52 .49 .32 .41 .41

.34 .05 .05 .11 .14

.52 .00 .00 .07 .14

Table 3 Meta-Analytic Consequences of Individual-Level Psychological Empowerment (ILPE)

Job satisfaction Organizational commitment Strain Turnover intentions

.82 .79 .73 .85

53; 31; 20; 17;

53; 31; 20; 17;

17,875 14,344 7,764 8,384

.078 .084 .082 .042

.80 .84 .74 .84 .84 .85 .92 .93

.153 .028 .480 .123 .120 .133 .041 .010

Antecedents and Consequences of Team-Level Empowerment

Table 4 Meta-Analytic Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment

.76 .73 .82 .76

7; 7; 875 3; 3; 519 11; 11; 1,162 6; 6; 829 6; 6; 328

.029 .147 .144 .157 .030

Team performance Team performancea Team performanceb

.76 .77 .87

.36 [.25, .45] .32 [.21, .41] .52 [.40, .63]

.51 [.35, .64] .43 [.26, .58] .60 [.48, .69]

20; 20; 1,854 18; 18; 1,561 6; 6; 583

.176 .156 .024

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

Homology of Empowerment Relationships Across Levels

Boundary Conditions for Psychological EmpowermentWork Outcomes Relationships

Construct Validity of Unitary Psychological Empowerment

Discussion Summary of Findings and Theoretical Contributions

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT

SEIBERT, WANG, AND COURTRIGHT