Effects of Ability Utilization, Job Influence and Organization Commitment on Employee Empowerment: An Empirical Study

This study examined the relationship between selected organizational and job variables and empowerment. A survey, using established scales, was administered to 103 employees in a chemical plant in the southeastern region of the United States. The results found a positive relationship between empowerment and ability utilization, job influence and organization commitment. Suggestions for managers and organizations wanting to empower their employees and capitalize on its benefits are provided. The limitations of the study and directions for further research are discussed. In recent years empowerment has been a very popular idea in organizations because global competition and rapid technological change has required that organizations make substantial changes to the way they manage their employees. In order for them to be more competitive, flexible and adaptive to the changing environment in which they operate, they have to develop new ways of managing their employees to get the most out of them. Employee empowerment is one such change initiative that organizations have focused on, particularly as it is considered to be critical to organization innovation (Spreitzer 1995) and one of the main ingrethents of organization effectiveness (Conger and Kanungo, 1988; Kanter (1989). At the very center of empowerment is the view that it increases an individual employees' level of motivation because authority has been delegated to the lowest possible level in an organization where a decision can be made (Conger and Kanungo, 1988; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990) Scholars have defined empowerment in two distinct ways. As a relational construct, empowerment pertains to one's power and control over co-workers, and to the transference of such power and control from management to an employee with less decision-making authority (Koberg, Boss, Senjem, & Goodman, 1999). With respect to employee perception, however, investigators have more broadly defined empowerment, holding that the construct constitutes cognitions needed for employees to consider themselves empowered (Spreitzer, Kizilos, & Nason, 1997). Spreitzer (1995) calls this psychological empowerment. Currently, many researchers accept Thomas and Velthouse's (1990) notion that empowerment constitutes intrinsic task motivation and manifests through four cognitions: sense of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. Sense of meaning indicates a congruency between one's personal values, beliefs, and behaviors and those required by one's work role or job (Brief & Nord, 1990). In other words the value of the task or job ranks high in the individual's values system (Liden, Wayne & Sparrowe, 2000). Competence, or self-efficacy, constitutes a belief that one has the abilities, confidence, and skills to perform one's job duties well (Gist, 1987). Self-determination involves the belief that one autonomously decides how to carry out one's work and experiences a sense of control over one's work (Greenberger & Strasser, 1991). Impact refers to one's belief that one's completed work tasks directly affect organizational outcomes (Ashforth, 1989). In other words the individual believes that his or her job behavior makes a difference to organizational outcomes (Thomas V Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000) and in supply companies (Arnold, Arad, Rhoades, & Drasgow, 2000). Spreitzer (1996) found a number of antecedents of empowerment including an individual's self- esteem, organizational support, access to information, participation, and a work unit with little role ambiguity. Gomez and Rosen (2001) for example found that the quality of leader-member relations mediates the linkage between managerial trust and employee empowerment . …