Dimensions and Patterns in Employee Empowerment: Assessing What Matters to Street-Level Bureaucrats

Empowerment ofpublic employees has been touted as an important mediating step in improving public organizational outcomes, yet such a relationship depends on an assumption that employees value what is offered as empowerment. This qualitative study explored the assumption through in-depth interviews of streetlevel bureaucrats in a large state human service agency. The interviews support previous research that empowerment is multidimensional; five patterns in empowerment were found. Empowerment programs must consider what each individual employee values. Employee empowerment has grown in importance in public administration. Early concern for employees as human resources and for the social aspects of work grew into the Quality of Work Life movement and such other efforts (e.g., McGregor 1960; Peters and Pierre 2000). The new public administration and the reinventing government movements have emphasized empowering employees (Marini 1971; Osborne and Gaebler 1992; DeWitt et al. 1994). Empowerment has become "one of the buzzwords of the hour" (Clark 1999, 5). We appreciate the comments of the anonymous referees. J-PART 12(2002):3:377-400 Two opposing viewpoints regarding employee empowerment appear in the literature. Some theorists imply that there exists, at least functionally, a relatively uniform understanding of empowerment, and they argue for implementing standardized programs (e.g., Rumelt 1974; Denhardt 1984; Wallace 1992; Balk, 1996). On the other hand, researchers have often found that empowerment is individually, contextually, and variably defined (e.g., Zimmerman 1995; Quinn and Spreitzer 1997; Foster-Fishman et al. 1998). These researchers argue for an understanding of a wide range of employee empowerment, varying across people even in the same setting. Yet, 377/Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory This content downloaded from 157.55.39.162 on Thu, 11 Aug 2016 05:37:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Patterns in Employee Empowerment despite understanding empowerment differently, both viewpoints support employee empowerment programs. Each viewpoint bases its argument on the same assumption. They assume that workers value empowerment and, thus, empowering workers will result in greater job satisfaction, more consistent ethical behavior, improved customer service, increased efficiency and productivity, better outcomes, and so forth. In other words, both viewpoints assume that all employees value empowerment and that the desired consequences will necessarily result from empowerment programs. Questions regarding this fundamental assumption have been raised. For example, Argyris (1998) suggested that for some employees empowerment is too much work. Clark (1999, 5) highlighted the problems that can arise with the empowering of employees who "take comfort in the old authority structure, knowing what the rules are and how they can protect their jobs." These authors have proposed that employees may not want to be empowered. This study focuses on this question and suggests that the assumption of value in empowerment may not hold. The study explored this fundamental value assumption in public employees who provide direct services to citizens: street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky 1980). Street-level bureaucrats have been the focus of employee empowerment programs, especially in recent welfare reform. Thus caseworkers in federal public assistance programs are relevant informants. This study asks the question, However they may define it, how do street-level bureaucrats value empowerment?