The effects of empowerment on attitudes and performance: the role of social support and empowerment beliefs

Human Resource Management International Digest

ISSN: 0967-0734

Article publication date: 25 April 2008

641

Keywords

Citation

Ganster, D.C. (2008), "The effects of empowerment on attitudes and performance: the role of social support and empowerment beliefs", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 16 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2008.04416cad.007

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


The effects of empowerment on attitudes and performance: the role of social support and empowerment beliefs

Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 16, Issue 3.

Logan M.S. Ganster D.C. Journal of Management Studies, December 2007, Vol. 44 No. 8, Start page: 1523, No. of pages: 28

Purpose to evaluate an empowerment intervention designed to change employee perceptions of control and self-efficacy. Design/methodology/approach a review of the literature of employee empowerment and its relationship with control and self-efficacy beliefs is presented to provide the basis for hypotheses relating empowerment intervention with control and self-efficacy variables. Describes the study to test the effects of an empowerment intervention among unit managers working at a large, unnamed trucking company operating in the USA and parts of Canada and Mexico designed to increase the managers’ beliefs in their personal control and self-efficacy with regard to key aspects of their jobs. Reports results of a randomized field experiment and questionnaire survey involving two groups of study subjects with one group comprising 38 employees assigned to the an intervention group and the other group comprising 30 employees assigned to a control group with no treatment (the follow-up telephone survey involved 36 out of the original 38 employees in the treatment group and 23 out of the original 30 employees in the no-treatment group). Findings the results indicated that only those managers who felt that their supervisors were supportive reported that the intervention significantly increased their perceptions of maintenance control and impact four months after the intervention, while archival measures of unit performance and affected work attitudes were also improved by the interventions. Research limitations/implications the research was limited by the way in which such processes as treatment diffusion and compensatory rivalry can obscure the results of this type of randomized study. Originality/value addresses gaps in the empowerment literature by drawing attention to the importance of perceived supervisor social support when implementing organizational change and indicating the ways in which the mediating role of psychological empowerment were seen to run contrary to traditional theory.ISSN: 0022-2380Reference: 37AC070

Keywords: Employees, Empowerment, Organizations, Road transport, Social action, Transport management

Related articles