Structural and psychological empowerment climates, performance, and the moderating role of shared felt accountability: a managerial perspective.

The authors proposed and tested a model in which data were collected from managers (n = 539) at 116 corporate-owned quick service restaurants to assess the structural and psychological empowerment process as moderated by shared-felt accountability on indices of performance from a managerial perspective. The authors found that empowering leadership climate positively relates to psychological empowerment climate. In turn, psychological empowerment climate relates to performance only under conditions of high-felt accountability; it does not relate to performance under conditions of low-felt accountability. Overall, the present results indicate that the quick-service restaurant managers, who feel more empowered, operate restaurants that perform better than managers who feel less empowered, but only when those empowered managers also feel a high sense of accountability.

[1]  Richard,et al.  Motivation through the Design of Work: Test of a Theory. , 1976 .

[2]  P. Tetlock.  Accountability: The neglected social context of judgment and choice. , 1985 .

[3]  A. Bandura.  Social Foundations of Thought and Action , 1986 .

[4]  H. P. Sims,et al.  Leading Workers to Lead Themselves: The External Leadership of Self-Managing Work Teams. , 1987 .

[5]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice , 1988 .

[6]  Robert A. Giacalone,et al.  Impression management in the organization. , 1989 .

[7]  B. R. Schlenker,et al.  Self-identification and accountability. , 1989 .

[8]  Bernhard Wilpert,et al.  Applied psychology : an international review , 1989 .

[9]  S. West,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. , 1994 .

[10]  Patricia M. Fandt.  The Relationship of Accountability and Interdependent Behavior to Enhancing Team Consequences , 1991 .

[11]  J. Hackman.  Group influences on individuals in organizations. , 1992 .

[12]  Michael E. Enzle,et al.  Surveillant intentions and intrinsic motivation. , 1993 .

[13]  J. Barker.  Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-Managing Teams , 1993 .

[14]  G. Spreitzer.  PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT IN THE WORKPLACE: DIMENSIONS, MEASUREMENT, AND VALIDATION , 1995 .

[15]  Gerald R. Ferris,et al.  Handbook of human resource management , 1995 .

[16]  D. Ulrich.  From The Ground Up: Six Principles for Building the New Logic Corporation , 1996 .

[17]  G. Spreitzer.  Social structural characteristics of psychological empowerment , 1996 .

[18]  D. Chan.  Functional Relations among Constructs in the Same Content Domain at Different Levels of Analysis: A Typology of Composition Models , 1998 .

[19]  Richard J. Klimoski,et al.  Toward a theory of accountability in organizations and human resource management. , 1998 .

[20]  Bradley L. Kirkman,et al.  Beyond Self-Management: Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment , 1999 .

[21]  David L. Corsun,et al.  Predicting Psychological Empowerment Among Service Workers: The Effect of Support-Based Relationships , 1999 .

[22]  D. Hofmann,et al.  The Structure and Function of Collective Constructs: Implications for Multilevel Research and Theory Development , 1999 .

[23]  P. Bliese.  Within-group agreement, non-independence, and reliability: Implications for data aggregation and analysis. , 2000 .

[24]  S. Kozlowski,et al.  Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods in Organizations: Foundations, Extensions, and New Directions , 2000 .

[25]  D. Zohar.  A group-level model of safety climate: testing the effect of group climate on microaccidents in manufacturing jobs. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[26]  S. Parker,et al.  Future work design research and practice: Towards an elaborated model of work design , 2001 .

[27]  Sanjay T. Menon,et al.  Employee Empowerment: An Integrative Psychological Approach , 2001 .

[28]  S. West,et al.  A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. , 2002, Psychological methods.

[29]  P. Shrout,et al.  Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: new procedures and recommendations. , 2002, Psychological methods.

[30]  D. Zohar.  The effects of leadership dimensions, safety climate, and assigned priorities on minor injuries in work groups , 2002 .

[31]  Paul R. Jackson,et al.  The effect of empowerment on job knowledge: An empirical test involving operators of complex technology , 2003 .

[32]  Linda L. Neider,et al.  New directions in human resource management , 2003 .

[33]  A. Kinicki,et al.  Organizational Culture and Climate , 2003 .

[34]  Carl P. Borchgrevink,et al.  Customer service providers' attitudes relating to customer service and customer satisfaction in the customer-server exchange. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[35]  Robert E. Ployhart,et al.  The Cross-Cultural Equivalence of Job Performance Ratings , 2003 .

[36]  P. Warr,et al.  Organizational climate and company productivity: The role of employee affect and employee level , 2004 .

[37]  Martha S. Feldman,et al.  Resources in Emerging Structures and Processes of Change , 2004, Organ. Sci..

[38]  Seth R. Silver,et al.  Taking Empowerment to the Next Level: A Multiple-Level Model of Empowerment, Performance, and Satisfaction , 2004 .

[39]  Michele J. Gelfand,et al.  Culture and accountability in organizations: Variations in forms of social control across cultures , 2004 .

[40]  Lisa Dragoni,et al.  Understanding the emergence of state goal orientation in organizational work groups: the role of leadership and multilevel climate perceptions. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[41]  J. Mathieu,et al.  Conceptual Framework and Statistical Procedures for Delineating and Testing Multilevel Theories of Homology , 2005 .

[42]  Nathan P. Podsakoff,et al.  A Meta-Analytic Test of the Challenge Stressor–Hindrance Stressor Framework: An Explanation for Inconsistent Relationships Among Stressors and Performance , 2005 .

[43]  M. D. Dunnette.  Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology , 2005 .

[44]  B. Fredrickson,et al.  Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. , 2005, The American psychologist.

[45]  J. Mathieu,et al.  To Empower or Not to Empower Your Sales Force? An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Leadership Empowerment Behavior on Customer Satisfaction and Performance , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[46]  J. Peiró,et al.  Linking organizational resources and work engagement to employee performance and customer loyalty: the mediation of service climate. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[47]  Gerald R. Ferris,et al.  Negative affectivity as a moderator of the form and magnitude of the relationship between felt accountability and job tension , 2005 .

[48]  J. Mathieu,et al.  Empowerment and team effectiveness: an empirical test of an integrated model. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[49]  Martha C. Andrews,et al.  Sure Everyone Can Be Replaced … But At What Cost? Turnover As A Predictor Of Unit-Level Performance , 2006 .

[50]  Wayne A. Hochwarter,et al.  Relationships between felt accountability as a stressor and strain reactions: the neutralizing role of autonomy across two studies. , 2006, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[51]  Darren C. Treadway,et al.  The interaction of social skill and organizational support on job performance. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[52]  W. Davis,et al.  The Interactive Effects of Goal Orientation and Accountability on Task Performance , 2007 .

[53]  Bradley L. Kirkman,et al.  A multilevel study of leadership, empowerment, and performance in teams. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[54]  Rebecca M. Guidice,et al.  Accountability in a Performance Appraisal Context: The Effect of Audience and Form of Accounting on Rater Response and Behavior , 2007 .

[55]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Addressing Moderated Mediation Hypotheses: Theory, Methods, and Prescriptions , 2007, Multivariate behavioral research.

[56]  Bryan D. Edwards,et al.  An examination of factors contributing to a reduction in subgroup differences on a constructed-response paper-and-pencil test of scholastic achievement. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[57]  Dwight D. Frink,et al.  Political skill as neutralizer of felt accountability--job tension effects on job performance ratings: A longitudinal investigation , 2007 .

[58]  John E. Mathieu,et al.  A Multilevel Investigation of the Influences of Employees' Resistance to Empowerment , 2007 .

[59]  Ziguang Chen,et al.  Leader-member exchange and member performance: a new look at individual-level negative feedback-seeking behavior and team-level empowerment climate. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[60]  Chia-Huei Emily Ko,et al.  Organizational and psychological climate: A review of theory and research , 2008 .

[61]  D. Zohar,et al.  Transformational leadership and group interaction as climate antecedents: a social network analysis. , 2008, The Journal of applied psychology.

[62]  Todd J. Arnold,et al.  Work stressors, role-based performance, and the moderating influence of organizational support. , 2009, The Journal of applied psychology.

[63]  Steve Rowlinson,et al.  Empowerment in project teams: a multilevel examination of the job performance implications , 2009 .

[64]  Mark A. Morris,et al.  A TALE OF TWO CLIMATES: DIVERSITY CLIMATE FROM SUBORDINATES’ AND MANAGERS’ PERSPECTIVES AND THEIR ROLE IN STORE UNIT SALES PERFORMANCE , 2009 .

[65]  G. R. Ferris,et al.  Politics as a Moderator of the Accountability—Job Satisfaction Relationship: Evidence Across Three Studies , 2009 .

[66]  Bryan D. Edwards,et al.  Examining the Consequences in the Tendency to Suppress and Reappraise Emotions on Task-Related Job Performance , 2009 .

[67]  K. M. Bartol,et al.  Linking Empowering Leadership and Employee Creativity: The Influence of Psychological Empowerment, Intrinsic Motivation, and Creative Process Engagement , 2010 .