The organizational empowerment scale
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480310467624 |
| Pages | 297-318 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| Author | Russell A. Matthews,Wendy Michelle Diaz,Steven G. Cole |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
The organizational
empowerment scale
Russell A. Matthews, Wendy Michelle Diaz and
Steven G. Cole
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Keywords Empowerment, Environmental impact assessment, Human resource management
Abstract The purpose of the present research is to develop a reliable and valid scale to distinguish
and measure the three environmental factors of dynamic structural framework, control of
workplace decisions, and fluidity in information sharing that are conceptually related to and affect
an employee’s perception of empowerment. By quantifying the environmental factors that facilitate
empowerment through a valid and reliable scale human resource departments will be provided with
information that will suggest environmental changes they can implement to improve perceptions of
empowerment on the part of employees. Strengths and weaknesses of the scale developed, the
organizational empowerment scale, are also discussed.
Pervasive in the empowerment literature is the conclusion that an empowered
workforce will lead to achieving a competitive advantage (Conger and
Kanungo, 1988; Forrester, 2000; Quinn and Spreitzer, 1997; Sundbo, 1999;
Thomas, 2000). If one accepts that conclusion, it becomes important to know
how a company determines what should be done in order to increase employee
perception of empowerment.
With the varying views of empowerment within the business context,
several definitions of empowerment have been produced (e.g. Leslie et al., 1998;
Randolph, 1995; Spreitzer, 1995; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990; Wilkinson,
1998). Spreitzer (1997), after an extensive review of the literature, defined two
general perspectives of empowerment within a business context, the relational
perspective and the psychological perspective. Relational empowerment has
been referred to in the literature as top-down processing (Conger and Kanungo,
1988) as well as mechanistic (Quinn and Spreitzer, 1997; Wilkinson, 1998). It is
the belief that empowerment occurs when higher levels within a hierarchy
share power with lower levels within the same hierarchy (Siegall and Gardner,
2000; Spreitzer, 1997; Wilkinson, 1998), and is the most widely studied
perspective. The relational perspective maintains that it is the implementation
of new processes and the distribution of power that empower employees. On
the other hand, the psychological perspective of empowerment focuses on the
employee’s perception of empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995, 1997; Thomas and
Velthouse, 1990). Researchers studying psychological empowerment, also
known as organic or bottom-up processing, maintain that empowerment is
achieved only when psychological states produce a perception of empowerment
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Organizational
empowerment
scale
297
Received April 2002
Revised August 2002
Accepted October 2002
Personnel Review
Vol. 32 No. 3, 2003
pp. 297-318
qMCB UP Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/00483480310467624
within the employee (Mishra and Spreitzer, 1998; Quinn and Spreitzer, 1997;
Wilkinson, 1998).
The present authors agree with Quinn and Spreitzer (1997) that one
perspective of empowerment is not necessarily better than the other. They
propose that a possible reason why empowerment programs fail is because
company decision makers are divided on how they perceive the best way to
empower employees, utilizing either the relational or the psychological
approach. It is suggested that, to develop a truly empowering program,
elements must be drawn from both perspectives.
Although interest in empowerment has led to the development of several scales
that are intended to measure levels of empowerment in a workplace setting (e.g.
Spreitzer, 1995; Konczak et al., 2000), the present authors could find no scale that
encompasses both perspectives of empowerment in a diagnostic manner.
Spreitzer (1995) focused on the psychological perspective of empowerment to
develop a nomological network understanding of empowerment in the workplace.
Spreitzer’s nomological network of empowerment adds to Thomas and
Velthouse’s (1990) initial development of an empowerment model. A four-
component model that measures an employee’s sense of meaning, competence,
impact, and self-determination is proposed.
Spreitzer (1995) defines meaning to be when an individual perceives a
connection between their job and their own personal standards (Thomas and
Velthouse, 1990). Meaning occurs when one’s job tasks and one’s personal
values, beliefs, and behaviors possess a degree of fit (Brief and Nord, 1990).
Competence is an individual’s belief that he/she possesses the ability to
perform necessary activities. Self-determination is defined as an individual’s
perception of choice in the tasks that he/she undertakes (Deci et al., 1989).
Impact is the amount of influence a person feels he/she has on certain work
outcomes. These four components, or states, Spreitzer cites as being necessary
for empowerment interventions to be effective.
Spreitzer (1995) developed a psychological empowerment scale to measure
the degree to which a person is psychologically empowered in their
workplace. However, Spreitzer’s scale does not lend itself to obvious macro-
level uses on an organizational or team-based level. The reason why the scale
does not lend itself to macro-level uses is that it does not facilitate the
development and execution of strategic human resource (HR) practices
intended to increase empowerment levels of employees. While the scale does
serve as an instrument to be used in the determination of baseline levels of
psychological empowerment, it does not provide a company with the
information necessary to develop empowerment.
A second scale related to empowerment is the Leader Empowering Behavior
Questionnaire (LEBQ) by Konczak et al. (2000). The LEBQ was designed to
measure if managers display empowering behaviors that facilitate the
perception of psychological empowerment within employees. The six
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