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Team Empowerment

Definition

“Shared perceptions among team members with respect to their team’s collective level of empowerment.” (Chen et al., 2007, p. 332)

Key References

  • Kirkman, B. L., & Rosen, B. (1999). Beyond Self-Management: Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment. Academy of Management Journal, 42(1), 58–74. https://doi.org/10.2307/256874
    • Introduction of commonly used team empowerment measure, multi-organization study of team empowerment, evaluated antecedents, outcomes, and mediation relationships of team empowerment utilizing Kirkman & Rosen 1997 framework.
  • Kirkman, B. L., Rosen, B., Tesluk, P. E., & Gibson, C. B. (2004). The Impact of Team Empowerment on Virtual Team Performance: The Moderating Role of Face-to-Face Interaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(2), 175–192. https://doi.org/10.5465/20159571
    • Virtual team context, observed a positive relationship between virtual team performance (process improvement & customer satisfaction) and team empowerment, the number of times the team met face to face moderated the process improvement and performance relationship such that it was nonsignificant in when the frequency was high.
  • Seibert, S. E., Wang, G., & Courtright, S. H. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment in organizations: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(5), 981–1003. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022676
    • Meta-analysis of empowerment on the individual psychological level and the team level, identified multiple antecedents of team empowerment (e.g. leadership, team size) and higher performance, proposed integrated level framework for both levels of empowerment.

Key Measurements

  • Spreitzer 1995: survey, 12 items, 7-point Likert scale, alpha = .94, four subscales (1. competence, 2. impact, 3. meaning, 4. self-determination)
    • Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442–1465. https://doi.org/10.5465/256865
  • Kirkman & Rosen 1999: Team Empowerment Scale, survey, originally 26 items, -shortened in 2004 version to 12 items, alpha = .87, 7-point Likert scale, four subscales (1. autonomy, 2. impact, 3. meaningfulness, 4. potency)
    • Kirkman, B. L., & Rosen, B. (1999). Beyond Self-Management: Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment. Academy of Management Journal, 42(1), 58–74. https://doi.org/10.5465/256874

Recent Articles

  • Seibert, S. E., Wang, G., & Courtright, S. H. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment in organizations: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(5), 981–1003. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022676
    • Found that team empowerment is positively related to team success, and team psychological empowerment is related positively to many outcomes including job satisfaction and task performance.
  • Maynard, M. T., Gilson, L. L., & Mathieu, J. E. (2012). Empowerment—FAD or Fab? A multilevel review of the past two decades of research. Journal of Management, 38(4), 1231–1281. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206312438773
    • Summarizes research that antecedents psychological empowerment at the individual, team, and organizational level.
  • Pieterse, A. N., van Knippenberg, D., Schippers, M., & Stam, D. (2009). Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior: The moderating role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(4), 609–623. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.650
    • Conducted a field study to demonstrate that transformational leadership is positively related to innovative behaviors only when psychological empowerment is high.