Performance consequences of psychological empowerment

Abstract

The relationship between psychological empowerment and job performance, and whether three intermediate performance determinants; motivation, ability, and opportunity to perform hold the key to unlocking the empowerment-performance relationship dilemma are addressed. Using hierarchical linear modeling to analyze responses from 380 project management-level staff, the results show that psychological empowerment not only has direct and positive performance consequences, but also indirect effects, mediated by intrinsic motivation, opportunity to perform and ability to perform. The findings provide preliminary evidence in support of a comprehensive model of work performance that takes into consideration not only motivation and ability but opportunity to perform. Indeed, opportunity to perform actually emerged as a stronger mediator in the psychological empowerment-contextual performance behaviors relationship than ability to perform. The findings of both direct and indirect relationships however demonstrate that the relationship between empowerment and performance is more complex than previously thought. Yet, by demonstrating that empowered employees exhibit positive performance behaviors, psychological empowerment clearly emerges as a valuable path for organizations to pursue in their search for performance improvement in project settings. © 2009 ASCE.