Empowering leadership: A meta‐analytic examination of incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2220
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Author: Allan Lee,Amy Wei Tian,Sara Willis
• Date: 01 March 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Empowering leadership: A meta‐analytic examination of

incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation

Allan Lee

1

|Sara Willis

2*

|Amy Wei Tian

3*

1

Exeter Business School, University of Exeter,

Exeter, U.K.

2

Alliance Manchester Business School,

University of Manchester, Manchester,

Greater Manchester, U.K.

3

Curtin Business School, Curtin University,

Bentley, Western Australia, Australia

Correspondence

Allan Lee, Exeter Business School, University

of Exeter, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive,

Exeter, EX4 4PU, U.K.

Email: allan.lee@exeter.ac.uk

Summary

The concept of empowering leadership (EL) has seen increasing scholarly interest in recent years.

This study reports a meta‐analysis investigating the effects of EL on employee work behavior. On

the basis of data from 105 samples, we found evidence for the positive effects of EL on perfor-

mance, organizational citizenship behavior, and creativity at both the individual and team levels.

We further examined these relationships by exploring potential boundary conditions and the

incremental contribution of EL over transformational leadership and leader–member exchange.

Furthermore, at the individual level, both trust in leader and psychological empowerment

mediated the relationships of EL with task performance, organizational citizenship behavior,

and creativity. We also found evidence that leader–member exchange was a significant mediator

between EL and task performance. At the team level, empowerment mediated the effects of EL

on team performance, whereas knowledge sharing showed no significant indirect effect. Our

results have important theoretical and practical implications and suggest some areas that require

further research.

KEYWORDS

empowering leadership, meta‐analysis, organizational citizenship, performance, psychological

empowerment, trust in leader

1|INTRODUCTION

Increasing competition in the business landscape, economical shifts,

and technological developments have brought with them changes in

organizational structures and in the nature of work. Alongside efforts

to maximize efficiency, many organizations are flattening their

hierarchies and, as a consequence, are expanding the responsibilities

of lower level employees and the complexity of their work roles

(e.g., Biemann, Kearney, & Marggraf, 2015). Correspondingly, within

the leadership literature, interest has grown in leadership approaches

that match these changes in the business environment and enable

organizations to better cope with rapid, continuous change and the

associated uncertainties they face (Srivastava, Bartol, & Locke, 2006).

The concept of empowering leadership (EL) is particularly germane to

such situations due to its focus on promoting self‐management and

removing the constraints of powerlessness (Conger, 1989; Manz &

Sims, 1987). Amundsen and Martinsen (2014) propose that the EL

process involves three core aspects: sharing power, motivational

support, and development support. Through these three ways, leaders

promote followers' psychological empowerment and capability, which

positively influences their performance and job attitudes.

A body of empirical research supports the positive effects of EL on

a wide range of work‐related outcomes (e.g., Ahearne, Mathieu, &

Rapp, 2005; Chen, Sharma, Edinger, Shapiro, & Farh, 2011; Lorinkova,

Pearsall, & Sims, 2013). However, there have also been concerns about

the potential negative effects of empowerment (e.g., Wilkinson, 1998),

and most recently, EL has been examined from a more critical perspec-

tive that considers both its benefits and drawbacks (e.g., Cheong,

Spain, Yammarino, & Yun, 2016; Mathieu, Gilson, & Ruddy, 2006).

Given these theoretical tensions and the recent proliferation of studies

examining EL, a quantitative review of the extant literature is timely.

The purpose of the present paper is to conduct a meta‐analysis

that brings together the existing body of research on EL and serves

as a breakpoint to guide future research that further explores the com-

plexities of the EL process. We focus on exploring the link between EL

and follower performance‐related behaviors. In doing so, we provide

three primary contributions to the leadership literature. First, the lead-

ership literature has been criticized for tending to focus on only one

*

These authors contributed equally.

Received: 23 August 2016 Revised: 14 June 2017 Accepted: 21 July 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2220

306 Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2018;39:306–325.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

particular approach without careful evaluation of its distinctiveness or

relative influence compared to other leadership models (e.g., Piccolo

et al., 2012). Therefore, by exploring the empirical distinctiveness of

EL in comparison to the two most studied leadership constructs, trans-

formational leadership (TL) and leader–member exchange (LMX), we

can determine whether EL accounts for unique variance in key behav-

ioral outcomes (at both the individual and team levels) and thus assess

the value that EL adds to the leadership literature.

The meta‐analysis makes a second contribution by exploring a

number of moderators that may influence the relationship between

EL and employee behavior, particularly task performance. Some

scholars argue that EL holds less value in connection with more routine

tasks associated with core task performance as opposed to more

discretionary or innovative behaviors (e.g., Martin, Liao, & Campbell,

2013). Further, it is argued that in some circumstances, EL may have

a negative effect on task performance (e.g., Cheong et al., 2016).

Accordingly, our analysis explores the cultural context (i.e., vertical‐col-

lectivistic vs. horizontal‐individualistic), the level of industry capital

intensity, and followers' organizational tenure as potential moderators

of the link between EL and individual task performance. Exploring

these possible moderating factors will further the understanding as

to when EL is more likely to influence follower behavior.

The third contribution of this meta‐analysis is the examination of

the mechanisms through which EL is linked to individual‐and team‐

level behavior. Most research has drawn on a motivation‐based mech-

anism, which suggests that empowering leaders influences subordinate

behavior through psychological empowerment and/or associated vari-

ables such as intrinsic motivation (e.g., Boudriasm, Gaudreau, Savoie, &

Morin, 2009). Yet there are theoretical reasons to believe that trust in

leader and LMX might be additional mediators (e.g., Huang, Iun, Liu, &

Gong, 2010), although this has rarely been tested empirically. Social

exchange theory (e.g., Blau, 1964) provides a theoretical alternative

to psychological empowerment and one that may explain additional

variance in the link between EL and employee behavioral outcomes.

Hence, another key purpose of the meta‐analysis is to advance EL

theory by exploring both trust in leader and LMX as exchange‐based

mechanisms and comparing their relative explanatory power to

psychological empowerment (a motivation‐based mechanism). Further,

at the team level, we explore team empowerment and knowledge

sharing as mediators between team‐level EL and team performance.

2|LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS

DEVELOPMENT

2.1 |Empowering leadership: Conceptualization and

measurement

Empowering leadership is defined as leader behavior directed at indi-

viduals or teams that involves delegating authority to employees, pro-

moting their self‐directed and autonomous decision making, coaching,

sharing information, and asking for input (see Sharma & Kirkman, 2015,

for a review). As alluded to above, for many organizations, creating

conditions that enable the psychological empowerment of their

employees is deemed critical for success. Accordingly, scholars have

been preoccupied with conceptualizing the notion of empowerment

(e.g., Spreitzer, 1995, 1996; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). This research

can be largely split into two main approaches (see Mathieu et al., 2006).

The first approach can be labeled as a structural form of empowerment

as it focuses on empowerment afforded by the external context

(i.e., one's leader). The second approach considers empowerment as a

four‐dimensional psychological state based on employees' perception

of (a) meaningfulness, (b) competence, (c) self‐determination, and (d)

impact (e.g., Spreitzer, 1995). This psychological approach focuses on

the degree to which employees actually feel empowered. Clearly, these

two approaches are linked, and a great deal of research seeks to under-

stand the degree to which structural empowerment actually translates

into an employee's psychological state. EL is an example of a structural

form of empowerment as it represents leader behavior that attempts to

createthe conditions where followerswill feel a sense of empowerment.

One might argue that the best way to engender empowerment in

employees is to remove external leadership altogether and allow teams

to be entirely self‐managing. However, it is clear that the absence of

external leadership is not a realistic way of creating empowerment;

in fact, it can result in individuals and teams feeling abandoned by their

organizations (e.g., Hackman, 1990) and is often named as the main

reason why self‐managed teams fail (Manz & Sims, 1987). Instead,

scholars have developed the concept of EL to describe leadership

behavior that is particularly conducive to the development of psycho-

logical empowerment. Over the years, several teams of scholars have

provided measurements of EL. Commonly used measurement scales

include the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire developed by

Arnold, Arad, Rhoades, and Drasgow (2000) and the Leader

Empowering Behavior Questionnaire developed by Konczak, Stelly,

and Trusty (2000), as well as scales developed by Ahearne et al.

(2005), Kirkman and Rosen (1999), and, more recently, Amundsen

and Martinsen (2014). With the exception of Kirkman and Rosen

(1999), all these scales include various subdimensions of EL (see

Amundsen & Martinsen, 2014). However, in the literature, the vast

majority of the empirical research treats the scales as unidimensional.

Although a number of scales designed to measure EL exist, prior

research has paid little attention to demonstrating the extent to which

these scales are distinct from one another. For instance, although

Amundsen and Martinsen (2014) criticized previous measurement

scales for lacking rigorous studies of validity and reliability, in the

development of their own scale, they did not include any comparison

with previous scales. Although scholars may disagree on the best

way to measure EL, researchers seem to agree that fundamentally EL

encompasses a set of leader behaviors intended to produce empower-

ment in subordinates. Thus, an ancillary aim of the current meta‐anal-

ysis is to compare the effects of different EL scales to look for

differences in their predictive power.

2.2 |Main effects of empowering leadership

2.2.1 |Individual‐level performance outcomes

At its core, EL involves a set of leader behaviors aimed at enhancing

employees' autonomy and motivation at work through delegating

leaders' responsibilities and authorities to their employees (e.g., Zhang

& Bartol, 2010). In terms of task performance, through behaviors such

LEE ET AL.307