Narcissism and Empowerment: How Narcissism Influences the Trickle‐Down Effects of Organizational Empowerment Climate on Performance

• Author: Hui Liao,Jian Han,Seongsu Kim,Joo Hun Han
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12533
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Published date: 01 September 2020

© 2019 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Narcissism and Empowerment: How Narcissism

Influences the Trickle-Down Effects of Organizational

Empowerment Climate on Performance

Joo Hun Hana, Hui Liaob, Seongsu Kimc and Jian Hand

aRutgers, The State University of New Jersey; bUniversity of Maryland; cSeoul National University;

dChina Europe International Business School

ABSTRACT The present study proposes a trickle-down model of employee empowerment in

which empowerment climate at the organization level is positively related to the empower-

ing leadership of team leaders and ultimately to individual task performance. Importantly, we

hypothesize that team leaders’ and members’ narcissism can respectively inhibit and enable

the cross-level empowerment process by affecting the intended distribution of decision-making

authority and resources between team leaders and members. The analysis of data from 834

team members of 189 teams in 46 organizations reveals that organizational empowerment cli-

mate is positively related to team leaders’ empowering leadership when they are less narcissistic.

Empowering leadership is positively related to individual task performance when team members

are highly narcissistic. Finally, we observe that the combination of less narcissistic leaders and

more narcissistic members is a condition under which the indirect effect of organizational em-

powerment climate on individual task performance through empowering leadership is positive.

Keywords: empowering leadership, narcissism, organizational empowerment climate, task

performance

INTRODUCTION

Organizations have adopted diverse structures and practices to foster an empowerment

climate in which employees, individually or as a team, all feel encouraged to act inde-

pendently and in an informed manner and realize that they are accountable for decisions

that affect the organization’s performance (Wallace et al., 2011). Several studies have

documented the positive effects of an empowerment climate on performance outcomes,

such as task performance (e.g., Seibert et al., 2004) and creative performance (e.g., Sun

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:6 September 2020

doi:10. 1111/j om s. 125 33

Address for reprints: Joo Hun Han, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University, Piscataway,

NJ 08854 (jhan@smlr.rutgers.edu).

1218 J. H. Han et al.

© 2019 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

et al., 2012). However, research suggests that organizational efforts to foster an empow-

erment climate often fail, and numerous companies ‘are still struggling to implement

empowerment’ (Maynard et al., 2012, p. 1273). These empowerment struggles may be,

in part, due to the approach adopted to introduce empowering practices. For example,

organizations may not recognize that empowerment takes time to establish before it

reaches its full potential (Yukl and Becker, 2006), or they may adopt programs in a piece-

meal fashion (Forrester, 2000).

Apart from these reasons, the actors involved in empowerment also play a major role

in its implementation. An empowerment climate values and encourages a transfer of

decision-making authority and work resources from managers to employees – or em-

powering leadership—which may not be endorsed by the giver and/or the recipient of

empowerment. Research suggests that managers may refuse to provide employees with

decision-making authority along with the requisite information and support (Greasley

et al., 2005); similarly, employees may not be receptive to expanded responsibilities from

empowering initiatives (Maynard et al., 2007). As a result, the empowerment climate

may not filter down through organizational levels to the extent that it improves employee

performance.

Nevertheless, existing research has not paid sufficient attention to the cross-level pro-

cess of empowerment. That is, ‘little work has considered the cross-level nature of em-

powerment itself and whether being empowered at one level enhances … empowerment

effects at other levels’ (Maynard et al., 2012, p. 1266). As a result, we often assume – but

lack evidence for – the transfer of decision-making authority and resources from man-

agers to employees, which constitutes a key mechanism for the effects of the organi-

zational empowerment climate. Drawing on organizational climate theory (Schneider

et al., 2013), we seek to examine the cross-level factors that link empowerment climate

at the organization level, managers’ empowering leadership at the team level, and task

performance at the individual level.

Furthermore, we aim to identify factors that enable or constrain the cross-level

empowerment process. Managers who fear losing control may not release decision-mak-

ing power even in an empowerment climate (Greasley et al., 2005). When managers

do grant such power, team members may not welcome the expanded responsibilities

that empowerment confers (Sharma and Kirkman, 2015). Therefore, it is essential to

identify the key traits of these actors that represent the conditions that moderate how

organizational empowerment climate cascades through team managers’ empowering

leadership to affect individual performance. However, little research has been con-

ducted on the moderators that influence high-level empowerment or social structural

empowerment in organizations. Research on moderators of empowerment has typically

focused on those for empowering leadership at the dyadic or team level (Cheong et al.,

2019). We thus investigate under what conditions an organizational empowerment climate

more likely leads through managers’ empowering leadership toward team members’

higher performance.

To this end, we note the power transfer inherent in empowerment. In particular, when

employees believe that they can or should hold more decision-making authority and work

resources, they will try to take, rather than relinquish, authority and resources. We pro-

pose that this behaviour can be attributed to narcissism, which is defined as ‘a pervasive