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Prior research suggests that employee empowerment allows employees to step outside of their defined roles, take control of decision making, and drive change to improve organizational performance. At the same time, researchers and the popular press have called for more accountability in organizations, citing examples of leaders’ abuse of power, negligence, unethical behaviors, and even violations of law. Through the lens of both social information processing(SIP) and cognitive dissonance(CD) theories, I examine how both empowerment and accountability climate jointly influence employees’ psychological states (i.e., occupational self-efficacy and felt responsibility), thereby impacting their willingness to exhibit the proactive work behaviors (i.e., personal initiative and taking charge behavior) that contribute to firm success. The study also assesses how supervisor rapport (i.e., interactional justice) and dispositional factors (i.e., regulatory focus) moderate these relationships. Data was collected from two U.S. based medical device companies. The final sample consisted of 116 employees, representing a 55% response rate. Results indicated that accountability climate directly and positively affects employees’ proactive work behaviors, albeit via different mediators that those proposed. However, empowerment climate did not directly influence either of the proactive work behaviors but indirectly influenced an employees’ personal initiative via the employees’ occupational self-efficacy. Taken together, it seems that both climate domains influence employees’ exhibiting of proactive work behaviors, but likely through different mechanisms.
The Contrary Influences of Empowerment and Accountability Climates on Proactive Work Behavior
TAKEAWAYS
Via SIP and CD theory both the extrinsic and intrinsic effects on employee behavior are evaluated. Prior research posits Accountability and Empowerment Climates are negatively related, I found them unrelated. Firms should encourage employee empowerment and build self-efficacy regarding as-signed tasks. Firms benefit by ensuring employee understanding of core responsibilities and how those impact the organization. Employee regulatory focus orientation can ensure the right people are placed in the right roles.
William Yaeger (Ph.D. Graduate) Stacey R. Kessler (Dissertation Chair) Paul Spector (Committee Second) Paul Johnson (Reader)
Coles Research Magazine | Ph.D. Program Dissertations
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