Employee Empowerment and Job Satisfaction in the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy

TLDR

Employee empowerment practices have been widely adopted in public organizations across Europe, the Pacific Rim, and North America. This study conceptualizes employee empowerment as a multifaceted approach that shares information, resources, rewards, and authority with lower‑level employees. The authors employ Self‑Determination Theory to theorize how these empowerment practices influence job satisfaction. Empowerment practices that promote self‑determination—such as sharing goals, providing knowledge, and granting discretion—significantly enhance job satisfaction, whereas practices that undermine autonomy, like contingent rewards, have no meaningful effect.

Abstract

Employee empowerment practices have been widely adopted in public organizations in Europe, the Pacific Rim, and North America. In this study, employee empowerment is conceptualized as a multifaceted approach composed of various practices aimed at sharing information, resources, rewards, and authority with lower level employees. Self-Determination Theory is used to theorize about the effects of these different empowerment practices on job satisfaction. The results of the empirical analysis, based on 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) data, indicate that empowerment practices aimed at promoting self-determination (i.e., sharing information about goals and performance, providing access to job-related knowledge and skills, and granting discretion to change work processes) have positive and sizable effects on job satisfaction. Conversely, empowerment practices that undermine autonomy (i.e., offering contingent-based rewards) have no meaningful effect on job satisfaction.