Cognitive Elements of Empowerment: An “Interpretive” Model of Intrinsic Task Motivation

TLDR

The article discusses preliminary evidence for the model and its broader research implications. The article presents a cognitive model of empowerment that defines empowerment as increased intrinsic task motivation and identifies four cognitions—sense of impact, competence, meaningfulness, and choice—as its basis. The model centers on workers' interpretive styles and global beliefs, using the four task assessments to explain empowerment. Using an interpretive perspective, the model describes the cognitive processes by which workers arrive at these empowerment conclusions.

Abstract

This article presents a cognitive model of empowerment. Here, empowerment is defined as increased intrinsic task motivation, and our subsequent model identifies four cognitions (task assessments) as the basis for worker empowerment: sense of impact, competence, meaningfulness, and choice. Adopting an interpretive perspective, we have used the model also to describe cognitive processes through which workers reach these conclusions. Central to the processes we describe are workers' interpretive styles and global beliefs. Both preliminary evidence for the model and general implications for research are discussed.