DOI: 10.5176/2251-1970_BizStrategy16.4
Authors: Thomas W. H. Ng
Abstract: Little effort has been made to integrate the empowerment and diversity literature within the organizational sciences. Undertaking such an attempt, I examined how feelings of empowerment and diversity membership interacted to affect job satisfaction, the most frequently examined work outcome in both the empowerment and diversity literature. The investigation is guided by two prominent theories of self-regulation—the selfverification and self-enhancement theories. In Study 1, I found that feelings of empowerment had a stronger positive effect on non-White employees’ job satisfaction than on White employees’, supporting the self-enhancement perspective. Study 2, on the contrary, demonstrated that feelings of empowerment had a weaker positive effect on female employees’ job satisfaction than on male employees’, supporting the self-verification perspective. Study 3 found that feelings of empowerment did not interact with education level to affect job satisfaction. Reconciliation of these findings is discussed.
Keywords: empowerment; race; gender; education.
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