Conflict & Perceptions of Empowerment

Conflict & Perceptions of Empowerment

Although organizational conflict among team members has been researched extensively, less attention has been afforded to conflicts between employees and supervisors.  However, it is important to note how empowerment relates to conflict.  “A higher sense of empowerment implies greater self-control and higher levels of intrinsic motivation through which people can self-manage their work behavior and performance standards” (Chen, Lam, Zhong, 2007).  Typically, “in supervisor - subordinate relationships, technical and administrative issues - which fall into the category of substantive conflicts - were the major topics of disagreements between employees and their supervisors” (Landry, Vandenberghe, 2009).  Instances of conflict resulting from personality clashes or barriers to interpersonal communication (i.e., relationship conflicts) are much less common.  These substantive conflicts (also called issue or task conflicts) refer to differences regarding ideas, opinions, organizational policies and procedures, and differing views on working situations (Landry, Vandenberghe, 2009).

In this particular study, the sample used consisted of 238 supervisor-subordinate dyads drawn from two Chinese limited corporations of the motor manufacturing industry, each with more than 1,500 workers.  Questionnaires focused on Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), empowerment climate, sense of empowerment, negative-feedback seeking behavior, and the insubordinates’ in-role performance, were administered to the groups of employees and supervisors in separate rooms.  The results were as follows:

1. LMX was found to be positively related to negative-feedback seeking behavior.
2. LMX was positively and significantly related to both the objective and subjective in-role performance of the subordinates.
3. Negative feedback-seeking behavior partially mediated the links between LMX and the subordinates’ objective and subjective in-role performance (Chen, Lam, Zhong, 2007). 

In summary, "subordinates’ feedback-seeking behavior was found to mediate the relationship between LMX and work performance, a team’s empowerment climate was found to be positively related to subordinates’ sense of empowerment, and the moderating effect of LMX and empowerment was found to negatively moderate the LMX-performance link” (Chen, Lam, Zhong, 2007).

References:

Chen, Z., Lam, W., & Zhong, J.A. (2007). Leader-Member Exchange & Member

            Performance: A new look at Individual-Level Negative-Feedback Seeking

            Behavior & Team-Level Empowerment Climate [Electronic version].

            Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(1), 202-212.

Landry, G., Vandenberghe, C. (2009). Role of Commitment to the Supervisor,

            Leader-Member Exchange, & Supervisor-Based Self-Esteem in

Employee-Supervisor Conflicts [Electronic version]. Journal of Applied Psychology, 149(1), 5-27.