Psychological empowerment: Definition, measurement, and validation

Psychological empowerment was defined from the perspective of the individual employee, and a measure was developed using three different samples. The psychologically empowered state was considered to be a cognitive state characterized by a sense of perceived control, perceptions of competence, and internalization of the goals and objectives of the organization. Using an initial sample of 311 employed individuals (41% women, 45% Francophone), a 9-item, 3-factor scale of psychological empowerment was developed with subscale reliabilities as follows: perceived control(.83), perceived competence (.80), and goal internalization (.88). In the validation sample of 66 employees from a single organization, empowerment as measured by the scale was negatively related to organizational centralization while being positively related to delegation.