The influence of job characteristics and organization features on management empowerment: The mediation role of empowerment risk

Empowerment is an effective management tool and has made tremendous benefits for employees and organizations, which has been approved by many studies and practices. However in China, it is so common that managers don´t want to empower. So the main aim of this research is to analyze that phenomenon from the perspective of empowerment risk perception. From the data of 209 managers and 618 subordinates paired, the mediation effect of the empowerment risk perceptions between job characteristics, organization features and the superior´s empowering behavior were tested. The results showed that when managers delegating they would weigh the risks form power-status, organization benefit and task performance. These risks will affect the empowering negatively. The mediation effect of the power-status risk between organization formalization, organization centralization and superiors´ empowering behavior was significant, and the same was the mediation effect of the task performance risk between organization centralization, job uncertainty and empowering behavior. Finally, different strategies about how to improve the empowerment effectiveness were put forward.