Narcissism and Empowerment: How Narcissism Influences the Trickle-Down Effects of Organizational Empowerment Climate on Performance

Joo Hun Han, Hui Liao, Seongsu Kim, Jian Han

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

The present study proposes a trickle-down model of employee empowerment in which empowerment climate at the organization level is positively related to the empowering leadership of team leaders and ultimately to individual task performance. Importantly, we hypothesize that team leaders’ and members’ narcissism can respectively inhibit and enable the cross-level empowerment process by affecting the intended distribution of decision-making authority and resources between team leaders and members. The analysis of data from 834 team members of 189 teams in 46 organizations reveals that organizational empowerment climate is positively related to team leaders’ empowering leadership when they are less narcissistic. Empowering leadership is positively related to individual task performance when team members are highly narcissistic. Finally, we observe that the combination of less narcissistic leaders and more narcissistic members is a condition under which the indirect effect of organizational empowerment climate on individual task performance through empowering leadership is positive.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1217-1245
Number of pages29
JournalJournal of Management Studies
Volume57
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Business and International Management
  • Strategy and Management
  • Management of Technology and Innovation

Keywords

  • empowering leadership
  • narcissism
  • organizational empowerment climate
  • task performance

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