Empowerment has emerged as a component of recent public management reforms and a trend in both public and private organizations. This study builds on research on empowerment by creating a model that explains why some managers empower their employees and others do not. Hypotheses about the role of both individual and organizational variables are tested, and the results provide evidence for connections among race, education, organizational resources, task difficulty, and empowerment. Findings reject hypotheses related to empowerment as a trend, leading to the conclusion that empowerment may be nothing more than a recycled version of Theory Y and people-oriented leadership.
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