Abstract
Empowerment comes at a time when global competition and change require people to take initiative and be innovative. Based on the active, persistent, and change-oriented behaviors associated with psychological empowerment, the chapter states that empowerment can contribute to entrepreneurship. The dimensions of empowerment that suggest a theoretical and empirical link with entrepreneurial behavior are discussed. Several propositions regarding the interplay between empowerment and entrepreneurship are formulated. The chapter describes paths to promote empowerment and entrepreneurship in applied context and suggests future directions to advance research on empowerment in the field of entrepreneurship.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ai Noi, L., & Youyan, N. (2017). Teachers’ perceptions of school leaders’ empowering behaviours and psychological empowerment. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 45(2), 260–283. doi:10.1177/1741143215578448
Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 10(1), 123–167.
Andersson, P. (2008). Happiness and health: Well-being among the self-employed. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37(1), 213–236.
Anna-Maija, N. (2015). The relationship between supervisor support and individual improvisation. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 473–488. doi:10.1108/LODJ-07-2013-0098
Ashforth, B. E. (1989). The experience of powerlessness in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 43(2), 207–242.
Avolio, B. J., Zhu, W., Koh, W., & Bhatia, P. (2004). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: Mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(8), 951–968.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Company.
Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Collier Macmillan.
Benis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders. New York: Harpers and Row.
Benz, M., & Frey, B. S. (2004). Being independent raises happiness at work. Swedish Economic Policy Review, 11(2), 95–134.
Bird, B. (1988). Implementing entrepreneurial ideas: The case for intention. Academy of Management Review, 13(3), 442–453.
Bischoff, K. M., Gielnik, M. M., & Frese, M. (2014). Entrepreneurship training in developing countries. In W. Reichman (Ed.), Industrial and organizational psychology help the vulnerable (pp. 92–119). New York: Springer.
Blanchflower, D. G. (2004). Self-employment: More may not be better (No. w10286). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Boudrias, J. S., Morin, A. J. S., & Lajoie, D. (2014). Directionality of the associations between psychological empowerment and behavioural involvement: A longitudinal autoregressive cross-lagged analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 87(3), 437–463.
Bowen, D. E., & Lawler, E. E. (1995). Empowering service employees. Sloan Management Review, 36(4), 73.
Burke, W. (1986). Leadership as empowering others. In S. Srivastva (Ed.), Executive power (pp. 51–77). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Carayannis, E. G., Samara, E. T., & Bakouros, Y. L. (2015). Innovation and entrepreneurship. In E. G. Carayannis, E. T. Samara, & Y. L. Bakouros (Eds.), Theory, policy and practice (p. 218). Switzerland: Springer.
Chen, C. C., Greene, P. G., & Crick, A. (1998). Does entrepreneurial self-efficacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers? Journal of Business Venturing, 13(4), 295–316.
Datta, P. B., & Gailey, R. (2012). Empowering women through social entrepreneurship: Case study of a women’s cooperative in India. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(3), 569–587.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1987). The support of autonomy and the control of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1024.
Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2005). Psychological empowerment and subjective well-being. In D. Narayan (Ed.), Measuring empowerment: Cross-disciplinary perspectives (pp. 125–140). Washington, DC: World Bank.
El Hallam, H., & St-Jean, É. (2016). Nurturing entrepreneurial learning through mentoring. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 21(02), 1650012. doi:10.1142/s1084946716500126
Frese, M. (2009). Toward a psychology of entrepreneurship: An action theory perspective. Boston: Now Publishers Inc.
Frese, M., & Fay, D. (2001). 4. Personal initiative: An active performance concept for work in the 21st century. Research in Organizational Behavior, 23, 133–187.
Frese, M., & Gielnik, M. M. (2014). The psychology of entrepreneurship. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 413–438.
Frese, M., & Zapf, D. (1994). Action as the core of work psychology: A German approach. Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4, 271–340.
Fuller, J. B., Morrison, R., Jones, L., Bridger, D., & Brown, V. (1999). The effects of psychological empowerment on transformational leadership and job satisfaction. The Journal of Social Psychology, 139(3), 389–391.
Georgsdottir, A. S., & Getz, I. (2004). How flexibility facilitates innovation and ways to manage it in organizations. Creativity and Innovation Management, 13(3), 166–175.
Gielnik, M. M., Frese, M., Kahara-Kawuki, A., Katono, I. W., Kyejjusa, S., Ngoma, M., et al. (2015). Action and action-regulation in entrepreneurship: Evaluating a student training for promoting entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14(1), 69–94.
Glaub, M., & Frese, M. (2011). A critical review of the effects of entrepreneurship training in developing countries. Enterprise Development and Microfinance, 22(4), 335–353.
Glaub, M. E., Frese, M., Fischer, S., & Hoppe, M. (2014). Increasing personal initiative in small business managers or owners leads to entrepreneurial success: A theory-based controlled randomized field intervention for evidence-based management. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 13(3), 354–379.
Goodman, M. L., Lloyd, L. E., Selwyn, B. J., Morgan, R. O., Mwongera, M., Gitari, S., et al. (2016). Factors associated with general self-efficacy and resilience among youth heads of households in Kenya. Journal of Health Psychology, 21(10), 2229–2246.
Grant, A. M., & Ashford, S. J. (2008). The dynamics of proactivity at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 28, 3–34.
Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Hemang, J., Shailendra, S., & Manish, K. (2017). How does transformational leadership influence proactive customer service behavior of frontline service employees? Examining the mediating roles of psychological empowerment and affective commitment. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 30(1), 30–48. doi:10.1108/JEIM-01-2016-0003
Hisrich, R. D. (1990). Entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship. American Psychologist, 45(2), 209.
Ireland, R. D., Hitt, M. A., & Sirmon, D. G. (2003). A model of strategic entrepreneurship: The construct and its dimensions. Journal of Management, 29(6), 963–989.
Kanter, R. M. (1984). Change masters. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kark, R., Shamir, B., & Chen, G. (2003). The two faces of transformational leadership: Empowerment and dependency. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 246.
Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110(2), 265.
Krauss, S. I., Frese, M., Friedrich, C., & Unger, J. M. (2005). Entrepreneurial orientation: A psychological model of success among southern African small business owners. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 14(3), 315–344.
Krueger, N. F., & Brazeal, D. V. (1994). Entrepreneurial potential and potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 18, 91–91.
Lee, M., & Koh, J. (2001). Is empowerment really a new concept? International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(4), 684–695.
Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (1996). Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance. Academy of Management Review, 21(1), 135–172.
Malhotra, A., Schuler, S. R., & Boender, C. (2002). Background paper prepared for the World Bank workshop “Poverty and Gender: New Perspectives”. Washington, DC: World Bank.
McGee, J. E., Peterson, M., Mueller, S. L., & Sequeira, J. M. (2009). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy: Refining the measure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(4), 965–988.
McKenzie, D., & Woodruff, C. (2013). What are we learning from business training and entrepreneurship evaluations around the developing world? The World Bank Research Observer, 29 (1), 48–82.
Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K. H. (1986). Plans and the structure of behavior. New York: Adams Bannister Cox.
Mueller, S. L., & Thomas, A. S. (2001). Culture and entrepreneurial potential: A nine country study of locus of control and innovativeness. Journal of Business Venturing, 16(1), 51–75.
Narayan-Parker, D. (2005). Measuring empowerment: Cross-disciplinary perspectives. World Bank Publications.
Narayan-Parker, D. (2002). Empowerment and poverty reduction: A sourcebook. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.
Neal, J. W. (2014). Exploring empowerment in settings: Mapping distributions of network power. American Journal of Community Psychology, 53(3-4), 394–406.
Odoardi, C., Montani, F., Boudrias, J.-S., & Battistelli, A. (2015). Linking managerial practices and leadership style to innovative work behavior: The role of group and psychological processes. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 545–569.
Ozer, E. M., & Bandura, A. (1990). Mechanisms governing empowerment effects: A self-efficacy analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(3), 472.
Perkins, D. D., & Zimmerman, M. A. (1995). Empowerment theory, research, and application. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(5), 569–579.
Pieterse, A. N., Van Knippenberg, D., Schippers, M., & Stam, D. (2010). Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior: The moderating role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(4), 609–623.
Rappaport, J. (1987). Terms of empowerment/exemplars of prevention: Toward a theory for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 15(2), 121–148.
Rauch, A., & Frese, M. (2007). Let's put the person back into entrepreneurship research: A meta-analysis on the relationship between business owners' personality traits, business creation, and success. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 16(4), 353–385.
Redmond, M. R., Mumford, M. D., & Teach, R. (1993). Putting creativity to work: Effects of leader behavior on subordinate creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 55(1), 120–151.
Samman, E., & Santos, M. E. (2009). Agency and empowerment: A review of concepts, indicators and empirical evidence. Oxford: University of Oxford.
Seibert, S. E., Silver, S. R., & Randolph, W. A. (2004). Taking empowerment to the next level: A multiple-level model of empowerment, performance, and satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), 332–349.
Seibert, S. E., Wang, G., & Courtright, S. H. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment in organizations: A meta-analytic review. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217–226.
Shane, S. A. (2003). A general theory of entrepreneurship: The individual-opportunity nexus. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Shapero, A. (1975). The displaced, uncomfortable entrepreneur.
Sinha, S., Sinha, S., Priyadarshi, P., Priyadarshi, P., Kumar, P., & Kumar, P. (2016). Organizational culture, innovative behaviour and work related attitude: Role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Workplace Learning, 28(8), 519–535.
Speier, C., & Frese, M. (1997). Generalized self efficacy as a mediator and moderator between control and complexity at work and personal initiative: A longitudinal field study in East Germany. Human Performance, 10(2), 171–192.
Spreitzer, G. (2007). Giving peace a chance: Organizational leadership, empowerment, and peace. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28(8), 1077–1095.
Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442–1465.
Spreitzer, G. M. (1996). Social structural characteristics of psychological empowerment. Academy of Management Journal, 39(2), 483–504.
Spreitzer, G. M. (2008). Taking stock: A review of more than twenty years of research on empowerment at work. In C. Cooper & J. Barling (Eds.), Handbook of Organizational Behavior (pp. 54–72). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Spreitzer, G. M., De Janasz, S. C., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). Empowered to lead: The role of psychological empowerment in leadership. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 511–526.
Spreitzer, G. M., Kizilos, M. A., & Nason, S. W. (1997). A dimensional analysis of the relationship between psychological empowerment and effectiveness satisfaction, and strain. Journal of Management, 23(5), 679–704.
Sun, L.-Y., Zhang, Z., Qi, J., & Chen, Z. X. (2012). Empowerment and creativity: A cross-level investigation. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(1), 55–65.
Thomas, K. W., & Tymon, W. G. (1994). Does empowerment always work: Understanding the role of intrinsic motivation and personal interpretation. Journal of Management Systems, 6(2), 1–13.
Thomas, K. W., & Velthouse, B. A. (1990). Cognitive elements of empowerment: An “interpretive” model of intrinsic task motivation. Academy of Management Review, 15(4), 666–681.
Tornau, K., & Frese, M. (2013). Construct clean-up in proactivity research: A meta-analysis on the nomological net of work-related proactivity concepts and their incremental validities. Applied Psychology, 62(1), 44–96.
Torri, M. C., & Martinez, A. (2014). Women’s empowerment and micro-entrepreneurship in India: Constructing a new development paradigm? Progress in Development Studies, 14(1), 31–48.
Unger, J. M., Keith, N., Hilling, C., Gielnik, M. M., & Frese, M. (2009). Deliberate practice among South African small business owners: Relationships with education, cognitive ability, knowledge, and success. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(1), 21–44.
Wolf, M., Albinsson, P. A., & Becker, C. (2015). Do-It-Yourself Projects as Path toward Female Empowerment in a Gendered Market Place. Psychology and Marketing, 32(2), 133–143. doi:10.1002/mar.20768
Yan, J., & Yan, L. (2016). Individual entrepreneurship, collective entrepreneurship and innovation in small business: An empirical study. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 12(4), 1053–1077. doi:10.1007/s11365-015-0380-5
Yao, X., Farmer, S., & Kung-McIntyre, K. (2016). Who is the entrepreneur? Prototypical views of the entrepreneurial role across three cultures. Advances in International Management, 29, 117–145. doi:10.1108/S1571-502720160000029009
Zare, M., Zarmehr, F., & Ashrafi-rizi, H. (2015). Relationship between psychological empowerment and productivity of medical librarians. Acta Informatica Medica, 23(3), 142.
Zhao, F. (2005). Exploring the synergy between entrepreneurship and innovation. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research, 11(1), 25–41.
Zhao, H., Seibert, S. E., & Hills, G. E. (2005). The mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1265.
Zhao, X.-Y., Frese, M., & Giardini, A. (2010). Business owners’ network size and business growth in China: The role of comprehensive social competency. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 22(7–8), 675–705.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Henao-Zapata, D., Peiró, J.M. (2018). The Importance of Empowerment in Entrepreneurship. In: Tur Porcar, A., Ribeiro Soriano, D. (eds) Inside the Mind of the Entrepreneur. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62455-6_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62455-6_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62454-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62455-6
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)