Empowering the frontline: internal and external organizational antecedents of teacher empowerment

Abstract

Although frontline empowerment is central to managerial reform, few scholars have explored the conditions which effectively promote empowerment. We argue that empowerment is linked to inherent organizational features. To investigate this, we consider six sub-dimensions of empowerment: a) decision-making, b) professional growth, c) supportive culture, d) self-efficacy, e) work autonomy, and f) use of performance information. Findings from a panel survey of all public-school teachers in North Carolina show the singular importance of responsive leadership for fostering empowerment, but also show that other organizational factors, such as organizational type, structure, size, and prior performance, explain significant variation in empowerment.