Public Performance & Management Review

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Is the Creative Tendency Affected by

Organizational Leadership and Employee
Empowerment? An Empirical Analysis of U.S.
Federal Employees

Kyoung Ryoul Min, Reginald G. Ugaddan & Sung Min Park

To cite this article: Kyoung Ryoul Min, Reginald G. Ugaddan & Sung Min Park (2016) Is the
Creative Tendency Affected by Organizational Leadership and Employee Empowerment? An
Empirical Analysis of U.S. Federal Employees, Public Performance & Management Review, 40:2,
382-408, DOI: 10.1080/15309576.2016.1230503

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15309576.2016.1230503

Published online: 02 Dec 2016.

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PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW
2016, VOL. 40, NO. 2, 382–408
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15309576.2016.1230503

Is the Creative Tendency Affected by Organizational

Leadership and Employee Empowerment? An Empirical
Analysis of U.S. Federal Employees
Kyoung Ryoul Min, Reginald G. Ugaddan, and Sung Min Park
Sungkyunkwan University

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Creativity is a focal area of interest in public administration creative tendency; employee
because it is an important resource that helps organizations in empowerment; federal
the public sector respond effectively to complex and growing government employee;
organizational leadership
challenges. The impact of organizational leadership and
employee empowerment on creative tendency was examined
empirically using the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey
(FEVS) data. The findings suggest that organizational leadership
factors have different impacts on the creative tendency.
Furthermore, employees are more likely to have a high creative
tendency when they are given the opportunity to be informed
about their organization’s performance, are provided with
training and development, have autonomy on the job, and
receive rewards based on performance.

Creativity is a topic of keen interest in public administration theory and

practice. Fostering a creative and innovative culture has become a very
popular activity in the public sector (Pitcairn, 2014) that is enabling
government to adapt and develop new solutions and implement new
strategies (Berman & Kim, 2010). Creativity also has received public attention
in response to budget declines (Fox, 2014a) and the constant pressures on
government to operate a stringent budget. This focus is critical because
creativity is an important resource for effective governmental responses to
the complex and growing challenges to effective public service delivery
(Denhardt, Denhardt, & Aristigueta, 2013). Creativity means that public
organizations can innovate, finding better ways to deliver valuable public
goods and achieve public goals (Denhardt et al., 2013). However, the results
of the 2013 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government reveal that
innovation across the government has steadily declined over the past three
years (Fox, 2014a).1
The five-year (2008–2013) Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS)
results reveal declining employee empowerment factors, leadership, and
creative tendency (see Table 1). Although creativity and innovation are

CONTACT Sung Min Park sm28386@skku.edu Department of Public Administration & Graduate School of
Governance, Sungkyunkwan University, 25-2, Sungkyunkwan-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03063, Korea.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 383

Table 1. Means of key variables by year (2008–2013).

Variable 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013
Senior leadership 3.47 3.42 3.45 3.37 3.35
Manager leadership 3.48 3.50 3.53 3.46 3.44
Frontline leadership 3.66 3.78 3.79 3.74 3.73
Empowerment 1 3.63 3.64 3.63 3.57 3.51
Empowerment 2 3.09 3.13 3.11 2.96 2.87
Empowerment 3 3.76 3.76 3.77 3.72 3.70
Empowerment 4 3.33 3.37 3.36 3.27 3.23
Creative tendency 3.76 4.00 3.98 3.94 3.92

available to the public sector (West & Berman, 1997), it is clear that the prob-
lem of how to improve and advance a creative and innovative culture for pub-
lic organizations remains. Despite compelling circumstances demanding a
clear grasp of creativity and innovation in the public sector, they have received
scant attention because of the impression of a “dull and noncreative image
associated with the government” (Rangarajan, 2008, p. 133).
Fostering creativity and innovation in public organizations can be sourced
from organizational leaders, such as middle managers, politicians/agencies,
heads/frontline staff, and interest groups and other relevant actors, such as
citizen and clients (Borins, 2000). In a study of public sector innovation,
Borins (2000) found that organizational leaders were the most influential
sources of creativity. In the current leadership literature, leadership models
have tended to emphasize that different types of leadership and skills are
needed at different structural levels, particularly because of the increasing
extent of discretion available as one moves up the organizational hierarchy
(Van Wart, 2005).
Although previous studies have investigated the relationship between
leadership types and creativity (Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, & Kramer,
2004), scant attention has been paid to the particular influence of organiza-
tional leadership or supervisory status. The extent of the influence of lead-
ership tends to vary among senior leaders, middle managers, and frontline
leaders (Park, 2012),2 perhaps because leaders in each category have differ-
ent influences on employees’ creative tendencies. The scarcity of information
on the effects at different levels of leadership and on the contributory influ-
ence of empowering values on creative tendencies is regrettable; these
important organizational factors could bring out higher quality from
employees.
When an organization has made no effort to elicit its employees’ creativity
and/or innovativeness, leaders could adopt or explore many different
approaches. A leader’s role is crucial for crafting targeted organizational
practices and systems (Wang, Van Wart, & Lebredo, 2014) that might
trigger the employees’ creative tendency. For example, leaders could explore
“removing disincentives and adding incentives,” such as “resources to
implement experiments, pilot projects, and full-scale implementation plans,
384 MIN ET AL.

Figure 1. Hypothesized research model.

the public recognition of successful innovation, and even financial rewards

when possible” (Van Wart, 2005, p. 41).
Numerous approaches have been used to foster creativity; however, only a
handful of studies have examined the role of employee empowerment for
enhancing creative tendency. Although employee empowerment is not
guaranteed to have a strong influence on organizational performance (Liao
& Chuang, 2004), some scholars have suggested that empowered employees
could improve organizational effectiveness, productivity, and the quality of
services (Spreitzer, 1995). Among others, Fernandez and Moldogaziev
(2011) pointed out that employee empowerment might unleash employees’
innovativeness or creativity. Empowered employees tend to be more active,
innovative, and/or inclined toward creativity, and they tend to care about
the development and growth of their organizations (Zhang & Bartol, 2010).
The present study aims to determine whether employee empowerment is a
motivating mechanism that can explain the relationship between organiza-
tional leadership (specifically, senior leaders, middle managers, and frontline
leaders) and employees’ creative tendency. The hypothesized research model,
based on the relevant theory and research, is illustrated in Figure 1 and,
accordingly, the study addresses the following questions: (a) How are super-
visory status and levels of leadership related to employee empowerment and
creativity (b) Does employee empowerment mediate the effects of leadership
levels on creativity?

Literature review
Creative tendency
According to Cummings and Oldham (1997), an organizational employee dis-
plays creativity by generating new and useful ideas, introducing better ways to
effect organizational processes, and developing new knowledge to improve
organizational effectiveness and organizational capacities to produce and
deliver services. Gardner (1989) posited: “Creativity is best described as the
human capacity to regularly solve problems or to fashion products in a
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 385

domain, in a way that is initially novel but ultimately acceptable in culture” (p.
14). However, Oldham and Cummings (1996) argued that creativity is not a
personal quality, but an individual’s behavior that results from a personal qual-
ity, manifested as “products, ideas, or procedures that satisfy two conditions:
(1) they are novel or original, and (2) they are potentially relevant to, or useful
to, an organization” (p. 608). Therefore, individual creativity is an obvious
behavioral or cognitive response to a problem in a given situation.
The behavioral perspective on creativity focuses on an individual’s “action
and activities, outward creative behavior, or the creative product that results
in the development of something new” (Denhardt et al., 2013, p. 63) and in a
useful response to a problem or situation (Amabile, 1997). As a behavioral
outcome, creativity is described as the extent of generated useful and novel
ideas (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). However, the cognitive view of creativity
centers on the use of conceptual and creative thinking skills and abilities to
develop valuable and useful outcomes for one’s organization (Denhardt
et al., 2013). The cognitive approach to creativity concerns the ways that
individuals obtain, organize, process, store, and use information to generate
worthwhile ideas and outcomes in diverse, analytical, and logical thinking
processes (Cropley, 2010).
Kirton’s (1976) adaption-innovation theory (KAI) asserts that everyone is
creative and capable of solving problems using cognitive and conceptual skills
(i.e., the ability to think and muster a stream of ideas to address problems in a
given context at a certain time). Kirton (1976) identified two styles of individ-
ual creativity: adaptation and innovation. He proposed that adaptors tend to
express creative thinking related to improving something rather than doing
something differently. Their creativity tends to generate problem-solving
ideas that reinforce and support existing and collectively recognized structures
(Kirton, 1976, 1978). They treat problems based on their established and
agreed-upon descriptions or rationale, and they handle problems within
existing organizational policies and practices (Kirton, 1984). In contrast,
innovators offer suggestions for doing things differently rather than dealing
with them in the existing and agreed-upon structures (Jablokow & Booth,
2006). Kirton (1976) postulated that innovators perceive that “the more the
structure surrounding a problem is incorporated within and treated as part
of the problem, the more any solution is likely to be radical and innovative”
(p. 622). Innovators’ creativity is drawn toward overhauling current work
processes (Kwang et al., 2005) or introducing new paradigms; they are
relatively more likely to challenge the status quo and, thereby, generate radical
outcomes (Cummings & Oldham, 1997).
Thus, the KAI clearly distinguishes between adaptive and innovative
creativity styles and explicitly disclaims any significant difference in the extent
of creativity between adaptors and innovators (Kirton, 1978). It further
provides a straightforward explanation of and insight into the propensities
386 MIN ET AL.

and tendencies of the two styles in respect to adaptive or innovative creativity

(Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). The theory suggests a common out-
come regardless of differences in creative style—adaptors and innovators
equally advance creativity through the enactment of creative thinking and
ideas based on cognitive discernment, so as to do things better or to do things
differently. Therefore, a creative tendency can be defined as an individual’s
expression of adaptive or innovative creativity.
An employee’s development of a creative inclination is an essential element
for assessing the employee’s creative output (Learning and Teaching
Centre, Macquarie University, n.d., para. 1). Facione (2000) pointed out the
importance of nurturing creative tendencies in order to effectively develop
critical thinking skills. Several studies have demonstrated that employee
creativity is influenced by leadership styles, such as transformational
leadership (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009), empowering leadership (Zhang &
Bartol, 2010), intrinsic task motivation (Amabile, 1997), supportive super-
vision (Cummings & Oldham, 1997), and organizational culture and climate.
Holistically, encouraging employees to be creative requires the integration of
factors, such as constructive and favorable individual interactions with the
organizational leadership and the work environment, taking place within an
organizational climate supportive of creativity.

Direct effect of engaging organizational leadership on creative tendency

Social exchange theory suggests that a behavior is the result of an exchange
process or a series of exchanges between two parties (Emerson, 1976). The
social exchange process also applies to exchanges between an organization
and its employees that occur through organizational inducements and
employee contributions (March & Simon, 1958). In the present article, organi-
zational leadership characteristics exclusive to particular leadership levels are
understood as factors that might induce or trigger an exchange process in
which employees’ creative behaviors are their contributions in the social
exchange relationships between them and their organizations. For example,
the article assumes that managerial inducements under conditions of strong
leadership should encourage, stimulate, and draw out employees’ creativity.
If the organization-employee relationship were based solely on agency theory,
in which manager-employee dyads rely on “contractual opportunism” (Van
Slyke, 2007) caused by information asymmetry or discrepancy and/or goal
incongruence, it would be difficult to assume the presence of employees’
creative dispositions or to extract voluntary creative behaviors.
In dyadic relationships that reflect the social exchange process, organiza-
tional leaders who engage their leadership attributes might support vibrant
and valuable interactions. An engaging leadership style is demonstrated when
there is respect for others, concern for human development and well-being, the
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 387

ability to unite groups of stakeholders to develop a joint vision, support for a

developmental culture, and delegation that empowers and develops employees’
potential by encouraging questioning as well as constructive, critical, and stra-
tegic thinking (Alimo-Metcalfe, Alban-Metcalfe, Bradley, Mariathasan, &
Samele, 2008). Like other leadership styles, such as transformational leadership,
engaging leadership encourages teamwork, collaboration, connectedness, inno-
vation, and creativity (Miller, McCartney, Baron, McGurk, & Robinson, 2011).
This article argues that leaders who display integrity, openness, and
transparency, and who genuinely value others and their contributions, decisive-
ness, and problem-solving skills, encourage employees to be more committed
and creative in their work or tasks. Leaders who enable organizations to cope
with complex environmental changes and to proactively meet organizational
challenges might encourage a creative and innovative organizational culture.
According to Fox (2014a), the Partnership for Public Service (n.d.) suggests that
leaders (a) share their visions, (b) provide forums, (c) build trust and serve as
mentors, (d) create processes for implementation, (e) assess and reflect on out-
comes, and (f) recognize employees’ contributions. Generally, these leadership
characteristics manifest principles that engage employees in their organizations.
This article’s central proposition is that senior leaders, middle managers,
and frontline supervisors each have a unique role in fostering creative
tendency. Moreover, it argues, engaging the leadership behaviors exclusive
to each level of leadership is an effective mechanism for triggering social
exchanges that foster employees’ creative tendencies. Therefore, the following
hypotheses are proposed:
H1: Senior leadership in the public sector positively relates to employees’ creative
tendencies.
H2: Middle manager leadership in the public sector positively relates to
employees’ creative tendencies.
H3: Frontline leadership in the public sector positively relates to employees’
creative tendencies.

Mediating role of employee empowerment

Employee empowerment has been defined as the “extent to which employees feel
empowered with respect to work processes and how satisfied they are with their
involvement in decisions that affect their work” (Partnership for Public Service,
n.d., Effective Leadership: Empowerment, para. 1). It has also been conceptua-
lized as involving the extension of resources and efforts to increase employees’
sense of worth (Nielsen, 1986). Some scholars view employee empowerment
as either managerial or psychological (Bowen & Lawler, 1995; Fernandez &
Moldogaziev, 2011). The managerial perspective concerns the role of top man-
agement in creating employee empowerment (Honold, 1997), emphasizing the
importance of sharing information, allocating power, and distributing rewards
388 MIN ET AL.

to improve work outcomes, such as productivity (Bowen & Lawler, 1995). The
psychological perspective views employee empowerment as a “motivational con-
struct defined as an internal cognitive state characterized by an increased intrin-
sic task motivation” (Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2011, p. 2). This perspective
emphasizes employees’ perceptions of the behavior of their superiors and of their
working conditions and environment (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).
This article uses the term “empowerment” in the psychological sense as
comprising a set of conditions necessary to intrinsic motivation. Thomas
and Velthouse (1990) described empowerment as intrinsic task motivation,
defined as comprising four dimensions: meaningfulness, impact, competence,
and choice. Meaningfulness concerns the value of an employee’s task relative
to the employee’s value system. Effect refers to employees’ perceptions of the
extent to which their behaviors matter. Competence is self-efficacy; in other
words, the employee’s belief that she or he is capable of successfully perform-
ing a particular task or activity (Gist & Mitchell, 1992). Last, choice involves
“causal responsibility for a person’s actions” (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990,
p. 672). Relying on Thomas and Velthouse (1990) for a theoretical
foundation, Spreitzer (1995) developed a four-dimensional scale to measure
meaningfulness, impact, competence, and choice.
Regarding the relationship of organizational leadership factors to employee
empowerment, each of the three leadership levels has distinct and particular
influences. For example, senior leaders have a critical role in creating an orga-
nizational culture that promotes high levels of performance and effectiveness
(Ensley, Hmieleski, & Pearce, 2006). Senior leaders and middle managers dem-
onstrate a variety of behaviors, including aversive, directive, transformational,
transactional, and empowering leadership behaviors (Manz & Sims, 2001). In a
frontline leadership system, team leaders tend to demonstrate the same
leadership behaviors as senior leaders (Ensley et al., 2006; Pearce, 2004).
Scholars argue that these particular leadership behaviors are important pre-
dictors of employee empowerment in that organizational leaders exercise their
capacities to influence employees’ access to information, rewards, locus of
control, and self-esteem (Bowen & Lawler, 1995). Employees gain self-effi-
cacy, which, if translated into empowerment, could be a motivational con-
struct to positively influence interpersonal trust (Moye & Henkin, 2006).
Hence, employee empowerment might influence constructive social interac-
tions between leaders and employees in an organization. Thus, the following
hypotheses were derived:
H4: Senior leadership in the public sector positively relates to employee
empowerment.
H5: Manager leadership in the public sector positively relates to employee
empowerment.
H6: Frontline leadership in the public sector positively relates to employee
empowerment.
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 389

The logic of social learning theory and stewardship theory explains the
intervening influence of employee empowerment in the relationship of
organizational leadership to creativity. Social learning theory proposes that
human behavior results from continuous interaction among numerous
cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors (Bandura, 1971). One of
the important concepts of social learning theory is “reciprocal determinism,”
a term coined by Bandura (1977) that refers to human behavior as influenced
by its environment, and vice versa.
Applied to the organizational context examined by this article, an
empowering organizational environment encourages reciprocal actions from
employees such that the employees behave in the ways the organization
wants them to behave. From a social learning theory perspective, it is possible
that employees’ creative dispositions and behaviors are significantly influ-
enced by self-efficacy that determines whether a behavior will be performed,
how much effort will be spent on it, and how much time will be put into it.
For example, when their self-efficacy is high, employees might be more intrin-
sically and internally motivated (as self-determination theorists suggest). It is
reasonable that relatively high self-efficacy that leads to increased motivation
also increases voluntary and autonomous work behaviors (Deci & Ryan,
2000).
Stewardship theory argues that actors are driven by pro-organizational
collective goals rather than individualistic goals (Lambright, 2008; Van Slyke,
2007). It assumes a collaborative relationship, founded on trust, in which the
leaders (the principals or stewards) have goals that are compatible and aligned
with the employees’ goals (Jing, 2012; Lambright, 2008). Moreover, the
motivations of the stewards are mostly based on intrinsic, intangible rewards
(Van Slyke, 2007) rather than extrinsic motivations. Intrinsic and intangible
rewards are organizational mechanisms that adopt empowering structures
and give individuals opportunities to grow in contexts where trust prevails
and where there is stability and tenure, achievement, reciprocity, self-
actualization, discretion, and autonomy (Lambright, 2008; Van Slyke, 2007).
These outcomes are similar to the outcomes alluded to by employee
empowerment theory. The organizational context generated under the above
conditions potentially generates an environment that fosters employees’
creativity (d’Inverno & Luck, 2012).
In sum, the theoretical employee empowerment perspectives could
explain why the most interactive and self-determined individuals are the
most highly and intrinsically motivated, and further explain why high levels
of motivation could relate to greater willingness to pursue creative activities
and produce creative outcomes for the organization in both immediately
and in the long term. Based on the previous research and the propositions
of stewardship theory and social learning theory, the following hypothesis
was proposed.
390 MIN ET AL.

H7: Employee empowerment partially mediates the positive relationship between

an engaging organizational leadership style and employees’ creative tendencies.

Methods
Data
The data used to test the hypotheses of the study described in this article were
derived from the 2013 FEVS, conducted by the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management. The FEVS was administered in April through June of 2013 to
781,047 full-time and part-time permanent, nonseasonal employees from 81
large and small U.S. federal agency units. Altogether, 37 large departments and
44 small independent agencies were sampled, for a sample of 376,577 employees,
rendering a government-wide response rate of 48.2% (USOPM, 2013).
Missing data can lead to estimation errors in a structural equation model
(SEM). Although a listwise deletion approach or a complete-case analysis could
be the best alternative, these methods could result in significant data loss in the
analysis because they drop cases with one or more missing values (Enders,
2010; Roth, 1994). In this article, cases with missing data in the control variables
(i.e., age, gender, race, position, disability, length of service) were dropped. The
expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm method was then used to handle the
remaining missing values. The EM generates a covariance matrix used to “esti-
mate, or impute, missing-data points at the final iteration” (Enders, 2001, p.
137).3 The EM algorithm method increases the statistical power of the model
and minimizes possible bias in the parameter estimates (Enders & Bandalos,
2001). Although it has drawbacks, multiple imputation was considered the best
option to restore the lost variability of the dataset. Of the 376,577 sampled
cases, 240,918 (64%) were used in the empirical analysis.

Measures
Unless otherwise noted, the response options on all of the items were 5-point
Likert-type scales asking for the respondents’ extent of agreement, where
1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

Employee empowerment
The four aspects of empowerment used to measure employee empowerment
were conceptually based on: “(1) information about the organization’s perfor-
mance, (2) rewards based on the organization’s performance, (3) knowledge
that enables employees to understand and contribute to organizational
performance, and (4) power to make decisions that influence organizational
direction and performance” (Bowen & Lawler, 1992, p. 32). The employee
empowerment measures were adapted from Fernandez and Moldogaziev
(2011). The items and variables that comprise the scales are presented in
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 391

Table 2. Descriptive statistics.

Variables with ranges n M SD Min Max
Gender (0 = female, 1 = male) 240,918 0.53 0.49 0 1
Race (0 = majority, 1 = minority) 240,918 0.34 0.47 0 1
Position (0 = manager, 1 = employee) 240,918 0.80 0.40 0 1
Disability (0 = no, 1 = yes) 240,918 0.13 0.33 0 1
Age 240,918 2.40 0.98 1 4
Length of service 240,918 2.17 0.80 1 3
Senior leadership 240,918 3.34 1.03 1 5
Manager leadership 240,918 3.43 1.03 1 5
Frontline leadership 240,918 3.73 1.05 1 5
Empowerment 1 240,918 3.50 0.87 1 5
Empowerment 2 240,918 2.87 0.97 1 5
Empowerment 3 240,918 3.69 0.76 1 5
Empowerment 4 240,918 3.23 1.01 1 5
Creative tendency 240,918 3.92 0.79 1 5
Note: E1 = Job Skills/HRD, E2 = Merit Pay, E3 = Feedback/Information, E4 = Decision-making Process.

the Appendix. The means and standard deviations of the four employee
empowerment measures are shown in Table 2.

Organizational leadership
The study measured three types of organizational leadership drawn from
the hierarchical leadership continuum: (a) senior leadership (heads of
department/agencies or members of the Senior Executive Service), (b) middle
management leadership (management that typically supervises one or more
supervisors), and (c) frontline leadership (first-line supervisors without super-
visory power over other supervisors and mainly responsible for appraising
employee performance and approving time off) (USOPM, 2013).4
A four-item scale measuring senior leadership and a three-item scale mea-
suring management leadership were developed from responses to questions
asking for the respondents’ opinions on specific characteristics of their leaders.
Frontline leadership was a four-item scale measured with responses to
questions asking the respondents to indicate the extent to which they agreed
with four statements about their supervisor’s engagement with a teamlike
attitude. These three variables and the items used to construct the scales, with
their reliability coefficients, are presented in the Appendix.

Creative tendency
A two-item scale was employed to measure the presence of employees’ creative
tendency based on Zhou and George (2001) and Fernandez and Moldogaziev
(2013): (a) I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing
things, and (b) I am constantly looking for ways to do my job better.

Control variables
Previous studies have found important differences in creativity and empower-
ment according to demographic characteristics (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham,
392 MIN ET AL.

2004). The analysis controlled for the effects of six demographic factors
previously found to influence significantly employees’ creative tendency: (a)
age, (b) gender, (c) race, (d) position, (e) disability, and (f) length of service.

Statistical modeling
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to confirm the total, direct, and
indirect effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable and
test the interrelationships among the independent variables using Amos
21.0 software. SEM simultaneously tests the entire system of study variables
and the fit of the model to the data (Byrne, 1994). The bootstrapping method
was used to test the mediating role of employee empowerment on the
relationship between the main predictors and employees’ creative tendencies.

Reliability and validity tests

Reliability is the possibility of obtaining identically measured values when
measurements are repeated for identical concepts. The reliability of the
variables in the research model was established using internal consistency
analysis, construct reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE).
The factor loadings of all items ranged from 0.53 to 0.95. The CR values of
all of the variables were more than 0.70, which validated the reliability of
the instruments. The AVE values were greater than 0.50, except for empow-
erment 2 (viz., merit pay) and creative tendency. A validity test was performed
for Variance Inflation Factor (VIF), discriminant validity, common-method
bias (CMB), and a second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on lead-
ership and employee empowerment. To examine whether a multicollinearity
problem existed, the VIF values were extracted. The results revealed that the
VIF values were less than 10 (values greater than 10 are often regarded as
indicative of multicollinearity). Testing for discriminant validity, the square
roots of each AVE supported the psychometric parameters.
Collecting the FEVS data on a self-reported questionnaire raised some
concern about common-method variance (CMV) and measurement error that
may cause estimation bias. Harman’s single-factor test was used to evaluate
CMV. The test finds a CMV factor of 31%, which is below the suggested
threshold of 50% (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). In addition,
a marker variable assessment technique was also used to assess CMV, Lindell &
Whitney, 2001), with the respondents’ participation in the employee assistance
program as the marker variable (0 = no, 1 = yes). This variable was not concep-
tually or statistically associated with the variables in the research model. The
results found that the bivariate correlations among the main predictors and
outcomes remained statistically significant. Collectively, the Harman’s factor
test and the marker variable assessment test strongly supported the position
that the risk of common method bias in the analysis was negligible.
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 393

Last, based on previous studies, it was assumed that leadership and empow-
erment are multidimensional constructs. This assumption was confirmed
through second-order CFA analysis. The model fits for both constructs were
within statistically acceptable bounds. The fit indices of CFI, RFI, NFI, and IFI
exceeded the standard 0.90. The RMSEA and RMR were less than the stan-
dard of 0.80 (a value less than 0.80 is considered acceptable). In addition,
CFA outputs demonstrated that the first-order factor was strongly related
to the second-order factor. These results indicated that the subdimensions
of the leadership and empowerment measures were strongly interrelated,
but mutually distinct.

Results
Results of correlations
A correlation analysis of the study variables was performed and the results are
presented in Table 3. Positive and significant correlations were found between
all the pairs of key variables, and all of them were statistically significant at
p < 0.001, with strengths ranging from r = 0.55 (between manager leadership
and creative tendency) to r = 0.82 (between manager leadership and empow-
erment 3), suggesting strong intercorrelations.

SEM results: Organizational leadership and creative tendency (model 1)

Figure 25 shows the results of the SEM employed to test the relationship of the
organizational leadership factors and demographic characteristics (as control
variables) to creative tendency in the absence of employee empowerment.6
All of the antecedent variables were directly related to creative tendency
(p < 0.001). The seven model fit of indices exceeded the standard cut-off

Table 3. Polychoric/polyserial correlation matrix.

Polychoric/polyserial correlation scores
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Senior leadership 1
2. Manager leadership 0.77 1
3. Frontline leadership 0.62 0.61 1
4. Empowerment 1 0.66 0.63 0.62 1
5. Empowerment 2 0.71 0.65 0.64 0.65 1
6. Empowerment 3 0.77 0.82 0.80 0.68 0.70 1
7. Empowerment 4 0.74 0.69 0.66 0.71 0.72 0.76 1
8. Creative tendency 0.59 0.55 0.58 0.62 0.56 0.61 0.65 1
Skewness 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Kurtosis 0 0 0.347 0 0 0 0 0
Note: The correlations scores provided in this table are all significant at the 0.01 level. The skewness and
kurtosis values are within thresholds (±3 for skewness, ±2 kurtosis) that embolden the robustness of the
dataset for the findings.
394 MIN ET AL.

Figure 2. Results of effects of three leadership types on creative tendency (model 1).

values for acceptable fit. The effects of the demographic characteristics (age,
gender, race, position, and length of service) on creative tendency were
significant and positively associated with creative tendency.

SEM results: Organizational leadership, employee empowerment, and

creative tendency (model 2)
Figure 3 shows that all of the antecedent and mediation variables were directly
and indirectly related to creative tendency (p < 0.001), suggesting that three
organizational leadership factors and four types of empowerment are key fac-
tors in employees’ creative tendency. The results conveyed that senior leader-
ship and frontline leadership directly and positively related to all four
measures of empowerment; however, among the four empowerment factors,
manager leadership positively related to three measures of empowerment
except merit pay (empowerment 2). Senior, manager, and frontline leadership
all had negative direct effects on creative tendency. The statistical findings of
the SEM suggested that the model fit the data. The model fits of the indices
exceeded the standard cut-off for acceptable values. Focusing on the effect
of organizational leadership on creative tendency through employee empow-
erment, the total effects of senior leadership (0.517), manager leadership
(0.013), and frontline leadership (0.430) were positive and statistically signifi-
cant influences on creative tendency.

Mediation analysis
The mediation analysis of the effects of employee empowerment on the
relationship of organizational leadership to creative tendency using bootstrap-
ping analysis found that all four measures were statistically important.
The results revealed that the four empowerment factors partially mediated
the relationship of organizational leadership and creative tendency. For
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 395

Figure 3. SEM: Organizational leadership, employee empowerment, and creative tendency

(model 2).

example, empowerment 1 (Job skill/HRD) partially mediated the effects of

senior leadership (β = 0.22, p = 0.000, CI = 0.218–0.222).

Discussion and conclusions

The study summarized in this article aimed to foster public sector creativity
by examining the influence of leadership factors (characterized by supervisory
status) and employee empowerment on employees’ creative tendencies. As a
source of leadership power, supervisory status embodies formal authority
and influence (Van Wart, 2005), which might influence employees’ creative
tendency. Legitimate or formal power could trigger employees’ awareness of
their commitment and responsibility (Hinkin & Schriesheim, 1989) to be
creative and thus drive them to greater organizational effectiveness. Apart
from their assigned legitimate authority, organizational leaders have distinct
behavioral characteristics that might influence employees’ psychological
attitudes, such as engaging behaviors.
The direct influences of senior, manager, and frontline leadership were
tested first, and the results of the SEM in Model 1 demonstrate that these
factors positively and significantly influenced creative tendency. However,
the results of Model 2 indicated that these leadership factors negatively and
396 MIN ET AL.

significantly influenced creative tendency. Second, there was varying evidence

of a mediating influence of employee empowerment on the relationship of
leadership level to creative tendency, based on the leadership position. Con-
sidering the distinctive engaging behaviors that characterize each supervisory
status, senior leadership, which embodies leadership with integrity, had the
strongest effect on creative tendency. Senior leadership was followed in
strength by the effect of frontline leaders, who tend to provide employee
encouragement and leadership-development skills, and then by managers,
who focus mainly on lower-level supervisors.
The different effects could be attributable to the leadership level and the
particular engagement characteristics at each level. For example, senior
leaders possess more leadership autonomy (Wynen, Verhoest, & Kristin,
2014) and authority, and tend to have more engagement characteristics, such
as integrity and workforce communication and motivation, than the other
leadership levels. Frontline leaders tend to have relatively more opportunities
to interact with employees or form interpersonal relationships with them
based on trust, respect, and support. Managers are mostly engaged with
low-level supervisors, which could influence the extent to which they
influence employees’ attitudes, such as creative tendency.
The results also imply that greater employee empowerment could improve
employees’ creative tendencies. Each of the four measures of empowerment
was associated with creativity. Specifically, job skills/HRD empowerment
(empowerment 1) could promote the importance of understanding and
acquiring knowledge on work performance. Creative thinking requires skills
and abilities that prompt the production of novel or original ideas and
products that are relevant and potentially useful to organizations (Denhardt
et al., 2013). Merit pay empowerment (empowerment 2) likely encourages a
performance-based reward system, fosters creativity as an outcome of such
a system (Shalley & Gilson, 2004), and increases employees’ perceptions of
fairness regarding the distribution of rewards. Third, feedback/information
empowerment (empowerment 3) could promote open communication and
transparency in an organization, including clear communication of the
specific demands of certain tasks. Carson and Carson (1993) proposed that
performance feedback and goal setting, or a combination of the two, could
improve creativity. Last, participatory decision-making empowerment
(empowerment 4) focuses on employees’ power to make decisions for
effective organizational performance, and it tends to grant them power or
autonomy in the workplace that could improve their creative dispositions
and behaviors.
Greenberg (1992) argued on behalf of a strong relationship between
creativity and autonomy, stating, “Whenever possible, give creative workers
autonomy” (p. 6). Taken together, the implication is that dimensions of
employee empowerment cultivate individual employees’ creative behaviors.
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 397

Leaders at every level of the hierarchical leadership continuum who are inter-
ested in maintaining or improving their employees’ creative tendencies might
be more successful if they focused on enhancing employee empowerment,
work autonomy, reward systems, performance appraisal systems, and employ-
ees’ self-worth in the organization than if they directly aimed at improving
creativity.

Theoretical implications
Social exchange, agency, social learning, and stewardship theories formed the
theoretical foundation of the study. In social exchange theory, Homans (1964)
articulated that all people (in this article, all employees) are more inclined to
address their personal self-interests based on cost-benefit analyses than they
are to attend to the interests of their employer organizations. The social
exchange process embraces material and nonmaterial substance (Bottomley,
Mostafa, Gould-Williams, & León-Cázares, 2015), and exchanges are based
on managerial and/or organizational inducements that might encourage
employees to express an equivalent behavioral response from, for example,
their creative tendencies.
Furthermore, employees behave in accord with the social benefits they
anticipate in the context of reciprocal obligations with their organizational
leaders. They control their behaviors to somewhat align with their contractual
obligations to their organizations. However, leaders’ support and communi-
cation could motivate employees to contribute more than that to which they
are contractually obligated.
Considering the possible problems raised by agency theory, to extract crea-
tivity or, at the very least, creative tendency, some barriers must be eliminated,
such as information asymmetry, adverse selection, and moral hazards that
influence the maximization of the contractual relationship. The elimination
of opportunistic behaviors (Van Slyke, 2007) could be minimized by “control-
ling and monitoring agent behavior, establishing an information-sharing
culture, and a knowledge incentive and management system” (Park, 2012,
p. 409). Satisfying these requisite conditions could improve employees’
compliance with their contractual obligations to fully engage their expertise
and/or skills in work involving creativity.
The employee empowerment perspective argues for the importance of
extending empowering motivations to employees to change or improve their
creative or other behaviors. The results found that the four distinct measures
of empowerment mediated the relationship between leadership factors and
creative tendency, suggesting that leaders increase their employees’ creative
tendencies when they employ employee empowerment mechanisms, such as
power-sharing and investing in their employees’ work product. Leaders
who empower their employees tend to promote interactive relationships with
398 MIN ET AL.

them that are based on trust, include open communication about organiza-
tional goals, have an element of coaching to develop skills, and promote par-
ticipative decision-making (Sun, Zhang, Qi, & Chen, 2012). These interactive
practices could cultivate employees’ creativity.
Last, the evaluation of four distinct dimensions of employee empowerment
with respect to creative tendency contributes to the limited literature on
employee empowerment. Although previous studies have explored these four
dimensions of employee empowerment, they have focused on relationships to
other behavioral outcomes, such as employee performance (Fernandez &
Moldogaziev, 2011, 2012, 2013). Thus, this article provides a more nuanced
snapshot of the influence of employee empowerment on employee behavior
and, therefore, deepens our understanding of the link between leadership
factors and employee empowerment.

Managerial implications
Identifying the mechanisms through which different levels of engaging
leadership behaviors and employee empowerment influence creativity is an
important topic in the field of public management. The present article
contributes to this literature with evidence of the distinct and idiosyncratic
influences of engaging leadership at different levels (senior, middle manager,
and frontline) on creative tendency. Thus, the results could provide practical
managerial implications.
The results have specific implications for managers regarding the relation-
ships among leadership factors, employee empowerment, and employees’
creative tendency. First, engaging leadership characteristics at the senior,
middle manager, and frontline leadership levels have different types and
extents of influence on employees. However, the findings suggest that
engaging leadership behaviors could influence employees’ creative tendencies.
Essentially, leaders should be encouraged to create supportive organizational
cultures by employing engaging leadership tools, such as empowerment,
motivation, leading by example, collaboration, and open communication.
Additionally, a supportive organizational culture includes preparedness for
possible innovation failures. As Borins (2014) posited, “An innovative culture
will accept failure with equanimity, terminate programs that do not work …
[and] will not tolerate blaming and shaming” (p. 31).
Second, the critical role of organizational leaders in fostering creativity in
organizations cannot be denied. Denhardt et al. (2013) pointed to three
important organizational factors that could stimulate employees’ creativity:
(a) challenging work, (b) supportive supervision, and (c) an organizational
and work group culture that supports and encourages creativity (p. 73).
Managers could adopt organizational practices that encourage employees to
bring out creative ways of doing things, and consistently elicit innovative
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 399

work processes for creative outcomes, rather than remaining inactive and
passive. For example, integrating an innovative HRD practice, such as job
redesign, could increase employees’ autonomy and control over their work.
Employee-friendly policies, such as alternative work schedules, can be used
to reward employees for creativity in an institutionalized incentive system.
According to Ravindranath (2015), the U.S. Health and Human Services
Department has adopted specific practices to encourage creativity in the
agency by developing a Silicon Valley–type entrepreneurial spirit with (a)
creativity zones, (b) innovation awards, (c) internships (such as working with
the White House), (d) changes to internal processes (e.g., the internal calendar
and email system), and (e) an agency-based innovation council. The depart-
ment emphasizes the importance of a creative internal culture. These practices
are practical ways to provide a working environment that encourages the flow
of creative thinking in an organization.
Third, the role of employee empowerment is crucial to employee creativity.
For example, adopting intrinsic intangible motivators, such as employee
empowerment, appears to be relatively more likely to stimulate employees’
innovativeness and creativity. Intrinsic motivation has been found to improve
creativity (Amabile, 1997), and the fundamental factor that intrinsically moti-
vates employees is having some extent of discretion and/or autonomy over
their work. In public sector organizations, autonomy appears to be weaker
than in the private sector (Williamson, 2011), implying a need for organiza-
tional leaders to take steps to improve employee autonomy. Autonomy and
some control over their job responsibilities could stimulate their creativity.
Fourth, the results suggest that to the extent that scholars and organizations
accept that creative tendency is an important positive influence on employee
performance, employees’ participation in the decision-making processes of
their organizations should be increased and opportunities for professional
development through HRD have relatively more influence on creative tend-
ency than the other empowerment dimensions. Therefore, leaders should
enhance their performance management systems, because this might stimu-
late creative or innovative ways to solve problems (Borins, 2014). For
example, at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, one of the
most creative and innovative U.S. federal agencies, leaders have succeeded
in building strong connections among all the aspects of the agency’s program,
fostering a genuine feeling of ownership, and inspiring the employees. This
includes the provision of an environment that encourages innovation and
creativity (Fox, 2014b).
Last, the results implied that creative tendency varies according to certain
demographic characteristics. Older employees, females, minorities, managers,
disabled respondents, and respondents with long federal tenures were rela-
tively more likely to have strong creative tendency than their counterparts.
According to research on decision-making, the different perspectives related
400 MIN ET AL.

to demographic differences yield different concepts, ideas, and approaches to

creativity (Martins & Shalley, 2011). McLeod and Lobel (1992) found that a
demographically diverse group produces high-quality ideas, and manage-
ments and leaders should consider the value of diversity in terms of the entire
human resources’ system.

Limitations and suggestions for future research

This article makes an important contribution to the existing knowledge about
leaders’ influences on their employees’ attitudes and behaviors, specifically
regarding creativity. However, it has several limitations that could direct
future research. First, although the large sample size controlled for some
threats to validity, addressing causal relationships is speculative because the
data are cross-sectional (Yang & Kassekert, 2009). Prospective, longitudinal
data encompassing the leadership-empowerment-creativity relationships
would be more likely to pinpoint the causal directions of the associations
and the changes that occur over time in creativity as leadership and employ-
ees’ behaviors respond to organizational changes. Second, the survey items
were not derived from previously tested (and, perhaps, more reliable) scales,
and some of the items were chosen on face validity alone. The implementation
of scales used by previous studies would allow for direct comparisons to other
samples examined at other times. Additionally, only two items were linked for
creative tendency, resulting in relatively low inter-item reliability.7 Although
every effort was made to establish the reliability of the measurement, future
studies may consider the development of creative tendency items and rigorous
reliability and validity approaches.
Third, the use of self-report data might lead to inflated relationships among
variables, possibly from social desirability bias and/or common method
variance in the statistical analysis. Although there is some suggestion that
self-report data are not as limited as previously believed, the extent of
bias in the results is neither known nor knowable (Alper, Tjosvold, & Law,
1998).
Future researchers might consider developing and testing measures of the
dimensions of empowerment that are more rigorous. Identifying and testing
different aspects of empowerment in the public sector could greatly improve
our understanding of the relationships among leadership, empowerment,
and creative tendency. Understanding the moderating role of leadership could
provide a wide range of implications by observing ways that organizational
leadership interacts with different factors that might influence employees’
creative tendency. Given that public organizations are generally moving
toward a participatory paradigm that emphasizes the involvement of employ-
ees in organizational goal-setting and problem-solving, and that organizations
are leaning toward empowering employees to help create successful
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 401

organizations, a fruitful area of future research might involve the exploration

of the influence of participatory leadership on employees’ creative dispositions
and behaviors.
Along these lines, although this article makes a valuable contribution
regarding leadership behaviors, it addresses only three of a wide array of lead-
ership styles. One style worthy of attention is followership behavior, which is
the opposite of leadership in a leadership-followership continuum (Crossman
& Crossman, 2011). Followership emphasizes individuals’ engagement with
critical thinking and their interactions with and support of leadership.
Moreover, the extent to which employees recognize their responsibility to
follow their leaders, take directions, and initiate appropriate actions could
influence their creative dispositions and behaviors. Therefore, a relatively wide
range of possible explanatory factors should be included in analytical models
to broaden our understanding of the complexity of this vital attitude and
behavior in the workplace.

Funding
This article was supported by the Sungkyun Research Fund, Sungkyunkwan University, 2015.

Notes on contributors
Kyoung Ryoul Min (minliul@skku.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of
Governance at Sungkyunkwan University. He is currently working as a researcher at the
Research Center for Public Human Resource Development. His primary research topics
include public human resource development and organizational behavior. His work appears
in The Korean Society for Public Personnel Administration.

Reginald G. Ugaddan (rgu1216@skku.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of

Governance at Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. He is also a researcher in the Research Cen-
ter for Public Human Resource Development. His research interests lie in the areas of human
resource management in the public sector, public management, public sector leadership, and
organizational behavior. His works appears in the Philippine Journal of Public Administration
and International Journal of Policy Studies.

Sung Min Park (sm28386@skku.edu) is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of

Public Administration & Graduate School of Governance at Sungkyunkwan University and a
Visiting Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) Price School. He serves as a
Director of the Research Center for Public Human Resource Development. He received a Ph.
D. from the Department of Public Administration, University of Georgia. He has worked as an
Assistant Professor at the Greenspun School of Environmental and Public Affairs, University
of Nevada, Las Vegas. His primary research interests are public management, public human
resources management, IT management, human resource information systems, human
resource development, organizational behavior, and quantitative research methods. His works
appear in American Review of Public Administration, Review of Public Personnel Administra-
tion, International Public Management Journal, International Journal of Manpower, Public Per-
sonnel Management, Public Money and Management, International Review of Administrative
402 MIN ET AL.

Sciences, Public Management Review, Personnel Review, International Journal of Human

Resource Management, and International Review of Public Administration.

Notes
1. Numerous U.S. federal agencies have been trying to integrate innovation and creativity in
the workplace. According to Ballenstedt (2013), Van Hitch, senior advisor at Deloitte and
former CIO to the Justice Department, stated that to institutionalize innovation, “the
innovation plan and strategy would need to be reviewed and approved by leadership
and the CIO to make sure it is well-founded and everyone is committed to it” (Ballenstedt
2013, para. 9).
2. According to the 2013 FEVS, senior leaders in federal agencies are those in the higher lead-
ership echelon (agency or department heads, members of the Senior Executive Service,
managers, etc.) who occupy managerial positions that typically provide oversight to one
or more supervisors. The FEVS further found that frontline supervisors are responsible
for employee performance appraisals and approvals of their time off (USOPM, 2013).
3. There is a notable drawback to this practice, which is the EM algorithm method. Although
the imputed values are optimal statistical estimates of the missing observations, they lack
the residual variability present in the hypothetically complete data set; the imputed values
fall directly on a regression line and are thus imputed without a random error component
(Enders, 2001, p. 137). The multiple imputation process attempts to restore the lost
variability.
4. In the previous studies, the items used to measure organizational leadership factors reflect
the FEVS Employee Engagement Items. For example, the “Leaders Lead” items, which
measure “employees’ perceptions of the integrity of leadership, as well as leadership beha-
viors such as communication and workforce motivation” (USOPM, 2014, p. 6), mainly cap-
ture the items used in this article to measure senior and manager leadership. Furthermore,
although the items measuring “Supervisors” in the FEVS reflect “the interpersonal relation-
ship between worker and supervisor, including trust, respect, and support” (USOPM, 2014,
p. 6), the items employed in this article for frontline leadership seem to parallel each other.
5. Reflective indicators rather than formative indicators measured the latent constructs. The
direction of causality is from the latent construct—organizational leadership, empower-
ment factors, and creative tendency—to the measure. This means that the indicators are
reflections of the constructs; that is, when the construct varies, the indicators vary as well.
In a reflective model, the latent construct still stands or does not change even if an ident-
ified composite indicator was absent or removed (Coltman, Devinney, Midgley, & Venaik,
2008; Diamantopoulos & Winklhofer, 2001).
6. A model was tested in which performance was the outcome variable. The items were based
on the Fernandez and Moldogaziev (2013) measure of performance as two factors: work
unit performance (survey item: “The skill level in my work unit has improved in the past
year”) and agency performance (survey item: “How would you rate the overall quality of
work done by your work unit?”). The findings suggested that creative tendency positively
and significantly related to performance (β = 0.51).
7. Despite receiving a low Cronbach’s α of 0.44, the creative tendency was retained. The low
number of items used in a variable may have influenced the low α value. Previous studies
adopted and used measurements in the empirical analysis despite low internal consistency
(see Arnold, Daniel, Jensen, McDaniel, & Marsh, 2016; Tosi, Werner, Katz, & Gomez-Mejia,
2000). In addition, the items seem to relate to the construct that it intends to measure,
thus establishing its face validity. From a theoretical standpoint, the items make sense
together, arguing that item 1 (“I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of
 PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW 403

doing things”) depicts the innovator side, while item 2 (“I am constantly looking for ways to
do my job better”) depicts the adaptor side of the Kirton’s adaptor and innovator (KAI)
theory.

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Appendix
. Senior Leadership (factor loadings = 0.75–0.87, α = 0.901)
. In my organization, leaders generate high levels of motivation and
commitment in the workforce.
. My organization’s leaders maintain high standards of honesty and
integrity.
. I have a high level of respect for my organization’s senior leaders.
. Senior leaders demonstrate support for work/life programs.
. Manager Leadership (factor loadings = 0.80–0.95, α = 0.907)
. Managers communicate the goals and priorities of the organization.
. Managers promote communication among different work units (for
example, about projects, goals, needed resources).
. Managers support collaboration across work units to accomplish work
objectives.
408 MIN ET AL.

. Frontline Leadership (factor loadings = 0.84–0.92, α = 0.927)

. My supervisor/team leader provides me with opportunities to
demonstrate my leadership skills.
. Discussions with my supervisor/team leader about my performance are
worthwhile.
. Supervisors/team leaders in my work unit support employee development.
. Overall, how well do you feel your immediate supervisor/team leader is
performing?
. Empowerment 1 (Job Skills/HRD) (factor loadings = 0.58–0.78, α = 0.752)
. I am given a real opportunity to improve my skills in my organization.
. The workforce has the job-relevant knowledge and skills necessary to
accomplish organizational goals.
. How satisfied are you with the training you receive for your present job?
. Empowerment 2 (Merit Pay) (factor loadings = 0.70–0.83, α = 0.859)
. Promotions in my work unit are based on merit.
. Awards in my work unit depend on how well employees perform their
jobs.
. Employees are recognized for providing high-quality products and
services.
. Pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs.
. Empowerment 3 (Feedback/Information) (factor loadings = 0.53–0.73,
α = 0.741)
. I have enough information to do my job well.
. I know how my work relates to the agency’s goals and priorities.
. Employees in my work unit share job knowledge with each other.
. How satisfied are you with the information you receive from manage-
ment on what’s going on in your organization?
. Empowerment 4 (Decision-making Process) (factor loadings = 0.79–0.79,
α = 0.773)
. Employees have a feeling of personal empowerment with respect to work
processes.
. How satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your
work?
. Creative Tendency (factor loadings = 0.56–0.56, α = 0.437)
. I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things.
. I am constantly looking for ways to do my job better.