THE EMPOWERMENT CONSTRUCT IN MANAGER-EXECUTIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Empowerment is common to both the scholarly and the popular management literature. However; empowerment's many interpretations have dulled t he concept as a research tool. Here, empowerment is separated into per ceived environment and individual behavior components. The linkage bet ween organization environment and managerial behavior is tested with a population of 23 effective managers. It is found that an accepting or empowering environment increases the probability that the effective m anager will undertake activities outside the job description, but that an empowering environment is not necessary for effective middle-manag er behavior.