Too little and too much authority sharing: Differential relationships with psychological empowerment and in‐role and extra‐role performance

Abstract

SummaryConsultation and delegation are essential behaviors by which leaders share authority with employees, and they historically are expected to positively influence employees' psychological empowerment and produce desirable behaviors. This study builds on notions of “rhetorical” versus “deep” authority sharing (Biron & Bamberger, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.540150) and the too‐much‐of‐a‐good‐thing framework (Pierce & Aguinis, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311410060) to challenge these conventional expectations. Despite the tendency of extant empowerment research to treat consultation and delegation as interchangeable, we propose that differences (a) in the nature and amount of authority that each devolves to employees and (b) in the scope of decisions with which they are used (i.e., job‐focused and job‐spanning) lead to differential relationships with psychological empowerment that are in turn transmitted to employee behaviors. Results from two studies indicate that the indirect (via psychological empowerment) effects of consultation and delegation on in‐role performance and extra‐role behavior can range from negative to positive to curvilinear, depending on whether employees are consulted about or delegated job‐focused or job‐spanning decisions. Highlighting the need for nuanced approaches to understanding authority sharing as part of the empowerment process, our work begins to identify both positive and negative inflection points at which authority sharing becomes either too little or too much to induce desired outcomes.