10 Strategic Points Quantitative Study Extraction #3  1 Unsatisfactory 0.00% 2 Less than Satisfactory 73.00% 3 Satisfactory 82.00% 4 Good 91.00% 5 Excellent 100.00% 100.0 %Criteria 35.0 %Identification of 10 Strategic Points Most of the 10 strategic points are either missing or incorrectly identified. Most of the 10 strategic points are present, and some are incorrectly identified. All of the 10 strategic points are present, but some are incorrectly identified. All of the 10 strategic points are present and correctly identified. All of the 10 strategic points are present and correctly identified with meaningful detail provided. 45.0 %Evaluation of the 10 Points An evaluation of the 10 points is not presented. An evaluation of the 10 points is presented, but incomplete or illogical. An evaluation of the 10 points is presented, but is cursory and lacking in depth. An evaluation of the 10 points is presented and thorough. An evaluation of the 10 points is thoroughly presented with rich detail. 10.0 %Thesis Development and Purpose Paper lacks any discernible overall purpose or organizing claim. Thesis and/or main claim are insufficiently developed and/or vague; purpose is not clear. Thesis and/or main claim are apparent and appropriate to purpose. Thesis and/or main claim are clear and forecast the development of the paper. They are descriptive and reflective of the arguments and appropriate to the purpose. Thesis and/or main claim are clear and comprehensive; the essence of the paper is contained within the thesis. 5.0 %Mechanics of Writing Mechanical errors are pervasive enough that they impede communication of meaning. Inappropriate word choice and/or sentence construction are used. Frequent and repetitive mechanical errors distract the reader. Inconsistencies in language choice (register), sentence structure, and/or word choice are present. Some mechanical errors or typos are present, but are not overly distracting to the reader. Correct sentence structure and audience-appropriate language are used. Prose is largely free of mechanical errors, although a few may be present. A variety of sentence structures and effective figures of speech are used. Writer is clearly in command of standard, written, academic English. 5.0 %APA Format Required format is rarely followed correctly. No reference page is included. No in-text citations are used. Required format elements are missing or incorrect. A lack of control with formatting is apparent. Reference page is present. However, in-text citations are inconsistently used. Required format is generally correct. However, errors are present (e.g. font, cover page, margins, and in-text citations). Reference page is included and lists sources used in the paper. Sources are appropriately documented though some errors are present. Required format is used, but minor errors are present (e.g. headings and direct quotes). Reference page is present and includes all cited sources. Documentation is appropriate and ...

1. 10 Strategic Points Quantitative Study Extraction #3
1
Unsatisfactory
0.00%
2
Less than Satisfactory
73.00%
3
Satisfactory
82.00%
4
Good
91.00%
5
Excellent
100.00%
100.0 %Criteria
35.0 %Identification of 10 Strategic Points
Most of the 10 strategic points are either missing or incorrectly
identified.
Most of the 10 strategic points are present, and some are
incorrectly identified.
All of the 10 strategic points are present, but some are
incorrectly identified.
All of the 10 strategic points are present and correctly
identified.
All of the 10 strategic points are present and correctly identified
with meaningful detail provided.
45.0 %Evaluation of the 10 Points
An evaluation of the 10 points is not presented.
An evaluation of the 10 points is presented, but incomplete or

2. illogical.
An evaluation of the 10 points is presented, but is cursory and
lacking in depth.
An evaluation of the 10 points is presented and thorough.
An evaluation of the 10 points is thoroughly presented with rich
detail.
10.0 %Thesis Development and Purpose
Paper lacks any discernible overall purpose or organizing claim.
Thesis and/or main claim are insufficiently developed and/or
vague; purpose is not clear.
Thesis and/or main claim are apparent and appropriate to
purpose.
Thesis and/or main claim are clear and forecast the development
of the paper. They are descriptive and reflective of the
arguments and appropriate to the purpose.
Thesis and/or main claim are clear and comprehensive; the
essence of the paper is contained within the thesis.
5.0 %Mechanics of Writing
Mechanical errors are pervasive enough that they impede
communication of meaning. Inappropriate word choice and/or
sentence construction are used.
Frequent and repetitive mechanical errors distract the reader.
Inconsistencies in language choice (register), sentence
structure, and/or word choice are present.
Some mechanical errors or typos are present, but are not overly
distracting to the reader. Correct sentence structure and
audience-appropriate language are used.
Prose is largely free of mechanical errors, although a few may
be present. A variety of sentence structures and effective
figures of speech are used.
Writer is clearly in command of standard, written, academic
English.
5.0 %APA Format

3. Required format is rarely followed correctly. No reference page
is included. No in-text citations are used.
Required format elements are missing or incorrect. A lack of
control with formatting is apparent. Reference page is present.
However, in-text citations are inconsistently used.
Required format is generally correct. However, errors are
present (e.g. font, cover page, margins, and in-text citations).
Reference page is included and lists sources used in the paper.
Sources are appropriately documented though some errors are
present.
Required format is used, but minor errors are present (e.g.
headings and direct quotes). Reference page is present and
includes all cited sources. Documentation is appropriate and
citation style is usually correct.
The document is correctly formatted. In-text citations and a
reference page are complete and correct. The documentation of
cited sources is free of error.
100 %Total Weightage
RESEARCH REPORT
Structural and Psychological Empowerment Climates,
Performance, and the
Moderating Role of Shared Felt Accountability: A Managerial
Perspective
J. Craig Wallace
Oklahoma State University
Paul D. Johnson

4. Western Carolina University
Kimberly Mathe and Jeff Paul
Oklahoma State University
The authors proposed and tested a model in which data were
collected from managers (n � 539) at 116
corporate-owned quick service restaurants to assess the
structural and psychological empowerment
process as moderated by shared-felt accountability on indices of
performance from a managerial
perspective. The authors found that empowering leadership
climate positively relates to psychological
empowerment climate. In turn, psychological empowerment
climate relates to performance only under
conditions of high-felt accountability; it does not relate to
performance under conditions of low-felt
accountability. Overall, the present results indicate that the
quick-service restaurant managers, who feel
more empowered, operate restaurants that perform better than
managers who feel less empowered, but
only when those empowered managers also feel a high sense of
accountability.
Keywords: empowerment, leadership, accountability,
performance, climate
The organizational empowerment literature differentiates em-
powerment as either structural or psychological in form
(Ahearne, Mathieu, & Rapp, 2005; Mathieu, Gilson, & Ruddy,
2006; Spreitzer, 1995). With strong roots in the work design
literature (Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Parker, Wall, & Cordery,
2001), structural empowerment refers to the delegation of au-
thority and responsibility to employees (e.g., leadership; Leach,
Wall, & Jackson, 2003; Mathieu et al., 2006) and has been
linked empirically with constructs of interest across multiple

5. levels of analysis (e.g., G. Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, &
Rosen, 2007; Seibert, Silver, & Randolph, 2004). Psychological
empowerment is characterized as a four-dimensional psycho-
logical state consisting of (a) meaningfulness, (b) competence,
(c) self-determination, and (d) impact (Conger & Kanungo,
1988; Spreitzer, 1995, 1996). Unlike structural empowerment,
psychological empowerment uses social information processing
as the theoretical underpinning. As a result, psychological em-
powerment has been shown to transform individual behaviors
above and beyond the capabilities of structural empowerment
alone (e.g., peer helping, supportive relationships; Corsun &
Enz, 1999; Parker et al., 2001). To date, however, no research
has examined the collective construct of psychological empow-
erment (i.e., aggregated composite of meaningfulness, compe-
tence, self-determination, and impact)—what we term psycho-
logical empowerment climate—and how such a construct might
operate in organizational contexts.
Existing research has demonstrated the positive aspects of
empowerment, but what if empowered employees do not feel
accountable, how might this condition influence subsequent
performance? This rather practical question has far-reaching
implications as performance may suffer if employees misuse
their sense of empowerment. Accountability facilitates order in
the workplace by creating awareness of answerable tasks, meth-
ods for task achievement, as well as clarifying evaluation
methods and agents (Breaux, Munyon, Hochwater, & Ferris,
2009). Hence, accountability appears to be a critical boundary
condition in the empowerment process: Employees are empow-
ered and maintain engagement in their jobs due to higher levels
of felt accountability. Testing this boundary condition is the
primary objective of the present research. Overall, we examined
in the present study the extent to which shared managerial
perceptions of psychological empowerment are related to indi-
ces of effectiveness beyond empowering leadership, while also

6. This article was published Online First March 7, 2011.
J. Craig Wallace and Jeff Paul, Spears School of Business,
Oklahoma
State University; Paul D. Johnson, College of Business, Western
Carolina
University; Kimberly Mathe, School of Hotel & Restaurant
Administra-
tion, Oklahoma State University.
We thank Larry James and Bryan Edwards for the insightful
comments
on earlier versions of this paper. This paper was also presented
at the
annual Academy of Management Conference, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada,
August 2010.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
J. Craig
Wallace, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State
University, 700
North Greenwood, Tulsa, OK 74133. E-mail: [email protected]
Journal of Applied Psychology © 2011 American Psychological
Association
2011, Vol. 96, No. 4, 840 – 850 0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI:
10.1037/a0022227
840
T
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11. ro
ad
ly
.
demonstrating the importance of accountability as a moderator
of this relationship (see Figure 1).
Empowering Leadership and Psychological
Empowerment Climate
Climates are collective constructs (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999)
in
which ambient stimuli serve as a source of information that
signal the
appropriateness of member behaviors (Hackman, 1992).
According to
Morgeson and Hofmann (1999), “any given collective can be
viewed
as a series of ongoing, events, and event cycles between the
compo-
nent parts (e.g., individuals)” (p. 252). These event cycles
within a
given collective form a unique foundation for the emergence of
the
collective construct, which in turn leads to persistence of the
collec-
tive construct that ultimately shapes collective action via social
infor-
mation processing (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999). Barker (1993)
provides evidence to support this chain of events for customer
service

12. in that a newly codified and strengthened norm for service
signifi-
cantly related to service behavior among the collective’s
members.
This notion that collective constructs “emerge from interaction
and
can, over time, come to influence systems of interaction”
(Morgeson
& Hofmann, 1999, p. 262) is the basis for the influence of
climate in
organizations.
Previous research has supported relationships between cli-
mate and performance for various climate types (e.g., service,
safety; Patterson, Warr, & West, 2004; Zohar, 2000, 2002).
With regard to empowerment, Seibert et al. (2004) found that a
leadership-based empowerment climate directly and positively
related to group performance, whereas individual psychological
empowerment mediated its cross-level relationship with indi-
vidual performance. Other researchers have found positive re-
lationships between leadership-based empowerment climate
and task performance (Tuuli & Rowlinson, 2009), whereas
others have shown that employees’ resistance to empowerment
climate (i.e., rejecting empowerment) negatively relates to per-
formance (Maynard, Mathieu, Marsh, & Ruddy, 2007). Al-
though there is evidence that leadership-based empowerment
climate relates to important organizational outcomes, research
has yet to explicate fully the theoretical and empirical role that
shared psychological empowerment climate might play in this
process.
Empowerment is isomorphic (G. Chen et al., 2007; Kirkman
& Rosen, 1999; Spreitzer, 1996) in that it retains the same
meaning and function across levels of analysis (i.e., individual,
group; G. Chen, Bliese, & Mathieu, 2005; Klein & Kozlowski,

13. 2000). James and colleagues (2008) stated, “Shared perceptual
agreement at the individual level of analysis in climate research
provides the meaning of the construct at a higher level of
analysis” (p. 17). Integrating this notion of shared psychologi-
cal constructs with the isomorphic nature of the psychological
framework of empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995), we conceptual-
ize psychological empowerment climate as shared psychologi-
cal perceptions of empowerment related to meaningfulness,
competence, self-determination, and impact. Though we opera-
tionalize this construct as psychological empowerment climate
as experienced by managers (our sample consists of managers),
we refer to the construct as psychological empowerment cli-
mate in the present article.
Psychological empowerment climate is distinct from team
empow-
erment and empowering leadership (or structural
empowerment).
Team empowerment has been defined as “team members’
collective
belief that they have the authority to control their proximal
work
environment and are responsible for their team’s functioning”
(Mat-
hieu et al., 2006, p. 98). Although the team empowerment
construct is
important to study in teams, it may not adequately capture the
shared
psychological perceptions of empowerment in more loosely
orga-
nized collectives, which are common in organizations. This is a
particularly salient point in the present study, as our sample
does not
include organizationally structured teams; rather, it is composed
of
managers in a given location. Because team empowerment limits

14. itself to teams, we focused on psychological empowerment
climate as
a broader conceptualization using managerial collectives in a
given
location (i.e., restaurant).
Seibert et al. (2004) defined empowerment climate as “employ-
ees’ shared perceptions of managerial structures, policies, and
practices related to empowerment” (p. 333). This
operationaliza-
tion and measurement of empowerment climate does not capture
the shared psychological aspects of empowerment that
psycholog-
ical climates purport to capture (i.e., feeling empowered; James
et
al., 2008); rather, it captures structural aspects of empowerment
stemming from organizational leadership (Seibert et al., 2004,
p.
338). G. Chen et al. (2007) suggested that the notion of empow-
erment climate as presented by Seibert et al. (2004) is highly
consistent with Kirkman and Rosen’s (1999) empowering
leader-
ship behaviors, which depicts the structural component of
empow-
erment. In fact, G. Chen et al. (2007) integrated Kirkman and
Rosen’s (1999) and Seibert et al.’s (2004) work and used the
term
Figure 1. Theoretical model of hypothesized relationships.
841EMPOWERMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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17. T
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19. b
ro
ad
ly
.
“empowering leadership climate”1 in their study (p. 333).
Seibert
et al. (2004) also demonstrated via factor analysis that
empowering
leadership climate is distinct from psychological empowerment.
Thus, empowering leadership climate and psychological empow-
erment climate are theoretically and empirically distinct from
each
other, with the former measuring structural empowerment and
the
latter measuring psychological empowerment. Despite being
dis-
tinct constructs, empowering leadership is a likely antecedent to
psychological empowerment climate (cf. Zhang & Bartol, 2010).
Theory and research (e.g., Bowen & Ostroff, 2004; G. Chen et
al., 2007; Ostroff, Kinicki, & Tamkins, 2003; Zohar, 2000,
2002;
Zohar & Tenne-Gazit, 2008) demonstrate that leadership is
ante-
cedent to climate, which has been explained via engagement in
the
social learning process wherein unit members observe, interact,
and codify norms on the basis of leader behavior that develops
into
a common understanding of that behavior (i.e., climate for

20. some-
thing; Dragoni, 2005; Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999; Zohar &
Tenne-Gazit, 2008). In a similar fashion, psychological
empower-
ment climate likely develops from empowering leadership
(Menon, 2001) by providing the necessary conditions for feeling
empowered. The empowering leader implements policies, prac-
tices, and procedures with the objective of empowering
collective
members, which results in members sharing a perception of
being
empowered (in our case, store and assistant managers in a given
restaurant). This relationship is due to the leader (a) assisting
members to understand their work, thereby enhancing the mean-
ingfulness of work, (b) expressing confidence in members’
ability
to complete tasks, (c) providing autonomy by encouraging mem-
bers to decide how to carry out work, and (d) encouraging mem-
bers to participate in decision making (Manz & Sims, 1987;
Sims
& Manz, 1994; Zhang & Bartol, 2010). As such, shared percep-
tions of psychological empowerment are partially driven by unit
leaders and partially result from a social learning process
among
unit members. In this process, ambient stimuli, social cues, and
explicit information generate shared feelings of psychological
em-
powerment, which strengthens over repeated cycles of
interaction.
This relationship has been found at the individual level (Zhang
&
Bartol, 2010) and crossing hierarchical levels (Z. Chen, Lam, &
Zhong, 2007; Seibert et al., 2004), but it has not been examined
from a managerial perspective. This relationship also
constitutes
an important piece of our model. Hence, our first hypothesis:

21. Hypothesis 1 (H1): Empowering leadership climate positively
relates to psychological empowerment climate.
Psychological Empowerment Climate and Performance
Psychological empowerment climate fosters empowerment-
related behaviors and outcomes via social learning. Social
learning
theory proposes that individuals model their own behavior
through
observation of salient environmental stimuli, particularly the
be-
havior of others such as leaders and colleagues (Bandura, 1986).
In
this case, psychological empowerment climate acts as a source
of
salient stimuli, which is interpreted and integrated into the
behav-
ioral system of collective members (i.e., managers for the
present
study). Thus, as managers identify social cues about desired be-
haviors and norms, they learn about the psychological empower-
ment climate encompassing meaningfulness, competence, self-
determination, and impact. Managers in highly empowered units
possess a common understanding of competence, the ability to
determine appropriate work methods, and the significance of
their
work. As a result, managers share similar behavioral strategies
as
each manager learns and models behavior after one another, in-
cluding increased motivation to engage in their work (Lawler,
1996). Thus, an increase in psychological empowerment climate
and the subsequent decrease in behavioral variability among
man-

22. agers in a given collective results in more cognitive, physical,
and
socioemotional resources for managers to apply toward work
tasks
as they are not expending resources on understanding their envi-
ronment (cf. Dragoni, 2005; Hochwarter, Witt, Treadway, &
Fer-
ris, 2006).
Given this social learning process, it is probable that psycho-
logical empowerment climate can be broadened and
strengthened
within managerial collectives via repeated interactions
(Dragoni,
2005; Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). When shared perceptions of
empowerment are high, the continued interactions among
manag-
ers produce a positive spiral generating additional
empowerment
perceptions (cf. Feldman, 2004). Such increases in meaningful-
ness, competence, self-determination, and impact (i.e.,
psycholog-
ical empowerment climate) should increase performance due to
the
role of psychological empowerment as an enabling process that
allows managers to increase task engagement and persistence.
Therefore, we contend that shared managerial perceptions of
psy-
chological empowerment climate positively relate to
performance,
of which service and sales are two key indices in the present
sample.
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Psychological empowerment climate pos-
itively relates to sales (H2a) and service (H2b).

23. Shared Felt Accountability as a Moderator
Accountability is defined as “an implicit or explicit expectation
that one’s decisions or actions will be subject to evaluation by
some salient audience(s) with the belief that there exists the
potential for one to receive either rewards or sanctions based on
the expected evaluation” (Hall et al., 2003, p. 33).
Accountability
is most often conceptualized and studied as a perceptual state
(i.e.,
felt accountability) rather than an objective condition (Frink &
Klimoski, 1998; Hochwarter et al., 2007; Tetlock, 1985).
Research
suggests that accountability relates to a number of important
organizational constructs, such as motivation (Enzle &
Anderson,
1993) and job performance (Hochwarter et al., 2007; Schlenker
&
Weigold, 1989).
Gelfand, Lim, and Raver (2004) proposed the perceptual state of
accountability as a multilevel phenomenon of which there are
two
forms: structural alignment and web alignment. Structural align-
ment exists when organizational members perceive formal orga-
nizational policies, rules, and procedures in the same fashion.
Web
alignment is the extent to which individuals share a common
understanding of informal behavioral expectations, specific to a
1 Preacher et al.’s (2007) study also contains multiple models
for testing
moderated-mediation. We used Model 3. We also used Preacher
et al.’s
macro, and the complete reference for the macro is provided in
the

24. References list. Finally, the macro provides confidence interval
options for
percentile and biased methods—results with these options
supported the
same pattern of significance.
842 WALLACE, JOHNSON, MATHE, AND PAUL
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26. lli
ed
p
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.
T
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27. r t
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28. b
e
di
ss
em
in
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ed
b
ro
ad
ly
.
given collective, thereby different from formal policies, rules,
and
procedures (cf. Bowen & Ostroff, 2004; Zohar, 2000). Of
partic-
ular interest to the present study is Gelfand et al.’s (2004)
concep-
tualization of within-collective web alignment (i.e., members
per-
ceive similar accountability norms). Building on the notion of
within-unit accountability alignment (Gelfand et al., 2004) and
the
definition of accountability provided by Hall et al. (2003), we
conceptualized shared felt accountability as a collective
expecta-

29. tion in which decisions and behaviors are subject to evaluation
and
justification by a salient organizational agent(s). As with
psycho-
logical empowerment climate, the interactions between and
among
restaurant managers not only give rise to but also strengthen the
collective accountability among managers via repeated cycles of
interaction and influence. Through mutual influence, managers
codify accountability norms by acting on heightened
perceptions
of felt accountability. As such, accountability is isomorphic
across
levels of analysis (cf. Klein & Kozlowski, 2000).
Shared felt accountability differs from the notion of “responsi-
bility and accountability” presented by Seibert et al. (2004) as a
component of empowering leadership climate. Seibert et al.
(2004)
define accountability as “the perception that teams are the locus
of
decision-making authority [responsibility] and performance ac-
countability in organizations” (p. 333). This definition of
account-
ability is more structural in nature as it describes the delegation
of
authority and responsibility. This does not accurately capture
shared felt accountability, but rather captures whether managers
have been charged with the duty and obligation to monitor their
own behavior. For example, Seibert et al. (2004) measured the
extent to which members perceive they are responsible for their
own accountability (e.g., “We use teams as the focal point of
responsibility and accountability in our organization,” p. 338).
Due
to these discrepancies, four issues limit us from adopting
Seibert et

30. al.’s (2004) conceptualization of responsibility and
accountability.
First, we do not focus on teams. Second, Seibert et al. (2004)
combined responsibility and accountability into the same
dimen-
sion, despite the conceptual distinction between the two (Frink
&
Klimoski, 1998; Hall et al., 2006). Third, the conceptualization
and
measure used by Siebert et al. (2004) does not measure shared
felt
accountability. Fourth, and perhaps most important,
accountability
is not a theoretical component in psychological empowerment
(Spretizer, 1995). Accordingly, we believe that the present re-
search more accurately conceptualizes shared felt
accountability.
According to Hall et al. (2003), accountability facilitates orga-
nizational order by creating awareness of task responsibilities
and
acceptable methods for task achievement as well as by
identifying
the relevant evaluative organizational agent(s) (see also Breaux
et
al., 2009). Accountability creates a behavioral boundary that
guides and directs resources toward a specified set of objectives
for behavior and performance (Hall et al., 2006). Given that
within-unit accountability is a shared perception that exists
within
collectives (Gelfand et al., 2004) and that accountability also
provides members with clear expectancies for resource
utilization
(Hall et al., 2003, 2006), it is likely that accountability helps
channel resources toward achieving expected outcomes. There-
fore, we proposed shared felt accountability as a moderator of

31. the
psychological empowerment climate and performance
relationship
because although felt accountability accentuates the positive as-
pects of a psychological empowerment climate, it does not lead
to
them.
When shared felt accountability is high, managers are likely
more familiar with evaluative standards for decisions and
behav-
iors, thereby reducing confusion, conflict, and anxiety leading
to
enhanced performance (Davis, Mero, & Goodman, 2007; Fandt,
1991; Mero, Guidice, & Brownlee, 2007). Low shared felt ac-
countability likely leads to increased confusion, conflict, and
anx-
iety among managers in a given collective due to a lack of
normative evaluation standards (Gelfand et al., 2004), which
neg-
atively relates to performance. Shared felt accountability serves
as
a behavioral check on the appropriate application of effort and
resources. Thus, in a situation in which accountability is low
but
empowerment is high, empowered managers fail to answer the
question: What are we empowered to do? because standards for
decisions and behaviors are insufficient. However, when both
accountability and psychological empowerment climate are
high,
managers have clear behavioral standards to guide the
application
of their resources. For example, Hall et al. (2003) found that the
combination of high autonomy and high accountability resulted
in
decreased job tension and emotional exhaustion, while leading

32. to
higher job satisfaction. Thus, shared felt accountability
provides
guidance to highly empowered managers as to how their work
will
be evaluated, thus establishing behavioral expectations.
Therefore,
we propose that shared felt accountability serves as a boundary
condition moderating the relationship between psychological
em-
powerment climate and performance:
Hypothesis 3 (H3): Shared felt accountability moderates the
psychological empowerment climate–sales (H3a) and service
(H3b) relationship such that under high accountability, there
will be a more positive relationship, whereas there will be a
less positive relationship when accountability is low.
Moderation and Mediation
Building on the hypotheses presented above (Hypotheses 1–3),
we expect to find support for a mediated model in which
psycho-
logical empowerment climate mediates the empowering
leadership
climate to performance relationship. Furthermore, we also
expect
felt accountability to moderate this mediated relationship. In es-
sence, we propose that shared felt accountability moderates the
mediation effect of psychological empowerment climate on the
empowering leadership–performance relationship.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): Shared felt accountability moderates the
mediated relationship between empowering leadership cli-
mate and sales (H4a) and service (H4b) via psychological
empowerment climate such that when accountability is high,

33. the conditional indirect effect of empowering leadership cli-
mate on sales and service is more positive, whereas the
conditional indirect effect of empowering leadership on sales
and service is less positive when accountability is low.
Method
Participants and Procedure
The participants for this study were assistant and store
managers
of 116 corporate-owned quick service restaurants in the United
States. Restaurants was operationalized as the collective
grouping
843EMPOWERMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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34. te
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A
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P
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ol
og
ic
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A
ss
oc
ia
tio
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or

35. o
ne
o
f i
ts
a
lli
ed
p
ub
lis
he
rs
.
T
hi
s
ar
tic
le
is
in
te
nd

36. ed
s
ol
el
y
fo
r t
he
p
er
so
na
l u
se
o
f t
he
in
di
vi
du
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se

37. r a
nd
is
n
ot
to
b
e
di
ss
em
in
at
ed
b
ro
ad
ly
.
mechanism for managers in which each restaurant contained a
store manager and several assistant managers. Managers were
surveyed over three time periods via an e-mail sent from the
corporate office once a month for a period of 3 consecutive
months. Of the total 649 stores in the organization, managers

38. from
430 stores responded (response rate of 66%). For the second
round, individuals responding from the initial 430 stores were
surveyed, yielding responses from managers of 236 stores (54%
response rate). The third and final round yielded responses from
members in 159 stores participating from the previous rounds
(67% response rate). Of the 159 stores in which managers re-
sponded over all three periods, 116 stores had complete and
usable
data and were composed of 539 managers (assistant and store)
with at least two assistant managers and one store manager re-
sponding from each store. Over the three time periods, the
usable
overall response rate for assistant and store managers was
24.1%
(total potential manager sample was 2,235). The average
number
of manager responses for each restaurant was 4.7 (range � 3–7).
During the first phase of data collection, all managers were
asked
to complete measures on control variables, whereas only
assistant
managers completed the empowering leadership measure using
the
store manager as a referent. Approximately 1 month later at
Time
2, assistant managers completed the psychological
empowerment
climate scale, and then 1 month following this data collection,
all
managers completed the accountability scale (Time 3). The par-
ticipating organization provided store sales numbers for the
2008
fiscal year and mystery customer service shopping scores for
the
following quarter (3 months later). The final sample was

39. composed
of 58.7% females (SD � 0.48), with 38% of the sample between
the ages of 21 and 25, 36% between the ages of 26 and 34, and
26% were older than 34.
Measures
Empowering leadership climate. Empowering leadership
climate was measured with the 17-item scale developed by
Ahearne et al. (2005). The scale includes four different areas
including participation in decision making (five items; example
item, “My store manager makes many decisions together with
me”), meaningfulness of work (four items; example item, “My
store manager helps me understand how my objectives and goals
relate to that of the company”), confidence in high performance
(three items; example item, “My store manager believes that I
can
handle demanding tasks”), and autonomy from bureaucratic con-
straints (five items; example item, “My store manager makes it
more efficient for me to do my job by keeping the rules and
regulations simple”). The measure uses a 7-point Likert-type
scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The
assistant managers for each store evaluated the respective store
manager in regard to his or her empowering leadership
behavior.
Psychological empowerment climate. Using only assistant
managers, psychological empowerment climate was assessed
with
Spreitzer’s (1995 12, 1996) 12-item measure. This four-
dimensional instrument measures the psychological aspects of
empowerment regarding meaning (e.g., “The work I do is very
important to me within my store”), competence (e.g., “I am con-
fident about my ability to do my job in my store”), self-
determination (e.g., “I have significant autonomy in my store in

40. determining how I do my job”), and impact (e.g., “My impact
on
what happens in my store is large”). The measure uses a 7-point
Likert-type scale rangng from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7
(very
strongly agree). The referent was left as the self (i.e.,
aggregation
via direct consensus) due to the isomorphic nature of
psycholog-
ical empowerment. James et al. (2008) and Chan (1998)
discussed
that the direct consensus model of aggregation is adequate to
capture the notion of a shared psychological climate given that
there is sufficient empirical justification for aggregation (e.g.,
rwg � .70), which is reported in the Results section.
Accountability. The accountability measure, developed by
Hochwarter, Kacmar, and Ferris (2003), is composed of eight
items
assessing manager’s felt accountability at work (Hochwarter,
Per-
rewe, Hall, & Ferris, 2005). This measure uses a 7-point Likert-
type
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Ex-
ample items include “I am held very accountable for my actions
in my
store” and “I often have to explain why I do certain things at
work.”
Both assistant and store managers completed this measure.
Performance. Store sales revenues for the 2008 fiscal year as
well as aggregated customer service perceptions for restaurants
were obtained. The customers who evaluated the store service
performance were hired from a national third-party mystery

41. shop-
ping organization. Dimensions on which service was rated
include
employee appearance, order taking, friendliness, accuracy, and
promptness of food arrival. Items evaluating restaurant service
are
rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 ( poor) to 5 (excellent).
The
organization provided the mean of the five service dimensions.
Controls. Organization tenure and gender were controlled
for, as research has shown that each is related to service perfor-
mance (Ployhart, Wiechmann, Schmitt, Sacco, & Rogg, 2003).
Store age in years was also controlled for, as it might relate to
sales
beyond the control of managers. Using this method might allow
us
to partial out some store specific revenues (Kacmar, Andrews,
Rooy, Steilberg, & Cerrone, 2006). Perceptions of
organizational
resources (i.e., work design features that help employees
achieve
goals and reduce job demands; Salanova, Agut, & Peiró, 2005,
p.
1218) were controlled for in order to determine whether the
focal
variables capture unique variance in the present outcomes
beyond
perceived organizational resources. The scale used for this
control
variable consists of 11 items along three dimensions: organiza-
tional training, job autonomy, and technology using a 5-point
scale
ranging from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important).
Results

42. Given the potential overlap among our primary variables, we
conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to assess divergent
validity.
We found that a four-factor model (empowerment climate,
empow-
ering leadership, accountability, and organizational resources)
fit the
data well, �2(1169, N �) � 1726.32, p � .05, confirmatory fit
index
(CFI) � .97, root-mean-square-error of approximation
(RMSEA) �
.06, standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) � .04.
Addi-
tionally, all correlations among the four factors were less than
.35.
Next, we assessed the viability of data aggregation following
the
recommendations of Bliese (2000): sufficient within-unit
homogene-
ity, between-unit heterogeneity, and the naturally occurring
nature of
the unit of analysis, which is the case in the present study. We
used the
rwg(j) statistic and interclass correlation(1) (ICC[1]) to assess
within-
unit homogeneity and ICC(2) and analysis of variance
(ANOVA) to
assess between-unit homogeneity. As shown in Table 1,
aggregation
844 WALLACE, JOHNSON, MATHE, AND PAUL
T
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44. ol
og
ic
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A
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oc
ia
tio
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or
o
ne
o
f i
ts
a
lli
ed
p
ub
lis
he
rs

45. .
T
hi
s
ar
tic
le
is
in
te
nd
ed
s
ol
el
y
fo
r t
he
p
er
so
na
l u

46. se
o
f t
he
in
di
vi
du
al
u
se
r a
nd
is
n
ot
to
b
e
di
ss
em
in
at

47. ed
b
ro
ad
ly
.
indices are supportive of aggregating our data. Next, we
examined
descriptive statistics for our main effect hypotheses (H1:
empowering
leadership climate and psychological empowerment climate; H2:
psy-
chological empowerment climate and performance indices). As
shown in Table 2, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were both supported.
Also, we
examined the relationship between empowering leadership
climate
(distal predictor) and store performance as a first step in
establishing
mediation. We found that empowering leadership climate
positively
relates to sales and service, which initially supports the first
step in
mediation. We assessed Hypotheses 3 and 4 using multiple
moderated
regression and tests of conditional indirect effects.
Prior to analyzing the full model, all predictors were mean
centered (Aiken & West, 1991). In the model, we first entered
our
control variables as well as empowering leadership climate in

48. predicting sales (see Table 3) and service (see Table 4).
Although
empowering leadership climate did not significantly predict
either,
we moved forward with our models to assess indirect effects.
Second, we used the same predictor variables with
psychological
empowerment climate (the mediator) as the outcome.
Empowering
leadership climate was a significant predictor (� � .25, p �
.05)
of psychological empowerment climate. Third, psychological
em-
powerment climate was shown to be a significant predictor of
both
sales (� � .21, p � .05) and service (� � .31, p � .05). Next,
we
controlled for accountability and the fifth model controlled for
interactions among our control variables. Accountability was a
significant predictor of sales (� � .26, p � .05) and service (�
�
.26, p � .05), yet no significant control interactions were found.
In
the last step, we found that our focal interaction between
psycho-
logical empowerment climate and shared felt accountability was
significant for sales (� � .36, p � .05) and service (� � .26, p
�
.05). As shown in Figures 2 and 3, low accountability made
little
difference in performance regardless of psychological empower-
ment climate level. Conversely, in stores with high
accountability,
psychological empowerment climate positively related to both
sales and service performance. Tests of simple slopes supported

49. this pattern such that with high accountability, psychological
em-
powerment climate significantly related to sales (� � .40, p �
.05)
and service (� � .31 p � .05), but not when accountability was
low (� � �.21, p � .05; � � �.17, p � .05). Our results
partially
support Hypothesis 3 in that there were significant relationships
between psychological empowerment climate and sales and ser-
vice when accountability was high, but not when accountability
was low.
Although it is the most common method for testing mediated
models, researchers have pointed out shortcomings of the Baron
and Kenny (1986) approach and recommend reporting estimates
of
the size of the indirect effect and statistical significance tests
(e.g.,
MacKinnon, Lockwood, Hoffman, West, & Sheets, 2002; Shrout
& Bolger, 2002). The Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007)
method
also allow for testing moderated-mediation in conjunction with
indirect effects via bootstrapping. Hence, to further assess the
proposed moderated-mediated effects, we tested for conditional
indirect effects following the Preacher et al. (2007) method. An
assumption of statistical significance tests is that the data are
normally distributed. However, indirect effects are likely
skewed
so the assumption of normality is often untenable. Thus, we
derived estimates of the indirect effects, their standard errors,
and
the bias-corrected and accelerated 95% confidence intervals
around the effects using a bootstrapping method with
replacement
following the guidelines of Preacher et al. (2007; see also
Footnote

50. 1). Previous work has used this approach (e.g., Edwards &
Arthur,
2007; Wallace, Edwards, Shull, & Finch, 2009), and research
demonstrates that bootstrap methods are more powerful than tra-
ditional tests of mediation (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). We
estimated
1,000 bootstrap samples in which the independent variable was
empowering leadership, the mediator was psychological empow-
erment climate, the moderator was shared felt accountability,
and
the dependent variables were sales and service. In short, this
method examines the magnitude of the conditional indirect
effects
of empowering leadership on store sales and service through
psychological empowerment climate across both low and high
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Correlations for all
Variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Psychological empowerment climate 4.36 1.02 .83
2. Group felt accountability 4.68 0.96 .34� .82
3. Store service performance 85.4 8.29 .33� .29� —
4. Store sales 1,572,897 1,271,968 .24� .29� .50� —
5. Organizational resources 3.69 0.61 .25� �.04 .04 .04 .87
6. Empowering leadership climate 5.03 1.54 .39� .05 .18� .12
.16 .91
7. Gender 1.67 0.54 �.13� �.05 .16 �.01 �.05 .23� —
8. Tenure 7.48 2.04 �.05 �.02 .13 .06 �.05 �.36� �.34� —
9. Age of store (in years) 8.80 3.72 .24� .16 .07 .25� �.03 .10
�.13 �.02 —
Note. Alpha reliabilities appear italicized on the diagonal.
� p � .05.

51. Table 1
Aggregation Indices for Variables
Variable rwg(j) ICC(1) ICC(2) F
Empowering leadership climatea .85 .28� .69 2.56�
Psychological empowerment climatea .88 .34� .78 4.12�
Shared felt accountabilityb .88 .22� .67 2.12�
Organizational resourcesb .93 .15� .74 3.01�
Note. rwg(j) performed with normal distribution. ICC �
intraclass corre-
lation.
a dfs � 115, 307. b dfs � 115, 423.
� p � .05.
845EMPOWERMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
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oc
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53. tio
n
or
o
ne
o
f i
ts
a
lli
ed
p
ub
lis
he
rs
.
T
hi
s
ar
tic
le
is

54. in
te
nd
ed
s
ol
el
y
fo
r t
he
p
er
so
na
l u
se
o
f t
he
in
di
vi
du

55. al
u
se
r a
nd
is
n
ot
to
b
e
di
ss
em
in
at
ed
b
ro
ad
ly
.

56. levels of accountability using bootstrapping. The results shown
in
Table 5 demonstrate that when accountability is low, the
indirect
effects of empowering leadership climate on sales and service
were nonsignificant. However, when accountability is high,
there
is a significant and positive indirect effect of empowering
leader-
ship climate via psychological empowerment climate on store
sales (conditional indirect effect � .14, 95% CI � 0.04, 0.21)
and
store service (conditional indirect effect � .17, 95% CI � 0.07,
0.24).
Discussion
The purpose of this research was twofold. The first was to theo-
retically describe and empirically test a form of psychological
em-
powerment climate, integrating it with empowering leadership
cli-
mate. The second, and perhaps the more pressing objective of
this
research, was to examine shared felt accountability as a
boundary
condition in the empowerment process from a managerial
perspective.
We discovered positive relationships between empowering
leadership
climate, psychological empowerment climate, and two indices
of
performance. We also demonstrated that shared felt
accountability
significantly moderated this process. Although the present
research

57. makes important contributions to the literature on
empowerment,
perhaps the more interesting contribution is the moderating role
of
accountability. Managerial accountability is essential to store
success,
so much so that in the absence of accountability, empowerment
does
not provide positive benefits. Our findings indicate that positive
benefits from empowerment (structural, via empowering
leadership
climate and psychological, via psychological empowerment
climate)
only accrue in the presence of high shared felt accountability.
Theo-
retically, this study extends previous empowerment research by
de-
lineating empowerment climate from a shared psychological
perspec-
tive, distinguishing it from team empowerment and empowering
leadership, integrating it with empowering leadership, and by
sup-
porting accountability as a boundary condition. Hence,
empowerment
climate appears to be quite meaningful as a shared
psychological
perception beyond the structural component of empowering
leader-
ship alone.
Although we were interested in a rather practical question:
What
happens if managers are empowered but not held accountable?
we
have identified important implications stemming from the

58. integra-
tion of shared felt accountability with psychological
empowerment
climate. First, future research on psychological empowerment
should include accountability to ascertain its relevance across
contexts and across organizational levels to increase
generalizabil-
ity. Second, our results indicate that an organization should
implement procedures to develop mutual felt accountability of
restaurant managers in an effort to optimize effectiveness. Oth-
erwise, individuals who do not feel accountable may take
advantage of their empowerment resulting in potential adverse
consequences. Future research should address the possibility of
these consequences, such as counterproductive work behaviors.
Our results also suggest that accountability should also be
Table 3
Results of Moderated-Mediated Regression of Store Sales
Performance on Empowering Leadership Climate, Psychological
Empowerment Climate, and Felt Accountability
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6
IVs and
controls to DV
IVs and
controls to
mediator (PEC)
Mediator (PEC)
controlling IVs
and controls

59. Controlling
for
accountability
prior to
interactions
Interactions
for control
constructs
Focal interaction
(PEC � Acct.)
controlling for
all other
variables
DV � Sales DV � PEC DV � Sales DV � Sales DV � Sales
DV � Sales
Predictor
Age of store .26� .21� .23� .20� .19 .19
Gender .08 �.14 .10 .09 .07 .02
Tenure .13 .01 .12 .14 .10 .08
Empowering leadership climate .08 .25� .04 .07 .06 .04
Organizational resources .06 .22� .02 .04 .01 .02
PEC .21� .09 .11 .19
Accountability .26� .24� .20
Empowering Leadership �
Organizational Resources �.02 .01
Empowering Leadership �
Accountability �.02 .09

60. PEC � Organizational
Resources .10 .09
PEC � Accountability .36�
F 1.74 4.43� 1.86 2.57� 1.98� 3.46�
R2 .09 .18 .11 .17 .19 .32
�R2 .09 .18 .02 .06 .02 .13
Note. IV � independent variable; DV � dependent variable;
PEC � Psychological empowerment climate; Acct. �
Accountability. Effects reported are
standardized betas.
� p � .05.
846 WALLACE, JOHNSON, MATHE, AND PAUL
T
hi
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61. gh
te
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e
A
m
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P
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ol
og
ic
al
A
ss
oc
ia
tio
n

62. or
o
ne
o
f i
ts
a
lli
ed
p
ub
lis
he
rs
.
T
hi
s
ar
tic
le
is
in
te

63. nd
ed
s
ol
el
y
fo
r t
he
p
er
so
na
l u
se
o
f t
he
in
di
vi
du
al
u

64. se
r a
nd
is
n
ot
to
b
e
di
ss
em
in
at
ed
b
ro
ad
ly
.
considered in a more positive frame, as prior research positions
accountability as a stressor (Ferris, Mitchell, Canavan, Frink, &
Hopper, 1995). However, research suggests that stressors can
engender either a hindrance view or a challenge view, with

65. challenge stressors leading to improved performance (LePine,
Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005). It is the responsibility of the unit
manager to remove hindrances (e.g., red tape) and provide
support for employees to meet challenges (Wallace, Edwards,
Table 4
Results of Moderated-Mediated Regression of Store Service
Performance on Empowering Leadership Climate, Psychological
Empowerment Climate, and Felt Accountability
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6
IVs and
controls to DV
IVs and
controls to
mediator (PEC)
Mediator (PEC)
controlling IVs
and controls
Controlling for
accountability
prior to
interactions
Interactions
for control
constructs

66. Focal interaction
(PEC � Acct.)
controlling for
all other
variables
DV � Service DV � PEC DV � Service DV � Service DV �
Service DV � Service
Predictor
Age of store .07 .21� .02 .01 .03 .03
Gender .26� �.14 .30� .28� .28� .24�
Tenure .36� .01 .34� .35� .29� .27�
Empowering leadership
climate .20 .25� .11 .15 .13 .12
Organizational resources .09 .22� .01 .04 .01 .01
PEC .31� .22� .28� .33�
Accountability .26� .23� .20�
Empowering Leadership �
Organizational Resources .12 .13
Empowering Leadership �
Accountability .14 .13
PEC � Organizational
Resources .15 .13
PEC � Accountability .26�
F 2.97� 4.43� 3.71� 4.04� 3.51� 3.76�

67. R2 .17 .18 .22 .28 .34 .41
�R2 .17 .18 .05 .06 .06 .07
Note. IV � independent variable; DV � dependent variable;
PEC � Psychological empowerment climate; Acct. �
Accountability. Effects reported are
standardized betas.
� p � .05.
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
Low PEC High PEC
St
or
e
Sa
le
s
Low SFA
High SFA

68. Figure 2. Interaction of psychological empowerment climate and
shared
felt accountability on store sales. High shared felt
accountability and
psychological empowerment climate are 1 SD, and low shared
felt
accountability and psychological empowerment climate are –1
SD. PEC �
psychological empowerment climate; SFA � shared felt
accountability.
Both PEC and SFA are collective managerial perceptions.
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
Low PEC High PEC
St
or
e
Se
rv
ic

69. e
P
er
fo
rm
an
ce
Low SFA
High SFA
Figure 3. Interaction of psychological empowerment climate and
shared
felt accountability on store service performance. High shared
felt account-
ability and psychological empowerment climate are 1 SD,
and low shared
felt accountability and psychological empowerment climate are
–1 SD.
PEC � psychological empowerment climate; SFA � shared felt
account-
ability. Both PEC and SFA are collective managerial
perceptions.
847EMPOWERMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
T
hi
s
do

70. cu
m
en
t i
s
co
py
ri
gh
te
d
by
th
e
A
m
er
ic
an
P
sy
ch
ol
og

71. ic
al
A
ss
oc
ia
tio
n
or
o
ne
o
f i
ts
a
lli
ed
p
ub
lis
he
rs
.
T

72. hi
s
ar
tic
le
is
in
te
nd
ed
s
ol
el
y
fo
r t
he
p
er
so
na
l u
se
o

73. f t
he
in
di
vi
du
al
u
se
r a
nd
is
n
ot
to
b
e
di
ss
em
in
at
ed
b

74. ro
ad
ly
.
Arnold, Frazier, & Finch, 2009). The importance of these
findings is especially salient to service organizations, as cus-
tomer perceptions are often created with limited interaction
(Susskind, Kacmar, & Borchgrevink, 2003). This makes each
employee– customer interaction vitally important in service ex-
changes. Because of the unique situation inherent in service
work, organizations should attempt to foster an empowering
environment by using an integrated approach to empowerment
such as the one documented herein.
As with any study, there are limitations of the present research.
First, limited interactions with multiple customers and unique
employment patterns underlying our sample may not be normal
for
other industries, thereby limiting the generalizability of the
find-
ings. Similarly, the source of data was a single organization and
from the manager’s perspective, further limiting the
applicability
of our findings to other contexts. A critical next step to further
validate our findings would be to include frontline employees
with
managers to better capture the “total” empowerment climate. In-
cluding all unit members to assess empowerment climate would
broaden and enrich this fertile research area. Further fruitful re-
search might examine differences in perceptions of
empowerment
climate across managers and employees and how such

75. differences
relate to performance indicators (McKay, Avery, & Morris,
2009).
Future research should also consider applying a longitudinal
design in the study of psychological empowerment to increase
the
internal validity of the relationships tested in the present study.
A
longitudinal design could further explicate the causal link
between
psychological empowerment climate and performance outcomes.
Additionally, future work could examine resource allocation
strat-
egies that might further explain the relationship between
psycho-
logical empowerment climate and performance. Another
extension
of the present study would be to obtain additional performance
ratings from an organizational leader in touch with restaurant
managers. Although the use of store sales and third-party
customer
service evaluations provide relevant insight into unit
performance,
supervisor evaluations could triangulate the phenomenon of
inter-
est with existing data (i.e., objective sales, external ratings,
internal
ratings). Furthermore, formal policies and practices
implemented
by organizations to increase shared felt accountability (i.e.,
struc-
tural alignment; Gelfand et al., 2004) should also be considered
in
empowerment research as well as the potential negative effects

76. of
too much accountability. In fact, post hoc we examined this
potential. We did not find evidence to support a curvilinear
rela-
tionship such that the positive relationship we found might
actually
become negative with additional increases in accountability.
This
could be due to our sample, and follow-up interviews with man-
agers suggested that they do not feel extreme levels of account-
ability. However, results of these interviews did suggest that
extreme levels of accountability might hurt their performance.
We
encourage future research to investigate these extensions and
hope
the present research stimulates future development on empower-
ment and accountability.
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Table 5
Conditional Indirect Effects of Empowering Leadership Climate
on Store Performance Indices via Psychological Empowerment
Climate � Felt Accountability
Accountability Conditional SE z
DV � Store Sales
Indirect effect
Level
High .14 .04 2.24�
Low �.03 .03 �0.48
DV � Store Service Performance
Indirect effect
Level
High .17 .04 2.78�
Low .02 .05 0.49
Note. Low � �1 standard deviation; High � 1 standard
deviation;
DV � dependent variable.
� p � .05.

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