Effects of Trust, Risk and Managerial Self-Efficacy on Leader Empowering Behavior

Empowerment is a significant driving factor for organizational effectiveness and linked to sustain organizational competitive advantage. According to organizational behavior literature, empowerment involved situational empowering behavior and psychological empowerment. The present study examined the impact of risk in a specific context, trust in subordinate and managerial self-efficacy on leader empowering behavior by using the scenario experiment. The results indicated that trust in subordinate and managerial self-efficacy had positive and significant influence on three dimensions of leader empowering behaviors, involving participative decision, informing and coaching. Risk had significantly negative effects on participative decision, informing and coaching. In addition, trust in subordinate, risk and managerial self-efficacy each had stronger effect on participative decision than on informing or coaching. Our research provided valuable insights for literatures on empowerment and trust which are becoming more important in China situated in transitional economy.