A social relationships approach to worker empowerment: Similarities and differences across race and gender.

Abstract

Empowerment has gained increasing prominence in social work practice. Little empirical research, however, has focused on the empowerment of social workers. This study integrates three bodies of literature--empowerment theories from social work, psychology and organizational studies, feminist-informed theories of power, and work on multicultural organization development--to formulate a social relationships approach to worker empowerment. The model comprises empowering processes, antecedents, outcomes and consequences. The multicultural dimensions are elaborated in two ways: one, taking a comparative approach to empowerment for African American women, White women and White men; and two, including race and gender discrimination as forms of workplace stress. Survey data from two national random samples of social workers were used to test the model. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that perceived control, understanding, workplace friendliness, recognition and decision autonomy were interrelated dimensions of worker empowerment. Next, regression analyses testing workplace social relationships as empowering processes showed supportive and undermining relationships with co-workers and supervisors form empowerment networks of varying complexity across the race-gender groups. Two clear differences were evident: women experience more negative influences on empowerment compared to White men, and only African American women experience negative supervisory influence. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses elucidated two distinct mediating effects of empowerment: one, a mediator in the job stress-strain relationship, especially for African American women; and two, a mediator between social relationships and strains, especially for White women. A social power analysis suggested that empowerment plays a particularly important role for African American women with consequences for direct service outcomes, job-related assessments and health strains. The study makes several contributions to organizational and empowerment theory and practice: an empirical operationalization of worker empowerment; mechanisms of how social relationships, work stress and empowerment affect direct service outcomes, job-related assessments and health strains; and an understanding of the importance of race and gender in studies of organizations and empowerment. Future theory development can expand the conceptualization of empowerment on four dimensions--competence, consciousness, community and change--and also explore the linkages among different levels of empowerment.