Exploring the Dual Effects of Employee Empowerment on Innovative Behavior: Encouraging and Discouraging Pathways

While employee empowerment is widely recognized as a catalyst for innovative behavior, the mediating mechanisms underlying this relationship are not well understood. This study examines the potential encouraging and discouraging pathways through which empowerment practices influence innovative behavior. Specifically, it is hypothesized that providing information about goals and performance and providing access to job-related knowledge and skills will be positively related to innovative behavior by enhancing employee self-efficacy. Conversely, it is proposed that granting discretion to change work processes and offering rewards based on performance will be negatively associated with innovative behavior due to increased job-induced stress. Using data collected from 637 street-level bureaucrats working in Ugandan local governments, the study found that providing information about goals and performance and granting access to job-related knowledge and skills enhance self-efficacy, which, in turn, promotes innovative behavior. In contrast, offering performance-based rewards was found to increase job-induced stress, thereby reducing innovative behavior. Contrary to the hypothesis, granting discretion to change work processes decreased job-induced stress and increased innovative behavior. These findings underscore the importance of carefully designing and implementing empowerment practices, taking into account their mediating mechanisms, to effectively promote innovative behavior among public employees.