Influences of trust in subordinate, perceived risk and power distance on leader empowering behavior: Empirical study from China

Empowerment can improve effectively the flexibility and efficiency of organizations. And leader empowering behavior is an important part of successful empowerment. However, few empirical researches explored the antecedents of leader empowering behavior. This present study was conducted to explore the effects of trust in subordinate, perceived risk and leader's power distance on different dimensions of leader empowering behaviors via scenario experiment. One hundred and fifty six managers participated in the study. The results indicated that trust in subordinate had positive effects on leader empowering behavior, involving participative decision, informing and coaching, and trust in subordinate had stronger effect on participative decision than on informing and coaching. Perceived risk only had negative direct influences and interactive effect with trust in subordinate on participative decision and informing. In addition, power distance had negative direct effects and interaction with trust in subordinate on three dimension of leader empowering behavior. Our study could offer valuable theoretical and practical insights for empowerment which is becoming more and more significant in Chinese organizations in transitional economy.