International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Opportunity represented the potential for advancement (Kanter, 1977, 1993). It could be determined by the
promotion rate. According to Kanter (1993), high promotion rate from some certain positions did not come with
the career paths automatically but come with the exposure, visibility and connections associated with that
position. Power as defined by Kanter (1977, 1993) as “the ability to get things done, to mobilized resources, to
get and use whatever it is that a person needs for the goals he or she is attempting to meet” (p.166). For Kanter
(1977), power was closer to mastery or autonomy. There are three important lines of power: the access to
information, support and resources (Kanter, 1977). According to Laschinger, Sabiston, and Kutszcher (1997),
lines of information are related to the formal or informal possession of early information about organizational
decisions and policy. Lines of support are associated with the ability to bring in materials, money, rewards or
other needed resources. Lines of support are related to having allowance for innovative activities without going
through a multilayered approval process.
Psychological Model of Empowerment (PE). From the socio-psychological perspective, empowerment is
mainly viewed as the result of an employee’s perception of her/his personal state or interpersonal interaction
(Chiles & Zorn, 1995). According to Spreitzer (1995), there are four cognitive dimensions of psychological
empowerment: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Meaning refers to the value of a work goal
judged in terms of an individual’s own values, beliefs and standards. Competence is an individual’s capacity and
ability required for his/her work. Self-determination is an individual’s ability to initiate a work-related action or
behavior. Impact is the extent to which an individual can have influence on work outcome. Since psychological
empowerment is influenced by employees’ work environment, it can be seen as a logical outcome of SEP
(Laschinger et al., 2001b) and as an important mediator between the SEP and empowering behavior (Laschinger
et al., 2001b; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).
Empowerment Element Theory. According to Matthes (1986), there are three elements that are considered
indispensable to effective schools. These elements are the status, knowledge and decision making. Status, vis-avis
with the idea of resources by Kishor (2000), refers to the conditions under which empowerment likely to
occur. They are the potentially critical inputs to foster an empowerment processes, rather than as part of the
empowerment per se. Knowledge element is likewise refers to resources that provides staff or personnel of any
institutions the ability to formulate strategic choices and to control resources that will affect expected outcomes
(G, Senm, 1993; Mehra, 1997). Decision-making element refers to the access of the teachers or staff to
institution’s decision making. Their involvement to this process shapes a kind of leadership, which is essential in
building high levels of satisfaction to work place (Taylor and Tashakkori, 1997). Anderson (2002) cited in that
high levels of satisfaction leads towards high level of student achievements. It was also cited in clearly by
Maeroff (1988) that these aforementioned elements should manifest change over time to ensure the enhancement
of the levels of empowerments implemented in the institution.
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