Scale library · HRM & organizational behavior
Psychological empowerment scale: Spreitzer (1995)
Spreitzer (1995) defines psychological empowerment as intrinsic motivation manifested in four cognitions about work: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact, and built a 12-item measure with 3 items per dimension. Unlike structural empowerment (delegation, decentralisation), it measures employees' own perceptions. It suits theses on empowering leadership, satisfaction, engagement, job performance and employee innovative behavior.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: Psychological empowerment scale
- Constructs: 4
- Items: 12
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Meaning (ME, 3 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| ME1 | The work I do is very important to me. | No |
| ME2 | My job activities are personally meaningful to me. | No |
| ME3 | The work I do is meaningful to me. | No |
Competence (CO, 3 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| CO1 | I am confident about my ability to do my job. | No |
| CO2 | I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work activities. | No |
| CO3 | I have mastered the skills necessary for my job. | No |
Self-determination (SD, 3 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| SD1 | I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job. | No |
| SD2 | I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work. | No |
| SD3 | I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom in how I do my job. | No |
Impact (IM, 3 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| IM1 | My impact on what happens in my department is large. | No |
| IM2 | I have a great deal of control over what happens in my department. | No |
| IM3 | I have significant influence over what happens in my department. | No |
Response scale
7-point agreement scale (1 = Strongly disagree … 7 = Strongly agree). Some studies use 5 points; report the number of points you used.
Licence and permission
The NIOSH (CDC) measurement instrument page lists the scale as public domain with no fee. The items are also published in the original article; cite Spreitzer (1995).
Sources (APA 7)
- Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38(5), 1442–1465. https://doi.org/10.2307/256865
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.