Similarities and Differences in the Structure and Interpretation of Empowerment and Job Satisfaction between Minority and Majority Faculty Members

Faculty empowerment is a more important topic today than ever before, as faculty roles have become increasingly contingent. Moreover, an increase in minority faculty has presented universities with the need to better understand the complex interactions between demographics and empowerment to better promote their employees’ wellbeing. We utilized an empowerment framework and structural equation modeling to investigate the similarities of workplace empowerment for a sample of 720 racial majority and minority faculty members. Empowerment was largely similar for majority and minority faculty members, but the construct of self-determination had different meanings for minority faculty members, and it was more strongly related to trust in their institutions and the personal consequences of their work. Moreover, minority faculty’s beliefs about their capabilities, the specialness of their work, and their ability to make decisions about their work were more important for efficacy, meaning, and self-determination than they were for majority faculty members.