Effects of psychological empowerment on the performance of R&D employees: Moderating effects of LOC

To test the relationship between psychological empowerment and R&D employees' work performance (including task performance, contextual performance and innovation performance), and the moderating effect of Locus of Control, we collected paired data of 189 R&D employees and their supervisors from a large foreign-funded R&D institution in China. The results show that psychological empowerment has significant positive influence on R&D employees' task performance, contextual performance and innovation performance. In case of `internals,' the impact of psychological empowerment on contextual and innovation performance is more significant than for `externals.' The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical values of this study, and its implications for managements in practice.