title: Enhancing nurses' empowerment: the role of supervisors' empowering management practices.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study tests a theoretical model where: (a) nurses' dispositional resistance to change is indirectly negatively related to behavioural empowerment through the mediating role of psychological empowerment; and (b) supervisors' empowering management practices buffer both the negative relationship between dispositional resistance to change and psychological empowerment and the indirect negative relationship between resistance to change and behavioural empowerment via psychological empowerment.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Promoting a high level of empowerment among nursing personnel is important to ensure their effectiveness in the context of organizational change. It is thus essential to advance our current understanding of the factors that hamper nurses' psychological and behavioural expressions of empowerment and to clarify supervisor practices that can overcome such barriers.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional research design.
  
  
  METHODS
  We collected survey data during 2012 from a sample of 197 nurses from a Canadian hospital undergoing a major organizational change.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results from moderated mediation analyses provided evidence for an indirect negative relationship between dispositional resistance to change and behavioural empowerment through psychological empowerment, and for a moderating (buffering) effect of supervisors' empowering management practices on this mediated relationship. These findings provided support for our hypotheses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Supervisors' empowering management practices represent an important contextual buffer against the negative effects of dispositional resistance to change on nurses' empowerment. Organizations should develop empowering management skills among nurses' supervisors to counteract the detrimental effects of dispositional resistance to change and to sustain an empowered nursing workforce.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
authors: Francesco
authors: F
authors: Montani
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
authors: François
authors: F
authors: Courcy
authors: Department of Psychology, Università Europea di Roma, Italy.
authors: Gabriele
authors: G
authors: Giorgi
authors: Department of Human Resource Management, CSSS de la Vieille-Capitale, Quebec, Canada.
authors: Amélie
authors: A
authors: Boilard
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D036262:Empirical Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000523:psychology*; D009745:Nursing, Supervisory; D011209:Power, Psychological
keywords: dispositional resistance to change; empowerment; leadership; management; nursing; organizational behaviour; psychology