Team Empowerment and the Organizational Context

Abstract

A great deal is known about how managers influence team empowerment, but very little is known about what organizations do to influence empowerment. Using teams drawn from 94 Chinese high-technology companies, the authors show that organizational decentralization enhances empowerment when decision making is delegated downward even when not directly delegated to teams. Prior research has presented both a positive and negative view of formalization, and this study found that the organizational level to which formalization is applied makes a difference. Formalization of organizational processes enhances team empowerment by reducing uncertainty within the firm, whereas formalization of jobs and roles moderates the effect of decentralization and reduces team empowerment by reducing teams’ flexibility in taking advantage of decentralization. These results show the importance of organization structure as an antecedent of empowerment and highlight the contrasting effects of different types of formalization.

Keywords

team empowerment decentralization formalization China

Team empowerment is an important factor in promoting team performance (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, & Gibson, 2004; Kirkman, Tesluk, & Rosen, 2004). Yet at the same time there exists skepticism about whether empowerment programs actually make any difference in practice (Argyris, 1998; Forrester, 2000) because it is not clear which organizational factors lead to empowerment. This suggests a need to examine the effect of institutional or structural solutions on empowerment (Menon, 2001; Richardson, Vandenberg, Blum, & Roman, 2002) and reflects a more general need to explicitly place psychological processes within the organizational context (Johns, 2006). We know a great deal about how managers and the immediate team environment influence empowerment, but we don’t know much about what organizations do to influence empowerment.

Two dimensions of organizational structure and design related to empowerment are decentralization and formalization (Mintzberg, 1979). The decentralization of decision making has clear parallels with autonomy, which is a critical element of empowerment, but the relationship of formalization with empowerment is not so obvious. Formalization can be bureaucratic red tape antithetical to empowerment (e.g., Tata & Prasad, 2004), or it could convey values (Segars, Grover, & Teng, 1998) and clarify goals (Organ & Greene, 1981), which is beneficial to empowerment. We argue that the organizational level at which formalization is applied, such as to the organization or to job roles within the team, will influence the effect on empowerment differently. Organizational formalization (Khandawalla, 1974) may have a beneficial influence on team empowerment by reducing within-company environmental uncertainty faced by the team, whereas the formalization of job roles (Delery & Doty, 1996) may hinder empowerment by constraining teams’ flexibility.

Team Empowerment and the Team Context

Informal discussions of empowerment often equate empowerment, self-management, and autonomy. For some researchers (e.g., Conger & Kanungo, 1988), empowerment consists of a combination of structure, practices, and motivation, whereas others (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997; Seibert, Silver, & Randolph, 2004) focus on the motivational state of empowerment, which they distinguish from empowering structures and practices. In this article, we consider structure and practices as distinct from the psychological state of perceived empowerment (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997; Seibert et al., 2004). Thus, structure refers to actions such as organizational/work design or managerial practices, whereas empowerment refers to the outcome of individual or team perceptions of empowerment resulting from structure. Distinguishing structure from empowerment helps prevent the confusion of stating that empowerment (as a set of managerial practices) leads to empowerment (as a psychological state), because empowerment is sometimes used to refer to both actions and outcomes (e.g., Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

Team Psychological Empowerment

Early studies had focused on structural solutions or empowering managerial practices (e.g., Block, 1986; Mintzberg, 1979), but the diversity of empowering practices made research difficult (Menon, 2001). Concentrating on psychological empowerment as a motivational state (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990) has proven to be an efficient simplification for researchers (Menon, 2001) by separating the diversity of possible managerial practices from the psychological state resulting from those practices.

In defining psychological empowerment as a motivational construct (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990) adapted from the concept of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986), empowerment becomes the experience of intrinsic motivation based on cognitions about the relationship between the self and the work role (Spreitzer, 1995) rather than merely perceived autonomy. Modeled on individual psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), Kirkman and associates (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kirkman, Rosen, et al., 2004; Kirkman, Tesluk, et al., 2004) have conceptualized team empowerment as a shared team perception of collective empowerment. Team empowerment is not merely the aggregation of individual empowerment, and it is possible for practices such as shared decision making within teams to reduce individual empowerment while increasing team empowerment (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999).

Four dimensions within team empowerment have been defined (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999): autonomy, potency, impact, and meaningfulness. Autonomy perceptions are related to the perception that the team experiences freedom in decision making. Empowered teams share a perception of team potency, a team counterpart to self-efficacy that is related to generalized effectiveness rather than specific task performance (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Additionally, team members share the belief that their work is meaningful, which occurs when they perceive that the work is important, valuable, and worthwhile (Hackman, 1987). Finally, empowered teams perceive that their work has an impact on the organization, which arises from feedback from other organizational members.

In examining the relationship between managerial practices and psychological empowerment, researchers have concentrated on proximal individual and team characteristics. Specific examples of these characteristics include leader behaviors and team responsibilities (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999), the number of face-to-face meetings in virtual teams (Kirkman, Rosen, et al., 2004), and the effect of demographic diversity (Kirkman, Tesluk, et al., 2004).

Structure and Empowerment

Despite the large body of research showing positive effects of empowerment, other scholars have exhibited a skeptical view of empowerment (e.g., Argyris, 1998). One reason given for this skepticism is the overemphasis on the psychological state of empowerment, without sufficient emphasis on structures and practices that actually promote empowerment, so that companies “focus more on convincing employees of the power they have than on actually giving them more of it” (Forrester, 2000: 69). Calling to mind Gladstein’s (1984) argument that factors arising from the organizational context can have as strong an effect on team performance as do internal team processes, this suggests a need to examine organizational context in further detail.

Menon (2001) noted that research has adopted either the structural/practice approach or the motivational approach, without integration of the two perspectives. However, research has started to link team perceptions and interpretations of structure (Kanter, 1977) with psychological empowerment. For example, the effects of individual perceptions of information and resource availability (Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, & Wilk, 2004) and team perceptions of organizational support and team-based human resource (HR) practices on empowerment have been examined (Mathieu, Gilson, & Ruddy, 2006).

Focusing on factors from the immediate team environment, such as leader behaviors (e.g., Kirkman & Rosen, 1999), or team perceptions of the broader organizational context (e.g., Laschinger et al., 2004; Mathieu et al., 2006) leads to powerful theory and strong empirical results. However, by focusing on perceptions of context, relatively little is known about how actual structure and practice influence psychological empowerment. Additionally, studies have been drawn from either a single organization (e.g., Kirkman, Tesluk, et al., 2004; Mathieu et al., 2006) or a small number of organizations (e.g., Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kirkman, Rosen, et al., 2004). Given that team phenomena are also influenced by factors at the organizational level (Gladstein, 1984; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000), there is a need in the empowerment research, much like in other areas of organizational behavior (Johns, 2006; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000), to concentrate on contextual factors arising from the organizational level.

Empowerment in the Chinese Context

Team empowerment has been studied primarily within a North American context. Prescriptive examples of individual level empowerment typically argue for empowerment as a concept and practice with universal applicability (e.g., Randolph & Sashkin, 2002), yet simultaneously caution about potential difficulties in achieving empowerment due to the effects of culture. In particular, achieving empowerment in countries with high power distance, such as in China, can experience problems with the granting of autonomy and sharing of information.

Management practices within Chinese enterprise reflect limited delegation or decentralization (Child, 1994; Hempel & Martinsons, 2009), with top-down decision making the norm in Chinese private enterprise (Cheng, Zhang, Zhang, & Zheng, 2006; Redding, 1990), superiors enjoy a high degree of authority over subordinates (Farh & Cheng, 2000). However, evidence is emerging in Taiwan that management practices in the high-technology sector are evolving to include more employee participation (Hempel & Chang, 2002). Empirical studies of empowerment using Chinese samples have only examined the self-determination (i.e., autonomy) aspect of individual empowerment (e.g., Hui, Au, & Fock, 2004). Neither team empowerment nor the full dimensionality of the individual psychological empowerment has been examined in China.

Organizational Structure, Team Empowerment, and Team Performance

In this article, we examine the relationship between organizational structure and practices and team psychological empowerment, using independent measures of structure across a large number of organizations rather than team perceptions of structure and practices within a single organization (Laschinger et al., 2004; Mathieu et al., 2006). We focus on the organizational structure characteristics of decentralization, which is the extent to which decision-making power is concentrated or moved outward (and downward) in the organization (Hage & Aiken, 1967), and formalization, which is the extent to which formal rules and policies are used to regulate behaviors and decision making (Khandawalla, 1974; Pugh et al., 1968). Although there are a large number of potential structural characteristics to consider, our choice of these two characteristics is driven in large part by the body of work into structural empowerment (cf. Menon, 2001) making use of Mintzberg’s (1979) definition of structural empowerment as the formalized decentralization of decision making, by organizational theorists’ interest in these structural characteristics (e.g., Mills & Ungson, 2003), and by the work on self-management and participation (e.g., Tata & Prasad, 2004; Wagner, 1994).

Decentralization and Team Empowerment

Organizational decentralization is closely related to the autonomy aspect of empowerment, yet it is conceptually quite distinct. The conceptualization of team psychological empowerment as a motivational state not only incorporates perceptions of autonomy but also includes other elements such as perceptions of meaningfulness in their work (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Decentralization, by contrast, is a structural characteristic of the organization and describes the extent to which power or authority is either concentrated or shared (Hage & Aiken, 1967), with decentralization occurring when decision-making discretion is moved outward and downward to other parts of the organization (Lin & Germain, 2003). Unlike psychological empowerment, where the effect occurs at the individual or team level, decentralization is a characteristic of the entire organization or units within the organization.

Theories examining decentralization posit a process whereby decentralization provides employees greater autonomy that both increases motivation (Ransom, Hinings, & Greenwood, 1980) and allows employees to make use of information that managers might lack (Miller & Monge, 1986). Even when decision making is not delegated to the team, under decentralization decisions are being made closer to the level of the team. With the movement of decision making downward, information flow improves (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991; Van de Ven, 1980). The enhanced information flow, combined with proximity of decision making to the team, improves team members’ “ability to make and influence decisions” (Spreitzer, 1995: 1447). This is of particular importance in a knowledge-intensive setting (Hellstrom, Malmquist, & Mikaelsson, 2001) because knowledge work requires team and individual input. Thus, in addition to enhancing autonomy perceptions, decentralization increases perceptions of influence (Spreitzer, 1995) and control (Atuahene-Gima, 2003), which enhances team potency (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Therefore, we present the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Organizational decentralization will be positively related to team empowerment.

Formalization and Team Empowerment

Formalization relates to the use of explicit rules, policies, and procedures (Khandawalla, 1974; Pugh et al., 1968). Formalization is often viewed as a “red tape” that acts to constrain the ability to exercise authority or perform effectively (e.g., Tata & Prasad, 2004), yet it has also been seen as necessary to provide strategic direction (Segars et al., 1998) and goal clarity (Organ & Greene, 1981).

One way to reconcile these contradictory views of formalization is to focus on the way in which formalization is implemented, so that rules can be perceived as either “good” or “bad” (Adler & Borys, 1996). Formalization is “good” when it enables employees’ mastery of their work and is “bad” when it coerces employees into compliance (Adler & Borys, 1996). Autonomy through boundaries (Blanchard, Carlos, & Randolph, 1996; Randolph, 1994; Seibert et al., 2004) is another approach to examining the restrictions placed on employees and teams. Blanchard et al. (1996) compare autonomy boundaries to the banks of a river, so that the river is free to move within the banks, yet is also constrained by the banks to move in the proper direction. Autonomy boundaries arise from organizational structures and practices that clarify goals, procedures, and areas of responsibility.

Formalization can be applied to different levels within the organization, ranging from organizational formalization (Khandawalla, 1974; Lin & Germain, 2003) down to the level of job role formalization (Delery & Doty, 1996; Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007). The degree of formalization is likely to be correlated across these different organizational levels, because an organization that formalizes organizational-level processes is also likely to formalize job-level processes. In general, empowerment would be effective when it encompasses decisions that the team could reasonably expect to address. A team could reasonably expect to influence decisions within the team but would not have similar expectations of influencing organizational-level decisions.

We therefore propose that the effects of formalization on team empowerment depend on the organizational level at which formalization applies. Formalization that occurs outside the team (i.e., organizational formalization) helps delineate the boundaries within which the team operates and clearly specifies the relationship between the team and the rest of the organization. Thus, formalization at the organizational level will be beneficial to the development of team empowerment. However, formalization that applies within the team by specifying job roles of individual team members will act to constrain the team’s freedom of action within the boundaries of the team and thus hinders the development of team empowerment.

Organizational formalization

Organizational formalization refers to the extent to which formal rules and policies are used to regulate behaviors and decision making within the organization and provides the basis for interactions between organizational members (Khandawalla, 1974; Pugh et al., 1968). Organizations formalize by setting strategic plans, adopting enterprise resource planning systems, or implementing formal performance appraisal systems (Lin & Germain, 2003). Formalization has the potential to negatively influence performance when bureaucratic obstacles (Tata & Prasad, 2004) reduce flexibility, innovativeness, and cross-functional coordination (Lin & Germain, 2003).

Autonomy through boundaries (Blanchard et al., 1996; Randolph, 1994; Seibert et al., 2004) emphasizes the role of autonomy in empowerment, but also highlights the need for boundaries. Giving employees and teams decision making authority is not the same as giving them carte blanche to do as they wish. The metaphor of the river bank (Blanchard et al., 1996) helps in understanding how formalization can be “good” (Adler & Borys, 1996). The boundaries presented by organizational formalization represent the “banks” within which a team operates and acts to delineate the responsibilities of teams within the organization as well as to provide direction for the team.

The broader research into the effects of organizational formalization supports this favorable view of formalization. Organizational formalization helps facilitate organizational memory and transmission of best practices (John & Martin, 1984), provides a basis for identifying and acting on strategic issues by conveying values (Segars et al., 1998), and clarifies goals and reduces discomfort produced by ambiguity (Organ & Greene, 1981). Organizational formalization also allows team members to know what they can or cannot decide and identifies areas that teams are responsible for (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997; Randolph & Sashkin, 2002; Seibert et al., 2004; Sine, Mitsuhashi, & Kirsch, 2006). Additionally, a formally articulated organizational vision provides guidance so that the team can act on their own rather than wait for directions (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1997).

Organizational formalization is thus necessary to help clarify the range of permissible team behaviors and provides an understanding of how the rest of the organization operates. Team members know how to act effectively in order to support team objectives, thus enhancing potency perceptions, and to support organizational objectives, thus enhancing meaningfulness. Therefore, we predict that organizational formalization will enhance team empowerment.

Hypothesis 2: Higher levels of organizational formalization will be associated with higher levels of team empowerment.

Formalization has also been identified as necessary to provide guidance under decentralization (Mintzberg, 1979). As decentralization increases, decisions are made at lower organizational levels, and some form of guiding mechanism is needed to aid decision making. Additionally, without the guidance offered by organizational formalization, managers can act arbitrarily and inconsistently when making decisions (Schminke, Ambrose, & Cropanzano, 2000). Decentralization can aid autonomy perceptions but only when boundaries are specified, which provide direction for the team. Under these situations, formalized rules can provide a consistency in decision making, which can help prevent erosions in empowerment (Forrester, 2000).

Hypothesis 3: Organizational formalization will moderate the association between decentralization and team empowerment, so that when organizational formalization is higher, the association of decentralization and team empowerment will be higher.

These arguments are particularly appropriate for the Chinese context where the data for this study were collected. Chinese organizations traditionally exhibit low levels of formalization (Redding, 1990; Whitley, 1991) and a hierarchical orientation (Hofstede, 1980; Redding, 1990). Chinese managers generally have a tendency to exert significant authority over the actions of their subordinates (Farh & Cheng, 2000) and often intrude in areas of employees’ technical expertise (Hempel & Chang, 2002). Under this situation, formalization can serve to delineate areas of responsibility for both managers and subordinates.

Job formalization

Another major form of formalization experienced by team members is that of formalized job descriptions or roles within the team. Research showing the negative sides of formalization has primarily focused on formalization of job duties and specifications. Where organizational formalization acts externally to the team, job/role formalization acts to specify roles and procedures that people must follow (Griffin et al., 2007) within the team and thus guide and constrain actions taken within the confines of the team. The argument against job formalization is that allowing employees freedom to exert control over job duties and activities enhances employee motivation (Tata & Prasad, 2004; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). It is particularly critical to adopt low levels of job formalization with professional and knowledge employees, because these people must be allowed flexibility in the job (Elsbach & Hargadon, 2006), especially with regard to decision-making freedom over work processes (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996), otherwise their motivation and ability to perform will be hindered.

What these arguments have in common is that empowerment is enhanced when there is freedom within the boundaries of the job for people to behave flexibly. When work is organized around teams, then the relevant autonomy boundary is the team boundary, so that empowerment perceptions are enhanced when work design allows teams to determine and allocate duties within the team (Mathieu et al., 2006). Job formalization restricting flexible work design within the team will not only reduce autonomy perceptions but also reduce potency perceptions if the teams’ ability to perform is hindered.

Where organizational formalization provides direction, job formalization acts to metaphorically constrain the “river” to predetermined channels within the banks with little freedom of movement. Activities such as the flexible allocation of duties occur within the boundaries of the team and are strongly constrained by the presence of job and role formalization. Individual-level job descriptions prevent the flexible allocation of duties and tasks within the team, and so team empowerment perceptions are violated. Based on these arguments, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Higher levels of job formalization will be associated with lower levels of team empowerment.

As decision making moves outward and downward throughout the organization, teams have a greater ability to influence or to make decisions (Spreitzer, 1995), but only if the team has the ability to take advantage of this potential freedom. By delimiting the roles, tasks, and procedures individual members must follow within the team (Griffin et al., 2007), so job formalization constrains the flexibility of the team in reallocating tasks within the team, reducing team perceptions of potency and autonomy. It has been argued that decentralization might not be beneficial when tasks and roles are clearly specified (Manz & Stewart, 1997), although centralization can be effective in that same situation (Adler & Cole, 1993). As a result, the formalization of job roles within the team may prevent the team from reconfiguring responsibilities and job duties within the team, limiting the ability of teams to make use of the increased decision-making authority gained under decentralization and thus inhibiting the empowering effects of decentralization. Therefore, we formulate the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5: Job formalization will moderate the association between decentralization and team empowerment, so that when job formalization is higher, the association of decentralization with team empowerment will be lower.

Empowerment and Team Performance

In conceptualizing team empowerment as a psychological state, rather than as a set of diverse managerial practices (Menon, 2001), the focus shifts to empowerment as a motivational state. Enhancing the level of team empowerment thus enhances performance by increasing the motivation of the team. Empowerment has been widely found to be associated with higher levels of performance, for both individuals (Laschinger et al., 2004; Menon, 2001; Spreitzer, 1995) and teams (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kirkman, Rosen et al., 2004; Kirkman, Tesluk, et al., 2004; Mathieu et al., 2006). Thus, we hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 6: High levels of team empowerment will be associated with higher levels of team performance.

Organizational-level researchers (e.g., Miller & Monge, 1986; Ransom et al., 1980; Richardson et al., 2002) often rely on implicit process models assuming that performance effects of organizational structure occur because of motivational as well as efficiency effects. Ransom et al. (1980), for example, argued that decentralization can influence performance through the motivational effects of decision making authority, an argument that predates Conger and Kanungo’s (1988) expanded definition of psychological empowerment. This implicit causal ordering used by organizational theorists thus implies that team empowerment acts as a mediator between organization structure and team performance.

Researchers focusing on psychological empowerment have proposed a similar relationship, but studies examining the influence of organizational structure have focused solely on the motivational aspects of empowerment (e.g., Laschinger et al., 2004; Mathieu et al., 2006). These studies have relied on self-perceptions of structure within a limited number of organizations rather than use independent assessments of structure across a wide variety of organizations. These two basic approaches, organizational and psychological, both view empowerment as the link connecting organizational structure and practices to team performance. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 7: Team empowerment will mediate the effects of organizational structure on team performance.

Method

Sample

Data for this study were collected from teams in Chinese high-technology companies drawn from the information technology, electronic engineering, and biotechnology industries. We surveyed teams that consisted of 3 to 9 members, who had been working together for 3 months or longer. We also included the added criteria that teams be engaged in knowledge-intensive work. High-technology firms in the Zhongguancun district of Beijing and from Shenzhen were identified. Letters were sent to the companies seeking their participation and listing the criteria for team selection. Companies that agreed to participate were asked to nominate a contact person who would coordinate and arrange the data collection task within the company.

The coordinator was again provided the criteria for team selection and was asked to identify a team of professional employees (excluding sales and executive teams) for inclusion in the study. The coordinator then distributed questionnaires to the chief executive officer (CEO), the HR manager, and manager/leader of the selected team, and all team members. In all cases, participants were informed that individual responses would remain confidential.

The original intention in this study was to collect multiple teams within each company in order to conduct multilevel analysis. However, in pilot stages of data collection it became clear that many of the identified companies were small in size and did not have many teams that matched our professional employee criteria. Accordingly, we asked each company to select a single representative team for our study.

A total of 260 companies were contacted for this study, with responses received from 114 companies. This gave a response rate of 43.9%. It was then necessary to delete companies with missing observations, most commonly due to incomplete or missing data from the CEO. A total of 94 usable company observations were obtained, consisting of 94 teams drawn from 94 companies, with 523 individual team members, giving a final response rate of 36.2%. Table 1 summarizes the sample demographics.

Table 1

Sample Demographics

	Mean	SD	Count	Percentage
Companies (n = 94)
Age (years)	8.29	5.83
Size (no. of employees)	439	913.38
Ownership
Private enterprise			73	77.6
State-owned enterprise			12	12.8
Foreign-owned or joint venture			9	9.6
Teams (n = 94)
Age (months)	36.76	33.63
Size	5.56	1.74
Team function
Marketing			18	19.2
Research and development			53	56.4
Production/quality assurance			8	8.5
Other			15	15.9
Team members (n = 523)
Male			343	66.2%
Highest degree attained
PhD			6	1.9
Master’s			47	9.0
Bachelor’s			296	56.6
Technical school			121	23.1
High school			33	6.3
Less than high school			1	0.2
Missing			19	3.6
Degree area
Business degree			44	8.4
Science or technical degree			222	42.4

The Unit of Analysis

This article examines team empowerment, so the natural unit of analysis is the team. Teams consist of multiple individuals, making it necessary to consider how to best measure team empowerment. Following Kirkman, Rosen, et al. (2004), we asked individual team members to answer questions about the teams’ perception of team empowerment, and then created a team score by aggregating the individual responses.

To determine whether aggregation of individual scores to form the team empowerment score was appropriate, several checks were conducted. The first was to examine the intraclass correlations (ICC), with ICC(1) = .25 (F_93,429 = 2.82, p < .001) and ICC(2) = .65, which confirmed that the variance within teams was significantly less than the variance between teams (Bliese, 2000; McGraw & Wong, 1996). Second, we checked interrater agreement (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984) and found a mean interrater agreement (r_wg) over all teams of .97, with individual team scores ranging from .88 through .99. An analysis of the data indicated that it would also be appropriate to calculate r_wg assuming a slightly skewed null distribution of responses (Berkovitz, Hancock, & Nevin, 2000; LeBreton, Burgess, Kaiser, Atchley, & James, 2003) to ensure the robustness of results (James et al., 1984; Kozlowski & Hults, 1987). Under this alternative assumption, the calculated mean interrater agreement (r_wg) over all teams was .96, with individual team scores ranging from .79 through .99. Thus, the aggregation of individual responses can be accepted as an appropriate measure of team empowerment.

Measures

The measures used in this study were collected from four different sources to avoid problems with common source bias: the CEO, the HR manager, the team manager/leader, and the team members. All instruments were translated into Chinese, with the accuracy of the translation verified through back-translation. The questionnaires were then pretested to make sure that the respondents would clearly understand the phrases and questions.

The elements of organizational structure and practice were collected from sources independent of the team, unlike prior studies examining the influence of structure on empowerment (e.g., Laschinger et al., 2004; Mathieu et al., 2006) and were measured using instruments drawn from the strategy literature. Decentralization and organizational formalization measures were provided by the CEO of each organization in our sample, and job/role formalization within teams was provided by the HR manager. The use of a single respondent to measure these organizational-level constructs can introduce random measurement error, thus reducing the reliability of the constructs (Gerhart, Wright, McMahan, & Snell, 2000), but the result would be to reduce significance levels in testing rather than biasing the estimates.

Organizational decentralization

Organizational decentralization was assessed using an adaptation of Lin and Germain’s (2003) measure. The measure was a 4-item instrument, using a 5-point Likert-type scale. This instrument measures the organization level, ranging from the CEO to the team, at which decisions related to process design, work methods and duty assignments, and inventory planning are made. Thus, this instrument measures how much decision making has been pushed downward and outward within the organization. The reliability of this measure was .69.

Organizational formalization

Organizational formalization was assessed based on Lin and Germain’s (2003) adaptation of Khandawalla’s (1974) measure of organizational formalization. The measure was a 4-item instrument, using a 5-point Likert-type scale. This instrument measures the extent to which formalized procedures have been adopted within the organization. Questions are asked about the use of management control and information systems, cost controls, quality control procedures, and appraisal systems. The reliability of this measure using Cronbach’s alpha was .69.

Job formalization

Job formalization for jobs within teams was collected from the HR manager and was measured using Delery and Doty’s (1996) measure modified to refer to team jobs. The measure evaluates the extent to which job duties within a team are clearly specified and delimited in a formal job description, or whether duties are flexibly determined by team members’ abilities. This was evaluated using a 4-item, 7-point Likert-type scale, and the scale reliability was .69. Organizational formalization and job formalization are moderately correlated (r = .25; p < .01).

Team performance

Teams are structured differently across the organizations in our sample. In some organizations, teams are designed with a manager–team structure, with the manager being distinct from the team and exercising a supervisory role. In other organizations, teams are designed with a leader–team structure, with the leader acting as a member of the team and not acting in a formal line manager role. Team performance information was collected from the team manager/leader, using Ancona and Caldwell’s (1992) measure of team performance. This is a 6-item, 7-point Likert-type scale of the manager’s subjective assessment of performance. This scale evaluates a wide variety of team performance aspects, such as quality, innovation, and schedule keeping. The reliability of this measure was .81.

Team empowerment

Perceived team empowerment was measured using Kirkman, Rosen, et al.’s (2004) brief version of the original Kirkman and Rosen (1999) 26-item measure of team empowerment. The brief measure has 12 items, using a 7-point Likert-type scale, asking individuals to assess team perceptions of empowerment. Each of the four team empowerment dimensions (potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact) was evaluated by 3 items. Data were collected from each individual member of the teams in our study and aggregated to form the team empowerment score. To prevent potential problems with inflated correlations between empowerment and performance, empowerment perceptions were not collected from either team managers or team leaders.

Control variables

Team characteristics were included as control variables. Team age, measured in months, was collected from the team manager/leader, and it was expected that older teams would perceive higher levels of empowerment as well as experience higher levels of performance. Team type was also measured, with team types consisting of marketing, research and development, and quality assurance.

The team leader, being a member of the team, should more closely identify with the team, thus leading to inflated assessments of team performance. Therefore, the performance rating source, whether from a team leader or manager, was also included to control for this effect.

Our sample was drawn across a large number of organizations, so it was also necessary to include organizational characteristics as control variables. Organizational demographic variables were collected from the HR manager. Variables included age, size, and ownership type. Organizational age was measured in years, whereas organizational size was measured through the number of employees. Ownership types were categorized into state-owned enterprise, private enterprise, and foreign enterprise (both joint venture and wholly foreign-owned enterprise).

Data Analysis

The first stage of analysis examined scale properties and correlations. The choice of analytical strategy was complicated by the presence of both moderating and mediating relationships in our hypotheses. Tests of moderation are typically conducted using hierarchical regression with centered variables and interaction terms. Tests of mediation can also be conducted using regression analyses (Baron & Kenny, 1986), combined with the Sobel test to determine whether the indirect (mediating) effects are significant. Structural equation modeling (SEM) presents an alternative method for testing mediation effects, which provides a number of advantages. The use of SEM allows the testing of multiple path relationships simultaneously, as well as being more appropriate when full mediation is hypothesized (Schneider, Ehrhart, Mayer, Saltz, & Niles-Jolly, 2005). However, testing of interactions between latent variables using SEM is a complex procedure, with most procedures requiring a large sample size (e.g., Cortina, Chen, & Dunlap, 2001; Jaccard & Wan, 1995).

In the end, it was decided to conduct hierarchical regression using latent variable scores. The use of latent variable scores (Anderson & Rubin, 1956) is an approach revived by Jöreskog (2000) and seeing a recent resurgence in usage (e.g., Kim & Malhotra, 2005). Analysis starts with using the measurement model to calculate latent variable scores, which are unbiased estimates of the underlying latent variables. These latent variable scores can then be treated like observed variables when conducting path analysis or hierarchical regression.

The use of the latent variable score approach has advantages when sample sizes are small (Jöreskog, 2000). SEM analysis, particularly when moderating effects are estimated, requires relatively large sample sizes because both the measurement model and structural model are estimated simultaneously. Using latent variable scores to create observed variables provides a simple way of calculating interaction terms (Schumacker, 2002) using hierarchical regression. The alternative approach commonly used with hierarchical regression is to estimate the scale means, but latent variable scores have the advantage of taking into account measurement errors, making this approach preferable when smaller sample sizes are used (Jöreskog, 2000).

Hierarchical regression analysis was supplemented by bootstrap analysis of the equivalent path model to test the significance of the indirect effects. Bootstrap analysis allows the empirical estimation of effect sizes and significance levels by conducting repeated analysis of the model using sampling with replacement from the original data set (MacKinnon, Lockwood, Hoffman, West, & Sheets, 2002). Testing indirect effects using bootstrapping provides a more sensitive test of indirect effects than Sobel’s test (MacKinnon et al., 2002; Preacher & Hayes, 2004; Shrout & Bolger, 2002). Additionally, when sample sizes are small, bootstrapping allows the examination of whether the sample size has influenced the significance of results.

Results

Confirming and Calculating the Team Empowerment Construct

To calculate the latent variable score for the team empowerment construct, it was necessary to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the aggregated team-level data. The team empowerment construct (Kirkman, Rosen et al., 2004) has not been previously used in China or elsewhere in Asia, so particular attention was given to the dimensionality of the empowerment construct during our analyses. The first step was to examine the reliability of team empowerment and the separate dimensions. Reliability of the overall scale was α = .86, and examining the dimensions separately showed that potency (α = .84) and meaningfulness (α = .86) both exhibited satisfactory reliability levels, but that autonomy (α = .61) and impact (α = .63) both showed lower reliabilities.

Reliability estimates examine each subscale separately, rather than provide an overall test of dimensionality, and calculation of the team empowerment latent variable score depends on the overall fit of the multidimensional model. CFA was conducted, and the 4-factor model ( $χ_{(50)}^{2}$ = 117.0) was compared with the single-factor model, ( $χ_{(54)}^{2}$ = 163.1), giving a difference in chi-square value of ( $Δ χ_{(4)}^{2}$ = 46.1; p < .001). This indicated that the overall dimensionality of Kirkman, Rosen, et al.’s (2004) team empowerment held in our sample and further showed that it was appropriate to use the resulting latent variable score for the overall empowerment measure.

Hypothesis Testing Using Hierarchical Regression

Correlations and scale reliabilities of the model variables are shown in Table 2, providing preliminary evidence that the proposed model was appropriate. Team performance was significantly correlated with team empowerment (r = .25; p < .05), but not with decentralization (r = .00; nonsignificant [NS]), organizational formalization (r = .14; NS), or job formalization (r = .11; NS). Team empowerment was significantly correlated with both organizational formalization (r = .32; p < .01) and decentralization (r = .26; p < .05), but not with job formalization (r = .11; NS). Organizational formalization and organizational decentralization were not correlated (r = −.02; NS), indicating these are independent characteristics of organizational structure. Job formalization was correlated with organizational formalization (r = .25; p < .01), suggesting that these might reflect some underlying organizational tendency toward formalization in general. Examining the control variables, team age was significantly correlated with both team performance (r = .26; p < .05) and perceived team empowerment (r = .29; p < .01). Team performance was also correlated with organizational age (r = .21; p < .05).

Table 2

Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Reliabilities

		Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1	Team age	36.76	5.73	—
2	Organization age	8.29	33.45	.27*	—
3	Rating source (leader)	0.72	0.45	−.11	−.01	—
4	Job formalization	3.32	0.75	.13	−.13	.15	.69
5	Organizational formalization	2.47	0.45	.10	.09	.16	.25**	.69
6	Organizational decentralization	1.66	0.43	−.06	−.01	−.03	.11	−.02	.69
7	Team performance	4.58	0.71	.26*	.21*	.22*	.11	.14	.00	.81
8	Team empowerment	5.93	0.48	.29**	.04	−.15	.11	.32**	.26*	.25*	.86
9	Impact	5.12	0.39	.28**	−.01	−.08	.05	.30*	.22*	.11	.80**	.63
10	Autonomy	3.34	0.35	.27**	.10	−.09	.12	.29*	.25*	.22*	.85**	.65**	.61
11	Meaningfulness	6.04	0.50	.27**	.04	−.09	.07	.32*	.22*	.16	.92**	.82**	.70**	.86
12	Potency	5.88	0.50	.28**	.03	−.09	.12	.30*	.25*	.28**	.96**	.75**	.84**	.89**	.84

Note: N = 94. Reliabilities reported on the diagonal.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Model 1, shown in Table 3, estimated the effect of organizational and team factors on team empowerment. In early stages of the analysis, a number of organizational and team control variables were examined and discarded because of their nonsignificant effects. Control variables examined include organization size, organization age, ownership type, team age, and team type. Ownership type, whether state enterprise or foreign enterprise, was nonsignificant, as was the type of team, such as quality assurance or research and development. Team age significantly predicted team empowerment, but organization size and age were not significant. The results show that Hypothesis 1, that organizational decentralization is positively related to team empowerment, was supported (b = .28; p < .01). Hypothesis 2, that organizational formalization is positively related to team empowerment, was also supported (b = .30; p < .01). However, Hypothesis 4, that job formalization is related to team empowerment, was not supported (b = −.03; ns).

Table 3

Results of Analysis

	Team Empowerment			Team Performance
Independent Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Indirect Effects
Control variables
Team age	.28 (3.00)**	.28 (2.98)**	.29 (3.11)**			.08**
Organization age				.20 (1.94)	.21 (2.02)*
Leader				.17 (1.64)	.21 (2.05)*
Model variables
Organizational decentralization	.28 (3.03)**	.28 (2.95)**	.30 (3.18)**	.00 (0.02)	−.08 (−0.76)	.08**
Organizational formalization	.30 (3.165)**	.30 (3.13)**	.26 (2.67)**	.06 (0.57)	−.02 (−0.20)	.07*
Job formalization	−.03 (−0.31)	−.03 (−0.29)	−.03 (−0.30)	.09 (0.87)	.09 (0.84)	−.01
Moderating effect
Decentralization × organizational formalization	.06 (0.06)	.02 (0.19)	−.03 (−.26)	.02 (.83)	.01
Decentralization × job formalization			−.19 (1.99)*			−.05*
Mediating effect
Team empowerment					.29 (2.58)**
F	7.21			1.57	2.39
R ²	.24	.24	.28	.10	.16
ΔR²		.00	.04*		.10*
ΔF		0.00	3.90*		6.68**

Note: N = 94. Analyses tested using regression. Indirect effects tested using bootstrapping. Standardized coefficients reported (t values in parentheses).

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The moderating effect of organizational formalization on empowerment proposed in Hypothesis 3 was tested in Model 2 and was nonsignificant (ΔR² = .00, NS; b = .06, NS), so the hypothesis was not supported. The moderating effect of job formalization on decentralization and on empowerment proposed in Hypothesis 5 was tested in Model 3. Model fit improved after including the interaction term (ΔR² = .04; p < .05), and the effect was as predicted (b = −.19; p < .05), thus supporting the hypothesis.

To further evaluate the hypothesis that job formalization moderates the relationship between organizational decentralization and team empowerment, we followed the interaction probing procedure recommended by Aiken and West (1991). The effect of decentralization was significant when the team had lower job formalization (b = .50; p < .001); however, the effect of decentralization for teams with greater job formalization was nonsignificant (b = .10; p > .45). That is, organizational decentralization was only associated with team empowerment when there were low levels of job formalization. Figure 1 shows the interaction pattern for teams with high and low job formalization.

Figure 1

Job Formalization Reduces the Effect of Decentralization on Team Empowerment

Model 4 shows the influence of team empowerment and organizational structure on team performance. As in earlier models, a variety of control variables were considered. Team age and size, team type, organization size, and organization type (state owned, private, or foreign owned) had no significant influence on team performance, but organization age was significantly linked to team performance. As discussed earlier, some organizations structure their teams with managers, whereas other organizations use team leaders. Team leaders, as a member of the team, tended to give significantly higher performance ratings.

The results of Model 4 show that there were no significant direct relationships between the organizational structure variables and team performance. Model 5 shows that adding team empowerment resulted in significantly better model fit (ΔR² = .10; p < .05). Team performance was significantly related to organizational age (b = .21; p < .01). In addition, reported team performance was higher when the rating source was a team leader rather than a team manager (b = .21; p < .01). Hypothesis 6, that team empowerment is significantly related to team performance, was supported (b = .29; p < .01).

These results show that the contextual variables predict team empowerment and that team empowerment predicts team performance. The final step was to test the significance of the indirect effects using bootstrapping. The indirect effects of both organizational decentralization (b = .08; p < .01) and organizational formalization (b = .07; p < .05) are significant. In addition, the indirect effect of the decentralization and job formalization interaction was also significant (b = −.05; p < .05).

Although the indirect effects are significant, the organizational structure variables violate Baron and Kenny’s (1986) first condition for testing mediation. However, recent researchers have argued that this condition is unnecessary (Kenny, Kashy, & Bolger, 1998; Mathieu & Taylor, 2006; Preacher & Hayes, 2004; Shrout & Bolger, 2002; Smith, Collins, & Clark, 2005). In the situation where there is a significant indirect effect but no significant direct effects, rather than mediation, the term indirect effect is used (Holmbeck, 1997). The terms mediating effect and indirect effect thus refer to specific types of intervening effects (Mathieu & Taylor, 2006). Preacher and Hayes (2004) point out that a theory can propose effects of A on B, and B on C, but without any theoretical linkage between A and C. In such a situation, there arise significant indirect effects through an implicit causal path, which is not a mediation effect. Hence, Hypothesis 7, that team empowerment mediates the effects of structure on team performance, is only partially supported, because mediation was not found yet the indirect effects were significant.

Discussion

This article makes three contributions to the team empowerment literature. First, by using a multiorganization sample, it demonstrates that team empowerment is related to organizational structure. Second, it shows that the positive relationship of formalization with team empowerment and performance depends on the organizational level to which formalization is applied. Finally, it indicates that the team empowerment construct (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Kirkman, Rosen, et al., 2004) is applicable in the Chinese context.

Structure and Perceptions Both Matter

The overemphasis on perceptions in the past empowerment research gives rise to the risk of neglecting actual empowering actions (Forrester, 2000). In this study, we show that independent measures of organizational structure and practice across companies, and not just differing employee perceptions of structure within a company (e.g., Mathieu et al., 2006), are related to differences in team perceptions of empowerment, and performance improvements occur through the indirect effect of team empowerment.

Decentralization lies at the heart of structural definitions of empowerment, and organizations that have adopted more decentralized structures experience higher levels of team empowerment. Consistent with prior research on Chinese organizations (e.g., Child, 1994; Hempel & Martinsons, 2009), company CEOs reported low levels of decentralization, yet even modest increases in decentralization are associated with significantly higher levels of team empowerment. Autonomy scores were substantially lower than the other dimensions of empowerment, but an examination of the correlations reported in Table 2 shows that decentralization is significantly correlated with all the empowerment dimensions. The low autonomy scores are consistent with the low reported levels of decentralization, but organizational decentralization is associated with empowerment through mechanisms other than merely the autonomy dimension. Possible mechanisms could include improved information flow (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991; Van de Ven, 1980) or enhanced team ability to influence decisions (Spreitzer, 1995), acting to enhance perceptions of meaningfulness, potency, and impact.

Finally, the association of structure with team performance occurs indirectly via team empowerment. Our finding of significant indirect effects, rather than mediation, is a point of theoretical and empirical subtlety. A finding of mediation would imply that organizational structure influences team performance and that the effect occurs via team empowerment. A finding of indirect effects implies that organizational structure isn’t related to team performance but rather is related to team empowerment, which in turn is related to team performance. Another way of considering this point is through a consideration of distal and proximal effects (Mathieu & Taylor, 2006). Organizational structure is distal from team performance, and the relationship between the two is likely to be insignificant. Structure and empowerment, and empowerment and performance, are proximal to each other, and thus more likely to have a significant relationship. The implication is that effective structural remedies must focus on maximizing team empowerment perceptions, which would in turn influence performance.

An alternative reason for finding indirect rather than mediating effects lies in the action of unobserved variables, which act to confound, suppress, or moderate the relationship (Mathieu & Taylor, 2006). Researchers have already determined that there are moderators in the empowerment–performance relationship (e.g., Kirkman, Rosen, et al., 2004), but the conditions under which organizational structure gives rise to empowerment perceptions have not been studied extensively.

Rethinking Formalization

Formalization is popularly derided as bureaucratic red tape and is typically viewed as an obstacle to overcome. We have argued that rather than being a clearly negative factor inhibiting empowerment, formalization can act to promote empowerment. In determining whether formalization aids or hinders team empowerment, we proposed that it is necessary to consider the organizational level at which formalization is applied. The observed positive correlation between organizational and job formalization indicates that organizations inclined toward formalization would tend to formalize throughout the organization, but this study shows that the levels to which formalization is applied have quite different effects on team empowerment.

Although both organizational formalization and job formalization have an influence on team empowerment, the way in which empowerment is influenced appears much different for these two types of formalization. Whereas organizational formalization has a main effect on team empowerment, job formalization acts as a moderator of the effect decentralization has on team empowerment.

The main effect of organizational formalization, and lack of moderating effect on decentralization, contrasts with the argument that formalization is needed in the presence of decentralization to provide direction (Mintzberg, 1979). Arguments for positive effects of formalization rely on explanations such as guidance (Segars et al., 1998) or goal clarity (Organ & Greene, 1981), and our results suggest that formalization provides useful direction regardless of whether an organization is centralized or decentralized. Organizational formalization can help prevent the chaos and unpredictability that might occur under high levels of decentralization, but even when organizations are highly centralized, organizational formalization still plays a significant role in providing predictability, guidance, and clarity.

In contrast, the formalization of job roles within teams appears to be related to team empowerment in a completely different way. Job formalization has no significant main effect on empowerment, which is not surprising given the contrasting arguments predicting either positive or negative relationships. The moderating effect of job formalization on decentralization suggests that the beneficial effects of decentralization occur only in the presence of low levels of job formalization. It appears that unlike organizational formalization, which provides direction for teams, the formalization of job roles within teams reduce the team’s ability to act flexibly within the team.

Thus, the level at which formalization is applied has a critical influence on the ultimate effect of formalization on team empowerment. Formalization that applies to decisions covering actions within the team has a fundamentally different effect on team empowerment than does formalization that applies to decisions occurring outside the team.

Viewed at the applied level, these results indicate that decentralizing decision making within the organization is not sufficient for achieving empowered teams. The empowering effects of decentralization will only be experienced if attention is placed on providing sufficient flexibility within the team. Having formalized job descriptions for individual team members prevents this needed flexibility. At the same time, formalization at the organizational level is important, at least with regard to providing a common understanding of both how organizational entities interact and a shared sense of strategy and values that act to guide the actions taken by empowered teams.

Team Empowerment in a Chinese Context

Existing studies of team empowerment have been drawn from U.S. samples, but the sample reported here consisted of teams drawn from Chinese companies. CFA upheld the basic dimensionality of the team empowerment measure, but the reliabilities of the autonomy and impact dimensions were relatively low compared with Kirkman and Rosen’s (1999) results. The autonomy subscale values are also substantially lower than the other team empowerment dimension scores, but this is consistent with the Chinese hierarchical orientation (Child, 1994; Hofstede, 1980) and low reported decentralization scores. Furthermore, it is possible in the collective society such as China that autonomy can be perceived as less attractive than in an individualistic society. At the same time, despite lower mean scores for autonomy, the correlations shown in Table 2 show that the size of the correlation between organizational decentralization and autonomy is comparable with the correlation of decentralization with the other dimensions of empowerment and that all dimensions of empowerment are significantly related to team performance. Thus, our results indicate that team empowerment is a concept that is useful in China, a national context that differs considerably from the United States. Furthermore, this is true even at the low levels of decentralization typical of enterprise in China.

Practical Implications

Although most of the past empowerment research has focused on psychological aspects, this study aimed at examining what organizations could do to influence team empowerment. Therefore, our findings offer practical implications for managers in several ways. First, consistent with previous research findings, this study demonstrates a positively significant relationship between team empowerment and team performance in real organizational settings. This finding suggests that managers should take specific actions that allow team members to make their own decisions, to feel they are effective, to find what they are doing is meaningful and valuable, and to perceive that their work creates important impacts on the organization. Second, to improve team members’ empowerment, organizational decentralization should be adopted, which allows teams not only to share decision making about team tasks but also to become involved in more general decisions such as the design of new work methods and the implementation of new working processes in the whole organization.

Finally, the different effects of organizational formalization and job formalization suggest that formalization should focus on goals and values rather than on specific job behaviors. This would apply to all types of teams, but teams of professional employees in technological companies such as we studied would find this especially beneficial so that the team members would be free to make use of their professional expertise. Examples of practices promoting organizational-level formalization include the use of cost control centers, using information systems, formal quality control procedures, and the adoption of formal performance appraisal systems. We feel that organizational formalization is particularly necessary for organizations in China where managers often intrude into their subordinates’ work and make decisions arbitrarily because of the absence of such formal management systems. On the other hand, our finding shows that rigidly defining job duties or descriptions within teams is negatively related to teams’ ability to achieve empowerment perceptions associated with decentralization. This suggests that high-technology companies need to adopt loose or flexible job descriptions for jobs within teams, thus allowing team members to share their work and to blur the boundaries between each other’s duties.

Future Research

Research in the future should pursue three broad lines of progress. The first is to examine alternative approaches to measuring organizational structure, making use of multiple raters to avoid potential problems with scale reliabilities (Gerhart et al., 2000). Furthermore, the reliabilities of our structure variables of decentralization, organizational formalization, and job formalization were all α = .69, which lie just below the traditional .70 standard for reliability. However, even given these reliability levels and concomitant downward pressure in model significance levels, we found interesting and contrasting effects for the two formalization measures. Additional research using alternative measures for structure can help shed further light into the way in which structure influences empowerment.

Second, our results suggest that the team empowerment construct (Kirkman, Rosen, et al., 2004) is a globally useful one. However, additional fine-tuning of item wording appears to be needed for the autonomy and impact subscales, but studies in additional countries will be needed before it becomes apparent whether this is a problem unique to the Chinese context or reflects a more universal problem.

The most important line of future research is to examine in more detail the relationship between actual practices and empowerment. The variance explained in this study is modest, but what is remarkable is that these relatively distant factors have such an effect on teams and team performance. Still, larger-scale studies are needed to incorporate more factors influencing team empowerment and performance. Our finding significant indirect rather than mediating effects highlights the importance of focusing on identifying contextual moderating variables that could shed further light onto the relationships between structure and team empowerment.

Keeping in mind Forrester’s (2000) cynicism that empowerment initiatives are often more about style (i.e., impressions) than substance (i.e., actions), it is necessary to examine the effectiveness of actual HR practices in promoting empowerment. Not only do employee perceptions of HR practices influence team empowerment (Mathieu et al., 2006), but so does actual organizational structure. Much more understanding of the specific, concrete actions that companies can take to enhance empowerment is needed.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

This article was accepted under the editorship of Talya N. Bauer. The work described in this article was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. CityU 1170/03H) and by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 70572019).

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