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Empowerment praxis in community coalitions

  • Published:
American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

Community coalitions address a wide variety of community problems, espousing a community development processes that promotes individual and collective self-determination. They offer a promising venue for the study of empowerment of individuals and organizations. This study utilizes data from members of 35 community coalitions organized for the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems to address the following questions: What individual characteristics are related to the psychological empowerment of coalition members? What organizational characteristics are related to the collective empowering of members? What organization characteristics are related to a coalition being organizationally empowered to succeed in achieving its objectives? At the individual level, psychological empowerment was most strongly related to individuals' participation levels, sense of community, and perceptions of a positive organizational climate. At the group level, the strongest predictors of collective empowering (our operationalization of the empowering organization) were net benefits of participation, commitment, and positive organization climate. Psychological empowerment and positive organizational climate were the two predictors of organizational effectiveness (the empowered organization). Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Chafee Building, University of Rhode Island, 02881, Kingston, Rhode Island

    Roger E. Mitchell

Authors
  1. Brad McMillan
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  2. Paul Florin
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  3. John Stevenson
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  4. Ben Kerman
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  5. Roger E. Mitchell
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Additional information

The study was supported in part by a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (H86 SP 04426-01), and is part of ongoing work being conducted by the Community Research and Services Team at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University. The authors thank the staff of the Consortium for Community Initiatives, and in particular, Betty Harvey, who helped develop and test these ideas in work with community task forces. We also thank the staff of the Rhode Island Department of Substance Abuse, and in particular, Bette McHugh, for assistance in several phases of our data collection. Finally, the authors also extend their thanks to Lisa Harlow and Philip Clark of the University of Rhode Island for their helpful advice during the various phases of this article's development.

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McMillan, B., Florin, P., Stevenson, J. et al. Empowerment praxis in community coalitions. Am J Commun Psychol 23, 699–727 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02506988

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