Employee Empowerment: A Theoretical Analysis

Dr. Manoj Sharma and Ms. Gurvinder Kaur

Abstract

Empowerment is one of the critical issues confronting the managers in the process of
transforming organizations. Theoretically it is accepted as democratizing function with
the employee involvement and commitment as key factors. However, lack of a universally
accepted definition as well as a concrete model for implementation continues to baffle
most organization theorists. While there is a complete consensus on the expected
outcomes in terms of increased performance and effectiveness, the debate on its key
elements and structural issues carries on. This article attempts to clarify this concept by
taking a relook at the prevailing important views. It also examines important perspectives
that emerge from this analysis. The importance of examining the antecedents and
including them as part of organization as well as job design is emphasized. The
difference between the traditional participation programmes and empowerment is also
briefly discussed as also the impediments to its successful implementation.

Introduction

Few movements in management have been as tenacious as the Human Relations

movement. In a way, Elton Mayo and other proponents changed the way (albeit slowly
and skeptically) organizations managed themselves. Autocratic, exploitative (Likert,
1961) organizations started making way for the participative, democratized style of
functioning. The ‘iron fist’ became a word, which was frowned upon, and efficiency,
when not accompanied by humane working conditions was no longer synonymous with
success. Of course, autocratic style of working has not become redundant. Most
organizations would secretly advocate it, especially in crisis management. But such
organizations cannot lay a claim to being ‘good’ organizations.
As advocates of worker involvement in organizations grew, a search began for the best
technique that would derive the most out of the employees. The approach to such
techniques was, at best, cautious. No technique advocated an ‘all-out’ transfer of decision
making to the subordinates. In fact, there appeared a vast literature on ‘when’ and ‘how
much’ to involve subordinates in the decision making process. Participative management
became popular and government mandated participation programmes acquired a
glamorous form called ‘Industrial Democracy’. Organizations and ‘leader-managers’
could choose from various kinds of programmes depending upon the need and context of
decision-making. It was also accepted that the needs for participation were worker
dependant. The use of participative techniques also depended on situational factors like
environment, organization, task characteristics, technology, culture etc. All this resulted
in a very confused and hazy implementation of the worker involvement techniques and
the benefits so loudly advocated became leader/organizational philosophy dependant.
This resulted in a substantial cynicism in the management literature regarding the
efficacy of involving the subordinates in the decision making process. Probably this led

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Kanter to remark ‘regardless of how well participation works, it will not solve all
organizational problems’. (Kanter, 1982)
To realize fully the potential of the human resources, it was imperative that the
prerogative of decision making be handed over to the employees in a manner that was
organized and structured, a process that facilitated the total transfer of decision making of
an employees’ work area to the employee himself/herself with the superior having no role
to play. Some management theorists feel that the technique of employee empowerment
provides the answer.

Reviewing Employee Empowerment Literature

Power has been treated in various ways by social scientists. In management literature,
power is primarily described as an influence or control that an individual has over others.
Hence, it is the capacity of a person, team or organization to influence others. In an
organizational setting, an individual or teams performance is dependant not only on own
behavior but also on the response of the other associated individuals or teams. By this
definition of power, an empowered person or a team has a better control over his/her
surroundings and more specifically the work area. Conger and Kanungo (1988)
popularized this concept and gave it relational as well as motivational dimensions. More
specifically, Employee Empowerment was referred to as a “process of enhancing feelings
of self-efficacy among organizational members through the identification of conditions
that foster powerlessness and through their removal both by formal organizational
practices and informal techniques of providing efficacy information.”
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) approached the concept in a structured manner. They
developed the empowerment process in terms of changes in cognitive variables that
determine motivation in workers. Conceptually, empowerment was made more precise by
identifying it with a type of motivation i.e. ‘intrinsic task motivation’ and a set of task
assessments that provide this motivation. The proposed model also attempted to capture
the interpretive processes through which the workers arrive at these assessments.
Empowerment hence was viewed by these two authors as a motivational construct and
how to achieve this motivation.
Bowen and Lawler (1992) focused on empowering management practices including
delegation of decision making from higher to lower organizational levels, increasing
access to information and resources from higher to lower levels.
Spreitzer (1995) defined Employee Empowerment as a motivational construct manifested
in four cognitions-meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Meaning implies
the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an individual’s own ideas or
standards. Competence or self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in his or her ability to
perform activities with skill. Where competence is a mastery of behaviour, self-
determination is an individual’s sense of having choice in initiating and regulating
actions. Impact is the degree to which an individual can influence strategic administration
or operating outcomes at work.
Menon (1999) dwelt on three major psychological facets of power and defined
psychological empowerment as a cognitive state characterized by a sense of perceived
control, perceived competence and goal internalization. Percieved control includes beliefs
about authority, decision-making, latitude and availability of resources, autonomy in

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scheduling etc. The second dimension of perceived competence reflects role mastery,
which in addition to successful completion of assigned tasks also requires coping up with
the non-routine tasks. The goal internalization dimension captures the energizing
property of a worthy cause or exciting vision provided by the organization leadership.
Empowerment involves the delegation of authority from management to employees, on
hierarchical forms of work organization and sharing of information between and within
different levels of the organization. Empowerment also implies the freedom and ability to
make decisions and commitment, not just to suggest them or to be part of making
them….empowerment is about power and enhancing.

Important Perspectives

A study of the above views yield a few important perspectives

i) Any organization that wishes to empower its employees has to proceed in a
systematic, structured manner. This requires an insight into the antecedents/pre-
requisites, which will facilitate empowerment efforts and sustain those in the long
run.
ii) Empowerment is a psychological state and hence it needs to be measured
periodically to assess the outcomes of empowering efforts.
iii) While empowerment and participation do require almost the same ideology, yet
they cannot be considered synonymous.

i) Antecedents of Employee Empowerment

While most researchers agree that organizations can play a very positive role in
empowering behaviour, there is lack of consensus on how it can be actually done.
Prominent work has been limited to mere identification of conditions/organizational
practices/techniques that, if used, could lead to empowered employees. Conger and
Kanungo identified contextual factors that could lead to absence of self-efficacy or
personal power in organizations. These two authors listed these factors as below.
• Organizational factors including significant organizational changes/transitions
start up ventures, competitive pressures, impersonal bureaucratic climate, poor
communications/network-forming systems, highly centralized organizational
resources.
• Supervisory Style including authoritarian (high control), negativism (emphasis
on failures), lack of reasons for actions/consequences.
• Reward Systems including non contingency (arbitrary reward allocation), low
incentive value of rewards, lack of competence based rewards, lack of
innovation-based rewards.
• Job Design including lack of role clarity, lack of training and technical support,
unrealistic goals, lack of appropriate authority/discretion, low task variety,
limited participation in programmes like meetings discussions that have a direct
impact on the job performance, lack of appropriate/necessary resources, lack of
network forming opportunities, highly established work routines, high rule
structure, low advancement opportunities, lack of meaningful goals/tasks,
limited contact with senior management.

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Subsequent research has yielded more or less the same set of conditions that can
facilitate empowerment efforts. The following factors have been listed by researches
most frequently-
• Information and Communication Resources-Kanter (1989) suggested that in
order to be empowering, organizations must make more information available to
more people at more levels through more devices. Lawler (1992) referred to two
types of information to be critical for empowerment; a) information about an
organization’s mission and b) information about performance. Information about
mission is an important antecedent to empowerment because it creates a sense of
meaning and purpose. It also increases an employees’ ability to take and
influence decisions that are aligned better with organization’s goals and
strategies. Information regarding performance is essential to help people judge
their level of performance and influence future performance. (Spreitzer, 1995).
Experts say that open communication is absolutely essential in the organization
to reduce stress and defuse ambiguity and anger, since communication, like
training, permeates all other peace promotion strategies. It is also a prerequisite
to improve the organization’s ability to manage information and improve
teamwork. In addition, open communication tends to flatten out the organization
and de-emphasize the hierarchy. (Zollers and Callahan, 2003).
• Rewards and Incentives-An important work context variable important for
empowerment is a reward incentive system. Individual performance based
rewards are found to be important for empowerment because a) these recognize
and re-inforce personal competencies and b) provide individuals with incentives
for participating in the decision making processes and impacting them.
Incentives work to co-align employee preferences with those of the organization
which reduces the risk of self interested behaviour. Some researches also argue
that the role of incentives will help make the managers more interested and
willing to involve lower level employees in the decision making process.
Though literature is limited on the association between incentives and
empowerment, this is an area that may be safely explored.
• Autonomy-Autonomy may be defined as the degree to which one may take
significant decisions without the consent of others. Autonomy may have
desirable outcomes in the right context. It promotes job satisfaction,
performance, positive motivation, lowers absenteeism and turnover rates.
(Hackman and Oldham 1976). Empowerment is often thought to be a technique
capable of bringing about improvements in worker morale by giving them
greater control over their work sphere. Autonomy and the freedom to make
decision act on one’s own is a prerequisite to employee empowerment.
Employee empowerment is not the same as autonomy but rather autonomy may
be created first to enhance empowerment at the workplace.
• Skills and Knowledge-Developing skills and knowledge are a very important tool
for introducing any work context variable. Employee skills are becoming
increasingly important in the light of globalization, technological change, trade
liberalization, deregulation and a growing tendency towards empowerment
culture. Acquisition of newer skills and updating the existing ones becomes
imperative in the light of increased quality consciousness. Employees armed

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 with the right knowledge and skills report a host of indirect economic benefits in
addition to the direct ones. The indirect economic benefits like the better
teamwork, better coping up with changes at the work place etc. promote a
creative empowered employee.
• Self- esteem and Locus of Control-Spreitzer (1995) also included these two
variables as important personality traits as antecedents to empowerment. Self-
esteem is defined as general feeling of self worth. Individuals who hold
themselves in high self-esteem are more likely to see themselves as active
participants in the work context than those who have a low self-esteem. Locus of
control explains the degree to which people believe that they rather than their
external influences are in a position to influence the work context. Individuals
with an internal locus of control regarding life in general are more likely to feel
capable of shaping their work environments and hence to feel empowered.

ii) Assessing Empowerment levels

Despite a growing interest in the organizational literature on the subject, there is a dearth
of tools to measure empowerment in the workplace. This has deterred, quite substantially,
further empirical studies.
Spreitzer (1995) developed an instrument based on the four cognitions proposed by the
Thomas Velthouse model. These four dimensions of meaning, competence, self-
determination and impact reflect an active orientation to the work role. The 12 item tool
considered empowerment to be a continuous variable and a motivational construct
specific to work domain and not global in nature. The Thomas and Velthouse conceptual
model and the Spreitzer measure, or a part of its four components have been used in
many studies. However these are not the only measures developed.
Leslie (1998) created and tested a Worker Empowerment Scale (WES) in an attempt to
fill the perceived gap created by lack of earlier instruments to empirically measure
changes in the perceived sense of empowerment among staff and to measure differential
levels of empowerment. An original pool of 51 items was tested and reduced to 24.WES
with 18 items was validated and divided into 3 subscales of 6 statements each, namely;
empowerment and personal work orientation, empowerment and control of work
environment and empowerment and work relationships. The WES provided a tool that
could be used for a quick assessment of workers’ perceived empowerment.
Menon (1999) used an original pool of 60 items to measure psychological empowerment
in three cognitive areas; sense of perceived control, perceptions of competence and
internalization of goals and objectives. The questionnaire included items from existing
scales to measure centralization, delegation, consulting, global self-esteem, job
involvement and citizenship behaviour.
Konczack (2000) determined that Thomas and Velthouse multifaceted construct of
empowerment and the Spreitzer measures did not adequately provide a means to measure
leader behaviour that encouraged empowerment. They proposed seven dimensions of
leader empowering behaviour i.e. delegation of authority, accountability, encouragement
of self-directed problem solving, information sharing, skill development and coaching for
innovative behaviour. LEBQ when compared with Spreitzer empowerment scale,

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reported that with the exception of the competence component, the correlation
coefficients between LEBQ and the empowerment components were moderate to large.
Cloete, et.al. (2002) validated a 90 item Employee Empowerment Questionnaire (EEQ)
using an instrument developed by Scott and Jaffe (1992) as the base. The original
instrument was based on the following dimensions or qualities: clarity of purpose,
morale, fairness, recognition, teamwork, participation, communication and healthy
environment. Since the metric properties of Scott and Jaffe instrument were found to be
inadequate, Cloete and others developed a more comprehensive EEQ. Gender, age,
length of service, qualifications and mother tongue were also included.
The many studies that used the Spreitzer measures demonstrate that the conceptual
definition of empowerment by Thomas and Velthouse is a widely accepted understanding
of the concept of psychological empowerment in the organisations. The Spreitzer
measures have been tested in many different studies and with many different samples.
These studies provide a history of how the concept works. They also provide tests of
reliability, content validity and convergent/discriminate validity for Thomas and
Velthouse construct. The Spreitzer measures have been considered legitimate for
studying a sense of employee empowerment.

iii) Do Empowerment and Participation mean the same?

Participatory management or participative management or participation are terms that

are used many times, synonymously with empowerment. Participation means consulting
and sharing of opinions and decisions of employees. It is a mental and emotional
involvement of persons in group situations that encourage them to contribute to group
goals and share responsibility for them. It has also been defined as “any or all of the
processes by which employees other than the managers contribute positively towards
reaching of managerial decisions which affect their work. Hence it is typically viewed as
a communication process or technique to solicit and use employee feedback in the
decision making process. Even when employees participate however, they do not
necessarily have the authority to take decisions since these are commonly regarded as
managerial prerogatives. Tannebaum and Massarik (1955) also referred to this limitation
of participation as “in enterprises, subordinates can participate in the first two steps of
decision making i.e. identifying alternatives and defining them but not in the third step
i.e. exercising a choice between alternatives.
Empowerment, on the other hand involves the delegation of decision-making
prerogatives to employees, along with the discretion to act on one’s own. Thus, where
delegation, participation, joint consultation etc. are essential for empowerment, these are
not empowerment. Sometimes scholars use empowerment when they mean several other
things, such as ‘empowered feelings’ (motivational or psychological perceptions of
power.). The term has been used interchangeably with delegation, employee participation
etc. Historically empowered feelings have related to specific contexts in which
employees are given authority to make decisions, typically on issues that directly affect
their performance. (Mills and Ungson, 2003). In these contexts the employees participate
in the decision making process and assume tasks that are delegated to them.

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Roadblocks to Empowerment

Employee empowerment can be a victim of many threats. Even well intentioned

organizations can fall into the empowerment trap. Today it is not enough merely to
empower, even if a company goes to extraordinary lengths to grant its people the freedom
to act, to train them and to provide necessary resources for them to draw on. For
empowerment to be vital and measurable, it must be all these things and more. It must be
directly aligned with the strategic goals and individual accountability all the way along
the line to senior manager, customers and stockholders. Empowerment must work in sync
with the strategic goals and business processes with each individual as a behavioral
partner in business. This kind of empowerment calls for the kind of courage and honesty
that most managers never dream of. (Johnson Allen, 1997)
Conflicts may arise between managers and employees while defining power. The
decision-making authority expected by the employees might not be the same one that the
managers are willing to accept. Employees could stop the efforts, become cynical and
lose interest.
Managers might not be willing to give up the necessary power. They can oppose
empowerment because they see it as a loss of authority and lesser job satisfaction. They
also might assume that the employees already have the required skills to start a good
empowerment programme. Fully training employees to be able to take their own
decisions could be a time consuming process that could be considered large barrier to fast
success.
Impatience also does not help. The efforts could take long to show results and could burn
up important resources.

Conclusion

As is evident, Employee empowerment has been accepted as a very powerful tool in the
hands of organizations. However, it needs further empirical authentication before the
decision makers can be convinced of its oft-quoted positive outcomes. In addition, what
is also needed is a holistic model that incorporates all the interventions needed to
implement it in a systematic, structured manner. This model should also carry within
itself assessment mechanisms to assess the levels of empowerment in organizations
periodically so that the efficacy of the interventions can be ascertained. Only then can
this tool be free from the “managerial manipulations” accusations.

Dr Manoj Sharma is a Reader in the University Business School, Panjab University Chandigarh.E-
mail:[email protected]
Ms. Gurvinder Kaur is a lecturer in Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology(Deemed
university),School of Management and Social Sciences,Patiala.E-mail:[email protected]

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