Introduction

In common with a whole host of “hot”management topics – continuous improvement,total quality and flexibility – no one is againstempowerment. In many ways, opposition toempowerment could be construed as the heightof professional and indeed social folly.However, the debate over topics such asempowerment is cast in dualistic terms. Ineveryday speech, dualistic couplets explainingtopics such as empowerment fall naturallytogether. The problem being that one half of the couplet occupies a legitimized and morallysuperior position to its less privilegedcounterpart. Thus empowerment is a “good”,disempowerment a “bad”. Continuousimprovement is a “good”, non-improvement a“bad”.Of course it is not only the field of management which throws up andsimultaneously suffers from such dualism.Tony Berry[1] reviewing a book on criticaltheory notes:

Stealing the word “critical” and using it only toapply to critical theory is one of thosewonderfully extravagant gestures that isessentially hegemonic in nature. What it appearsto do is lay a grand claim that only this approachhas any critical content and therefore, in one of its episodes of silence, ensures that there is asuggestion that all other discourse is essentiallyuncritical (p. 279).

With one eye on my professional and socialstanding, therefore, this article will not seek toargue against the concept of empowerment

per se

. Instead it will investigate the logicunderlying empowerment in work organizations as a means to legitimize a criticalappraisal of empowerment in such settings.Analyzing the changing contours and nature of worker involvement and participation, it willbe argued that, far from heralding a new era inwhich workers are extensively involved in arange of business and management matters, thecurrent focus on empowerment is underpinnedby a logic of disempowerment.

Empowerment

Empowerment is generally acknowledged asbeing related to the attitudes and beliefs of individuals, both singly and as members of groups (see, for example, the contributions tothe inaugural issue of

Empowerment

)[2]. Whenstates of empowerment are described, thesestates are often closely tied to attributes such asconfidence and motivation. In terms of developing feelings of empowerment withinindividuals and groups, a key role is accordedto positive social experiences and situationswhich allow for personal growth. In somesense, then, empowerment is viewed as a socialphenomenon which is related to learnedpatterns of behavior. How workers develop orlose the feeling of empowerment, and whatmanagers can do about this, has become a key

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The Disempowering Logic ofEmpowerment

David Collins

Empowerment in Organizations, Vol. 2 No. 2, 1994, pp. 14-21 © MCBUniversity Press, 0968-4891

I am indebted to Syd Weston for perceptive andconstructive comments on an earlier draft of thisarticle.

issue. Here much attention has been devoted toproviding appropriate social situations whichallow worker participation such that feelings of empowerment may develop.An analysis of worker involvement andparticipation, therefore, represents a usefullever into the discussion of empowerment. Inmany ways participation and empowerment arenatural corollaries. Pateman[3], for example,discussing participation, notes that effectivegrass-roots participation in political structures,requires a feeling of political efficacy on thepart of those involved. In short, effectiveparticipation requires a feeling of empowerment and vice versa.Setting the discussion of empowermentwithin the context of debates on participationalso helps to establish continuities in debatewhich can, all too readily, be overlooked whenthe subject under discussion is change. Ratherthan mystify the development of empowerment, it is important to understandand trace the growing interest in suchinnovations. Unless we do this, empowermentwill be viewed simply as a new managerialpanacea conjured up by consultants andacademics, entirely divorced from previousperiods and the experiences of those whoserole it will be to implement such suggestions. Itis important, therefore, both from a practicaland an academic point of view, to set thedebate in terms of long-run and ongoing issuesand problems which characterize theemployment relationship. Thus, while the ideaof empowerment is, indeed, a seductive one,we must not let optimism for, and commitmentto such an idea color our views unduly. If welet our enthusiasm run away with us, we willlose sight of the factors that promotemanagerial interest and we also run the risk of overlooking the factors which makeempowered states problematic to achieve.Instead of assuming that we can create theworld anew we must, when analyzing changessuch as this, always have an understanding of the ways in which the context of change mayalternately promote and hinder our endeavors.As noted above, an analysis of participationand involvement can provide this much-neededperspective.

The Need for Involvement

Any discussion of involvement mustacknowledge that employee involvement is notthe simple product of a new enlightened era of empowerment. Instead it is properly viewed asa core aspect of work organizations. This, of course, does not mean that formal structuresfor employee involvement exist in all firms.We should note, however, that historicallyspeaking such structures do have a longpedigree. Employee involvement in work iscentral to the processes of work organization ina capitalist society and can take place withoutthe requirement for such formal structures. It isequally true, however, that in recent yearsemployee involvement has become somethingwhich managers have tried to solicit from theirworkers with increased vigor.Traditionally managers looked to theemployment contract to specify and ensure thatworkers performed as required. The rights of owners and managers to direct and disciplineworkers were enshrined in property rightswhich such contracts sought to protect.However, obvious limits to this simplecontractual view of management andorganization tended to limit the efficacy of such an approach. For output to be realized,workers must always go beyond what can bespecified contractually. Indeterminacy,therefore, is at the heart of any contract of employment.Contracts of employment are drawn up tocover general events and circumstances andthus there will always be aspects of work which the contract cannot cover and cannotenforce. As Bendix[4] notes:

Beyond what commands can effect andsupervision can control, beyond what incentivescan induce and penalties prevent, there exists anexercise of discretion important even inrelatively menial jobs, which managers of

1994

economic enterprises seek to enlist for theachievement of managerial ends (p. 256).

Clearly, then, there is a need for some form of involvement on the part of workers. Withoutsome feeling of involvement, whether it bebased on professionalism, emotionalattachment or some other set of factors, theplain facts are that work would simply not bedone on time, or to the requisite quality.Indeed, perhaps not done at all. As MacInnes[5] notes:

Management, no matter how expert, cannot setout in advance exactly what must be done underall circumstances and how, but must rely tosome extent on the workers’ co-operation,initiative and experience (p. 130).

Indeed historical studies[6,7] have served toremind us that, in having the ability to performtheir work tasks, all workers are empowered tosome degree. However, arguments for lookingmore closely at continuities do not mean thatthere is never anything new. Clearly argumentsthat build from an understanding of the role of continuities through change must alwaysacknowledge the specifics of the present.However, in order to do this properly, we mustunderstand the perennial issues which surroundparticipation and involvement at work. In thefollowing sections the problems both of analyzing worker involvement and of managerial interest in involvement andparticipation will be examined.

The Ambiguity of Involvement

A key problem is encountered as soon as weseek to analyze employee involvement inwork. The problem is basically one of theelasticity of such a concept or, as Cressey andMacInnes[8] might put it, a problem of semantics partly intertwined with expressionsof a range of political and academicviewpoints. Not only does the terminvolvement carry different implications forthose subject to it at work, it also carries widelydifferent connotations for a range of academiccommentators and business gurus. Thus thefact that all parties in industry may agree on theworth of employee involvement may do littlemore than prove the semantic elasticity of theterm. For example, Wickens[9] claims:

We seek to delegate and revolve staff indiscussion and decision making, particularly inthose areas in which they can effectivelycontribute so that all may participate in theeffective running of NMUK (p. 82).

However, the above statement is clearly opento debate as to what counts as effectivecontribution, appropriate participation and theeffective running of a large-scale organizationsuch as NMUK. Anyone pretending otherwisewould be engaged in self-delusion. Indeed, thisdebate is acknowledged, implicitly, in thecomplex of methods used to engage andinvolve workers in NMUK. As Blyton andTurnbull[10] note, Nissan’s emphasis on“quality, flexibility and teamwork” could justas easily be read as “control, exploitation andsurveillance”.As an attempt to pierce such semanticconfusion it is useful to try to distinguish,analytically, between different types of employee involvement. At a basic level, then,it is useful to distinguish direct versus indirectinvolvement.Direct employee involvement includes thoseinitiatives which focus explicitly on theindividual worker and the immediate work group. Thus the direct forms include a limiteddelegation of areas of responsibility, previouslyguarded as managerial, through the redesign of the organization of work. This type of involvement would also include an increase incertain worker responsibilities as these relate toproduction. Thus the creation of semi-autonomous work groups and devolved workerresponsibility for quality would be includedhere.Indirect forms of employee involvement areconcerned with areas of decision making whichhave more of a policy character. Ostensibly thefunction of this form of involvement is moreconcerned with worker representation than the

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