Personnel Review

Re-empowering the empowered the ultimate challenge?

Norma DAnnunzio-Green John Macandrew

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Norma DAnnunzio-Green John Macandrew, (1999),"Re-empowering the empowered the ultimate
challenge?", Personnel Review, Vol. 28 Iss 3 pp. 258 - 278
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Linda Honold, (1997),"A review of the literature on employee empowerment", Empowerment in
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Nick Nykodym, Jack L. Simonetti, Warren R. Nielsen, Barbara Welling, (1994),"Employee Empowerment",
Empowerment in Organizations, Vol. 2 Iss 3 pp. 45-55 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09684899410071699
Jean-Sbastien Boudrias, Patrick Gaudreau, Andr Savoie, Alexandre J.S. Morin, (2009),"Employee
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Re-empowering the
empowered the ultimate
challenge?
Norma D'Annunzio-Green

Napier Business School, Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK,

and

John Macandrew

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Department of Psychology and Sociology, Napier University, Edinburgh,

Scotland, UK
Keywords Corporate culture, Empowerment, Hotels, Human resource management,
Organizational change
Abstract Evidence to date shows a divergence in the methods and approaches used by
companies to introduce empowerment and indeed a wide debate as to the meaning and
appropriateness of the term itself. The popularity of the concept has led many organisations to
``dive in at the deep end'', wanting to experience the benefits of empowerment without perhaps
stopping to consider the wider implications and consequences. This paper reports on the approach
that one hotel company adopted to re-introduce empowerment, a previous attempt having failed.
It provides an insight into differing perceptions of the meaning of empowerment between
employees and managers; the positive and negative experiences of those working in an
empowerment culture and the changes required for a renewed attempt at introducing
empowerment to be successful. The authors conclude that ``quick fix'' strategies will rarely be
successful and urge the development of a longer-term, more sustainable, approach.

Introduction
Empowerment is one of the current management fashions. It is seen by many
as a panacea for overcoming the problems of staid, bureaucratic and rigid
organisations, filled with unmotivated, unthinking and unhelpful employees. It
is claimed that empowerment can transform such organisations into flexible,
dynamic and entrepreneurial businesses (Foy, 1994). These will be full of
enthusiastic, committed and highly motivated individuals eager to satisfy their
customers, excel over their competitors, constantly improve their service or
product quality, and contribute to the company achieving its challenging
objectives.
Is that really what empowerment is about? A management consultant may
well describe it to potential customers in these terms. But is it really as simple
as this? If it was, every organisation would be using it! This paper contends
that empowerment is really a much more complex construct than the simple

Personnel Review,
Vol. 28 No. 3, 1999, pp. 258-278.
# MCB University Press, 0048-3486

This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr John Macandrew, Lecturer at Napier University
and co-author of this paper, who died on 5 October, 1998, age 36.
The authors would like to acknowledge the following for their valuable assistance in the
primary research process Mhairi Buchanan, Gill Ferguson, Euan Blake, Roger McEwan and
Jenny McTurk.

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solution to problems of low employee motivation and commitment. It argues

that in order to fully embrace the true meaning of empowerment, an
organisation must be prepared to view it as a long-term investment, take risks,
ensure good fit with organisational culture, be prepared for failure and most
importantly, to learn from its past mistakes in order to ensure sustainability.
The first section of this paper reviews some of the main literature on
empowerment after examining a number of definitions. The second section
presents a case study which examines the approach that one hotel company
adopted to re-introduce empowerment, a previous attempt having failed. Using
focus groups, the case study attempts to provide an insight into differing
perceptions of the meaning of empowerment between employees and
managers, the positive and negative experiences of those working in an
empowerment culture, views as to the problems and opportunities that
empowerment offers and the employees views on changes required for a
renewed attempt at introducing empowerment to be successful in the
organisation.
From this empirical data, the factors which will help or hinder the
sustainability of empowerment in the hotel can be identified, and these form the
basis of a practical framework which could be utilised to facilitate the future
growth of empowerment in the hotel and focuses on sustainable long-term
rather than short-term gains.
Definitions of empowerment
Empowerment is a widely used term, much in fashion. Many directors talk of
``empowering'' their workforces; management writers and gurus recommend
empowerment as the solution to many organisational problems (Peters, 1992,
1994; Moss-Kanter, 1989). But what is empowerment?
It has been used for many years in areas such as social work, urban
redevelopment and overseas development, in the sense of giving communities
the means and the will to develop and improve their localities by themselves.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb to empower as firstly, to invest
legally or formally with power or authority; to authorise, license, and secondly,
to impart or bestow power to an end or for a purpose, to enable, permit; to
bestow power on, make powerful. The noun empowerment is defined as the
action of empowering; the state of being empowered.
In recent years its application has spread to organisations. Several writers
specifically refer to it as ``the fashionable managerial buzzword of the early
1990s'' (Kennedy, 1991, p. 168) or ``the elixir of the early 1990s'' (Burdett, 1991,
p. 23). Definitions abound, but perhaps one of the more meaningful in an
organisational context is: ``Passing on previously withheld power and authority
to employees further down the hierarchy'' (Neumann, 1993, p. 25).
Shackleton (1995) defines empowerment as ``a philosophy of giving more
responsibility and decision-making authority to more junior people in the
organisation'' (Shackleton, 1995, p. 130), and compares it to delegation.
Delegation is when a manager decides to pass some of his/her work to another

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individual for a specific reason, for example, to free up time, to help develop the
subordinate or because the task has low risk. Empowerment, on the other hand,
is a philosophy which widens the responsibility associated with the current
task without necessarily changing it. It may operate on a department- or
company-wide basis, and its boundaries may be broad or narrow. The sections
which follow review of some of the main literature on empowerment, including
an examination of what the authors label the popular approach and the critical
perspective.
The popular approach
An increasing number of popular management books are ``selling'' the idea of
empowerment as a solution to many of an organisation's problems. These are
often based on some behavioural principles, and contain much in the way of
sensible advice. Some of the best-known, and most unconventional, ideas of
empowerment have been put forward by American management gurus such as
Tom Peters (1992, 1994, 1995) and Rosabeth Moss-Kanter (1989).
Peters, for example, has produced a number of well-known books with
intriguing titles such as Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganisation for
the Nanosecond Nineties, Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organisations and The
Pursuit of Wow! These have been combined with his high-profile seminars and
television appearances. His message is that, in the contemporary climate of rapid
change and fierce competition, organisations must give freedom and
responsibility to all their employees, to unleash their creative and innovative
talents, which will have positive paybacks in terms of profit and profile. His books
tend to be simple and accessible, written in a stimulating and challenging style,
and are designed to be read and implemented by business executives.
A number of more precise and practical books have also appeared in recent
years. An example is Scott and Jaffe's (1991) Empowerment which is subtitled
``Building a Committed Workforce'' and contains a series of checklists and
action plans for implementing this. They define empowerment as a
``fundamentally different way of working together'' (Scott and Jaffe, 1991, p.
14), focusing on employees as active problem-solvers, teams which continually
improve their performance and organisations which are structured to allow this
to happen and to reward the people who achieve this.
The overwhelming tone of these books is positive, giving the impression
that empowerment can be introduced to almost any situation and any group of
people. Clutterbuck and Kernaghan (1994), however, recognise that problems
can occur, particularly with managers who are instinctively reluctant to allow
their subordinates to be empowered. Reasons for this include habit (decisionmaking and problem-solving are ingrained into many managers' ways of
thinking), fear of anarchy, personal insecurity, lack of skills (to coach and
support their employees), lack of top management example and job/promotion
insecurity (with organisations ``flattening''). The reader is encouraged to think,
however, that each problem is surmountable with the right training, leadership
and cultural and behavioural change leading to a populist perspective.

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Books such as these give much in the way of advice to managers - illustrated
by case studies and examples of companies which have successfully followed
this but they tend to give the impression that empowerment can be
introduced into almost any organisation a sort of ``follow the steps approach''.
Lashley's (1996) analysis of recent research into empowerment, argues that
such views of empowerment are ``over simplistic, they fail to recognise the
complexities and variability between managerial motives for empowering
employees'' (1996, p. 336). This provides much support for the notion that
viewing empowerment as something that can be applied universally, with
subsequent positive effects on organisational performance is at best misleading
and at worst dangerous when considering something so complex and multidimensional.
Pickard's (1993) ``The real meaning of empowerment'' quotes the cases of
Harvester Restaurants, Ciba UK and Frizzell Financial Services, all of whom
have introduced ``empowerment'' but in different forms. It is interesting to note
that, despite the title, the article never once provides a definition of the term.
Harvester imposed empowerment, by removing the level of supervisor in each
restaurant, and forming employees into self-managed teams. This case was
discussed in more depth by Ashness and Lashley (1995) who found that it had
been largely successful in the units which they studied: sales and profitability
had increased, employees were generally satisfied with the greater
opportunities for involvement and customer complaints were almost negligible.
They however identified a number of critical factors to the success of this in
Harvester: low labour turnover (when high it reduced many of the benefits of
building cohesive teams), the commitment of the team manager (to develop
loyalty to the unit) and the active support of senior managers in understanding
the system (and not focusing solely on short-term, bottom-line
performance).Without these organisational factors in place, the success of
empowerment may have been questionable.
Burdett (1991) also examines the importance of suitable organisational
conditions as contributing to empowerment, identifying three factors as crucial
for success. The first is a significant shift in the supervisor's power base, away
from traditional command and control towards being more of a coach and
expert. The second is ``boundaries management'', away from traditional,
narrowly-defined jobs towards a broadening of competency and overlap
between jobs, allowing information-sharing, synergy and innovation. The third
factor is to build a ``learning organisation'', changing leadership style (towards
one based on consensus and influencing through a common, shared vision),
flattening structures (to local business units) and building a learning culture
(developing all managers' mentoring and coaching skills, and developing their
awareness of the factors influencing behaviour).
In much of the populist literature, the word empowerment is used rather
carelessly to refer to any attempt at delegating responsibility, increasing
autonomy or increasing accountability regardless of the degree of power that
this involves a manager relinquishing or an employee gaining. The popularity

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of the empowerment concept has resulted in it being referred to in such a broad

spectrum of situations, and used inter-changeably with terms such as employee
involvement and participation, that its real meaning is at risk of being lost in
the process. The popular writers tend to focus more on the benefits and
potential positive contribution that empowerment can make, while at the same
time stating the conditions necessary for success, but with less debate
surrounding the negative implications and potential problems with the process.
It is clear that while being a popular concept, empowerment deserves much
respect, and a second group of publications stresses this by giving a more
cautious picture.
The critical perspective
Although the popular approaches towards empowerment may be easily
criticised with hindsight, organisations still aim to achieve many of the benefits
outlined in the previous section although not without certain problems. So
what are the positive and negative consequences of empowerment? What are
the benefits and costs?
The following authors use historical perspectives and contextual argument
to explain that empowerment as we currently understand it is contested and
that much of the populist literature is misleading and simplistic in its
assumptions
Bowen and Lawler (1992) consider the benefits and the costs of empowering
service-sector employees. Benefits include quicker response to customer
demands and complaints, employees feeling better about their jobs and
themselves, and contributing ideas for new methods and products. Costs
include the greater investment in selection required to obtain the ``suitable''
employees to work in such an environment and then to train them, slower/
inconsistent service delivery (customers waiting while the clerk deals
individually with another customer) and the cost of bad decisions. They make
the comment that ``there is still precious little research on the consequences of
empowerment'' (Bowen and Lawler, 1992, p. 35).
The authors describe their model of three levels of empowerment, from
suggestion involvement (essentially using suggestion schemes or quality
circles, which make little real change to jobs), through job involvement (job
redesign and team working) to high involvement (involvement in all aspects of
the organisation's performance). The conditions under which empowerment
can succeed or fail in a service-sector environment are given in their
contingency model: designed to help a firm to decide whether it is worth
empowering employees or, instead, to operate a traditional, ``production line''
approach where everybody follows set routines.
Eccles (1993) hypothesises that organisations move through the ``hierarchy
of empowerment'' from suggestion involvement to high involvement. He
examines barriers to empowerment, e.g. from managers unwilling to hand over
their ``power'' to lower-level employees) and problems of giving power to

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low-level employees who may neither want it nor have the ability to use it
correctly. A ``local'' decision, which they take for the best reasons for their
particular situation, may be inappropriate for the organisation as a whole.
Neumann (1993) discusses some theoretical perspectives of the problems of
those with ``authoritarian'' personalities coping with a change towards an
empowerment culture. These may be technical experts, line managers or
middle managers who have many years' service with their organisation, and
have been rewarded (by promotion) for doing what was required. Problems
arise when the organisation decides to adopt empowerment, and these
managers are unable or unwilling to change their style.
A number of recent surveys have also taken a more critical line, researching
how a variety of empowerment initiatives work in practice, and seeking to
establish whether they are genuinely empowering or whether little real power
is transferred to lower-level workers. Examples include those by FentonO'Creevy (1993) and Cunningham et al. (1996). The latter, for example,
conducted interviews with senior executives in 13 organisations, mostly in
production or manufacturing, and all of which had stated that they had
introduced some form of empowerment in the two-to-three years preceding the
survey. All felt that the advantages of introducing empowerment outweighed
the disadvantages. Interestingly, advantages to the organisation (e.g. greater
awareness of business needs among employees, cost reductions from
delayering and employee ideas and improved quality, productivity and
profitability) were quoted more often than advantages to employees (e.g.
increases in job satisfaction, immediate control over tasks and self-confidence).
Cunningham et al. do comment that not all employees in every company were
enthusiastic about empowerment:
However, all employers do identify a proportion of their workers who are disaffected and
refuse to co-operate with empowerment. Particular employee concerns cited by managers
involve extra work load, discipline, confusion over changed roles and redundancy. In
consequence, some employees believe that empowerment offers them no tangible reward
(Cunningham et al., 1996, p. 152).

Most managers were reported as being positive about the changes, although
cynicism could set in where no immediate benefit could be seen. The authors
considered that the amount of empowerment was fairly limited (probably little
more than Bowen and Lawler's ``suggestion involvement'') and it came in at the
same time as an increase in the amount of ``control'' over employees' absence,
discipline and productivity. A further problem concerned the difficulties faced
by the line managers not only is their job security under threat from
delayering, but for those who are left ``there is work intensification with little
chance of it being recognised in salary scales. Discretion, although
considerably more than that given to non-management employees, is also very
limited'' (Cunningham et al., 1996, p. 153).
A further problem is how to implement this new package and where to
start. Much of it needs to work as a whole structure, culture, personnel
systems, a point further emphasised by Watson and D'Annunzio-Green, (1996)

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and yet it is almost impossible to change all of these overnight. For this
reason the authors urge caution, concluding that the old command and control
philosophy often lives on underneath an empowerment one. ``Before adopting
the new creed, management should be aware that the consequences of striving
to follow its prescriptions could easily be incoherence, demoralisation and
confusion'' (Ezzamel et al., 1993, p. 102).
Finally, Lashley (1996,1997) presents a multi staged model for researching
management initiatives which claim to empower employees. This model
stresses the importance of areas such as knowing the managerial meanings and
motives of empowerment, the appropriateness of different forms of
empowerment for different organisations and organisational contexts, the
varying impact of empowerment on different individuals and the outputs of
empowerment in the form of changes in behaviour or organisational
performance. Lashley offers a pragmatic analysis of the paradoxical nature of
the potential impact of empowerment. Unless the factors above are considered
the influence of empowerment initiatives can be as powerful and positive as
they can be damaging and negative. The price of ignoring the complexities of
empowerment can be high.
Summary and discussion of literature
It is perhaps worth commenting that ``empowerment'' does not appear to have
been widely used (until recently) in HRM and organisational behaviour
academic textbooks and research-based publications. For example, there are
only a handful of passing references to it in Storey's (1995) latest seminal
review of HRM. The same can be said for the Price Waterhouse/Cranfield
research into HRM practices across Europe (Hegewisch and Brewster, 1993 and
Brewster and Hegewisch, 1994). Writers on employee involvement and
participation tend to make little or no reference to it (e.g. Marchington et al.,
1993; Marchington, 1995).
Things may, however, be starting to change. The latest (fourth) edition of
Mullins' Management and Organisational Behaviour (Mullins, 1996) contains a
number of references to empowerment. Legge (1995) also makes a number of
references, particularly in discussion of employees' reactions to such concepts
as ``commitment'' and ``compliance''. Ackers et al. (1996) contains two articles
where employees' responses to empowerment environments are examined.
As we have seen, writing on empowerment covers a great range, from the
popular ``airport bookstall'' type of ``how to empower in five easy steps''
approach to more in-depth and critical studies. The popular books adopt a
rather simplistic approach; the more critical writing highlights this deficiency
by emphasising the necessity of examining the environmental factors the
political and cultural features of organisations. This is now starting to receive
more emphasis. There is a great volume of writing on empowerment and yet
the term is still little used in textbooks or much of the more detailed academic
analyses. Empowerment would appear to fall neatly under the ``HRM'' banner,
with the importance it places on commitment, loyalty, individual motivation

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and reward, and the unitary perspective. Indeed, Sisson (1994) mentions
empowerment as one feature of the ``rhetoric'' of HRM and, slightly tongue-incheek, defines its ``reality'' as ``making someone else take the risk and the
responsibility'' (Sisson, 1994, p. 15).
Empowerment has often been introduced as part of a broader package of
changes to organisational structures, technology, working methods and
culture. Its success will depend on how it is introduced and sustained in the
longer term. This includes both the ways in which it is communicated and
``sold'' to managers and employees, and on how they, in turn, perceive it and
decide the level of commitment to give. As the literature has shown, the link
between empowerment and success or improved organisational performance is
a complex one in which there are no guarantees. But what happens when
empowerment fails to achieve the expected results? What are the potential
positive and negative implications of this on those empowered and how can an
organisation learn from and build on this experience?
The case study will examine and illustrate some of these issues in more
detail.
The case study
The hotel in which the case study is based belongs to a large multinational
corporation with over 400 properties around the world. In the last five years
various changes have been made to the culture and structure of the hotel. In
1992/93 the hotel underwent a complete refurbishment and at this time a
conscious decision was taken to begin a journey to develop a new culture as
there was a perceived need to change the traditional ways of operating.
In 1994/95 the hotel, due to economic and competitive circumstances as well
as changing trends in the industry, carried out a downsizing activity which
removed the assistant levels within the management team in order to develop a
flatter, leaner organisational structure. As a by-product of this downsizing
activity it was decided to introduce the concept of empowerment because of the
implications of the new structure and the perceived need for all employees to
take more responsibility and control over their actions and the positive effect
empowerment would have on guest satisfaction.
The hotel communicated the concept of empowerment through induction
and training courses and included statements on empowerment in their
training policy. The rationale behind the introduction of empowerment was
that empowering staff is not the same as simply delegating tasks to them.
Empowerment was to be viewed as a management philosophy which is
demonstrated by a belief that the staff the organisation employs have the skills,
abilities and motivation to do what is needed or that they can develop these
abilities and skills if they are given an environment which will support them
and make the new behaviour worthwhile. The organisation saw empowerment
``as a shift in power and authority within the organisation, such that people
who are actually doing the work are able to take responsibility for it and to
make the relevant decisions needed to carry out their work effectively''.

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Empowerment was about having real areas of responsibility and making real
decisions, primarily within the boundaries of their own job but with a focus on
developing a broader perspective and encouraging staff to see there own
position, not in isolation, but in the context of their department, other
departments and the organisation as a whole.
In terms of defining and identifying the different forms that introducing
empowerment took in the organisation, various initiatives were introduced
which mirror some of the managerial meanings of empowerment discussed by
Lashley (1997). First and foremost was empowerment through delayering. It
was felt that a flatter organisational structure would provide the ideal
environment for empowerment with shorter lines of command and reduced
bureaucracy and would allow employees to make decisions at the level where
they were most needed at the customer interface. To this end a layer of middle
management was removed through means of redeployment, natural wastage,
retirement and redundancy. Alongside this was a more in-depth focus on
training and development, coupled with an increased investment in the training
function. Flexibility was encouraged and manifested through initiatives such
as job rotation and multiskilling. Empowerment through participation and
employee involvement was also introduced in a number of ways. In terms of
participation this related mainly to task level empowerment (Lashley, 1997)
This involved empowering employees to take decisions in reaction to the
customers immediate requests, taking control of the service encounter and
making decisions which had previously been the domain of managers and
supervisors. This behaviour and attitude towards their work was encouraged
by training courses in customer care and job rotation, in order that employees
were encouraged to see their job in the context of others in the organisation and
therefore encourage teamwork and a better understanding of other
departments. Empowerment through involvement where `` the key requirement
is to involve employees in some form of consultation whereby employees can
make suggestions upon which managers can act'' (Lashley, 1997, p. 56) was
also present in a number of ways. Information briefings and department
meetings were used extensively to disseminate information and consult with
staff and gain feedback. These were seen as essential to discuss the
empowerment process and provide support and encouragement. Another
important form of involvement was the company attitude survey which was
introduced to identify six monthly indicators of employee satisfaction and
dissatisfaction. The strength of this was the systematic administration and
feedback of survey result and the open communication of results throughout
the organisation. This enabled the key indicators to be examined and changed
to ensure improvements were made soon after the survey results were known,
in consultation with staff.
During the two years that followed, management were concerned that the
empowerment concept had not been fully embraced by employees at all levels
and realised the need to re-focus on the concept in an attempt to develop a
framework from which empowerment could grow.

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In retrospect, the organisation realised that the first attempt to introduce

empowerment was not conducive to its successful implementation due to
timing and environmental conditions both internal and external. The concept
had been viewed with a degree of suspicion and cynicism due to its association
with delayering, downsizing and cost-cutting and the internal culture of the
organisation was not supportive or mature enough in that it did not provide a
stable enough platform from which empowerment could grow. By 1997, the
hotel felt that it had put systems in place over the last three years alongside
which empowerment could be developed (these are shown in Figure 1), and that
there was now more stability in the organisation than the turbulent
environment that was characteristic of 1995.
The hotel realised that the ``popular'' notions of empowerment explained
earlier could not be transplanted simplisticly and that they needed to address
the issue of change implementation in more detail before moving forward.

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Methodology
The objective of the research design was to identify problems, issues and future
developments regarding empowerment from an employee and management
perspective. By helping employees to develop a shared diagnosis of what the
problems were, the organisation hoped to mobilise the initial commitment
necessary to either drive the programme forward or abandon the current course
of action. The organisation needed to examine the feelings of those who had
been in the organisation over the last two years and consider their responses to
the experience of being empowered. The research design aimed to examine
the meaning of empowerment to managers and employees, the problems and
opportunities that empowerment had resulted in and their opinions as to what
changes were needed if empowerment was to continue in the organisation. A
qualitative focus group approach was chosen as it enabled a large amount of
observation and interaction on the topic in a limited period of time. Focus
groups are particularly useful in drawing out qualitative data (Morgan, 1988, p.
10) which was relevant as a large portion of the information required related to
employees attitudes and experiences of empowerment.
SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
TO TRAINING
MULTI SKILLING
ORGANISATIONAL
STRUCTURE
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
CUSTOMER FOCUS
PORTFOLIO OF TRAINING COURSES
SKILLED STAFF AND MANAGERS

Figure 1.
Building blocks for
empowerment to grow

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The dialogue and general discussion encouraged by the focus group method
was felt to be particularly useful for discovering the range of views and
attitudes present within the sample and allowed the opportunity to observe the
processes by which the delegates interacted and validated each others views.
Sample
Four groups, comprising an average of six people in each were interviewed.
Each group consisted of employees (doing different jobs at the same
organisational level) who had enough in common to allow them to enter into a
discussion about the topic in question and who were familiar with each other
but who did not work closely together on a day to day basis. It was important
to avoid mixing employees across the organisational levels as people in
supervisor-subordinate relationships may have been inhibited in what they
were willing to say to each other.
The procedure began with the researchers conducting a brainstorming
session to decide on an appropriate sequence of questions and to ensure that
the content of the questions would encourage an appropriate flow of discussion.
A relatively small number of questions were agreed on (six in total). The
questions were there merely to guide the focus group rather than to indicate the
form of answer to be provided. The answers to these questions would be the
emergent property of the focus group discussion rather than a specific response
to a direct question. The main topics discussed were; the meaning of
empowerment, personal feelings about empowerment, advantages and
disadvantages of empowerment for the organisation, customers and individual
employees and factors which would help and hinder the future growth of
empowerment.
Each group discussion lasted from one-and-a-quarter to two hours and was
tape recorded to enable transcription. Three researchers were present at each
session. Two in a facilitating role and one observer responsible for audiotaping
and other visual aids. Transcripts were produced and examined in order to
decide on the most appropriate themes and subthemes for content analysis. A
further brainstorming session took place to elicit these headings, ensure that
researcher bias was minimised and obtain agreement on the most appropriate
and reliable categorisation of material. As a result of this, six key themes
emerged. These can be seen in Figure 2 and each will be discussed in the
following section.
Focus group findings key themes
Communication
This was found to be key to the whole process of empowerment and in
analysing all questions the word ``communication'' was found to be the most
frequently noted response, appearing to influence everything from a basic
understanding of the definition of empowerment to being instrumental in
shaping and sustaining the culture over the long term, as is demonstrated by
the section on sustainability to follow.

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Commitment

Sustainability

Ownership

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Communication

Leadership

Skills &
Competencies

Question one asked participants to indicate ``what the term empowerment

meant to them''. The responses to this indicated that all groups had a similar
idea about the meaning of empowerment and were able to discuss the term
amongst themselves, reaching consensus. Empowerment was defined by the
employee groups as follows:
Taking responsibility to make your own decisions without asking others.
Having the responsibility to make your own decisions and take the consequences.

The management groups had a deeper understanding of the subject but the
same themes were present:
Total and complete responsibility for your own destiny and life.
Taking personal responsibility for any problems that may have occurred.
Knowing when to go for help, assistance and when not to.

The most important element of empowerment was the notion of ``taking

responsibility''. The last quote above is worth considering here the idea of
knowing how much responsibility to take and when to go for help and
assistance did not seem to be clear to all respondents and was a source of
concern to some. The employee group felt that they needed further guidelines
and more discussion and assistance regarding ways of dealing with this. One of
the management groups however, felt that a key part of the empowerment
culture was ``the ability to know and decide when to refer a problem and when
to deal with it personally''.
An interesting divergence of ideas was revealed on analysing these
definitions. On the one hand employees felt that they needed clearer guidelines
to enable them to work within defined boundaries.

Figure 2.
Key themes arising from
focus groups

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Comments such as ``we are worried about overstepping the mark'', and ``we
would like to be told exactly what we can and can't do'' demonstrate a concern
among front line staff that could substantially hinder the growth of an
empowerment culture, especially if it is at odds with the generally espoused
message of empowerment. Managers on the other hand believed empowerment
to be ``a very personal and individual process which should not be confined by
guidelines or boundaries''.
``Empowerment is unique to different people and must be driven by the
individuals thoughts and decisions, not a list of do's and don'ts.'' It can be seen
here that management appeared to have a different perception of the
empowerment process and agreed that a failing of the current system, was
``staff attitudes'' towards empowerment which need to be addressed through
further communication (both formal and informal) and confidence building to
encourage staff (particularly younger staff) to take responsibility and
ownership of the empowerment process. One manager summed up the feeling
by saying: ``it's not their (employees) fault, perhaps we need more discussion of
our expectations and to provide more support''.
The opportunity to discuss fears, problems and the positive implications of
empowerment was seen to be the way forward in the view of many respondents
summed up by the comment:
We need to involve more staff in this sort of open, non-confrontational discussion.
We need to know our views matter and will be taken into account.

As can be seen, the importance attributed to ongoing communication as the

backbone of the empowerment process cannot be over emphasised.
Commitment
The word commitment may not have been mentioned explicitly by all groups
but as can be seen, it was a strong theme with a great deal of importance
attributed to it. Strongly related to commitment was the concept of mutual
trust, and an underpinning of trust appeared to influence both this theme and
that of ownership discussed later. All groups emphasised the need for
commitment as a key driving force from all levels of the organisation's
hierarchy. Employees agreed that commitment would be difficult to achieve
from all members of staff ``people do not want to accept empowerment
especially part time and casual staff as it is just a job to them''. Staff members
felt that commitment would be gained by further training in ``empowerment''
concepts, further discussion of problem areas, guidelines and, more
importantly the fact that incentives would encourage motivation and
commitment by demonstrating to staff that it is ``worth their while''
participating in the empowerment culture. Typical responses relevant to this
theme were:
We want it to work but we want to know what's in it for us.
Let us discuss the problems and we will be more committed to the solutions.

We need to trust in management's intentions before we get behind them.

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Show us someone who is doing it right the empowerment way.

These responses seemed to demonstrate the need for the organisation to gain
renewed commitment to empowerment through further communication with
staff at all levels, fresh diagnosis and discussion relating to the need for
empowerment and a confidence building exercise in terms of enabling staff to
somehow see how empowerment can work in their organisation and reemphasise the objectives and outcomes of the culture. It would appear that the
ability to convince staff of the value of empowerment is essential to gain
commitment.
An interesting discussion ensued as to the lack of consultation before the
concept was introduced initially. When discussing the perceived value of this,
respondents appeared to agree that discussing the impact of empowerment was
much more valuable now they had experienced the process, as previously they
would not have been able to envisage the issues involved:
We know the problems now and we can suggest solutions.

Ownership
This area was particularly important to managers who stressed the need to
involve all staff in redefining the empowerment concept to be something
``achievable, realistic and acceptable to the majority''.
In order for all staff to feel a sense of involvement and ownership the
organisation needed to ``take a step back and re-evaluate empowerment'' with
the aim of ``involving all staff in the definition'' encouraging ownership and
thereby influencing commitment. Underlying this was the general feeling that,
``If we are more involved in the process then we will make it work''.
Rather than imposing a particular way of doing things ``each individual will
know their own capabilities and should take ownership of their own potential''.
There was a strong feeling from all groups that there was much to be gained
from the synergistic effect of teams and departments working together ``one
individual may not be able to deal with a customers problem from start to
finish but he/she can support someone who can''.
This focus on the internal customer is essential if empowerment is to
succeed and was acknowledged by all groups as being important.
An important aspect of this theme was the need for empowerment to be a
``shared experience''. Individuals needed to trust in the process and in each
others ability to avoid reverting back to previous ways of working:
if we don't feel personally involved in empowerment, it will be easy to fall into previous
habits and rely too much on managers again.

This feeling of personal involvement appeared to be crucial in sustaining and

gaining commitment to empowerment.

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Skills and competencies

Underpinning all other themes is the need for staff to be competent and be able
to demonstrate the skills and abilities that they need to function effectively in
an empowerment culture. There was a positive feeling that the skills and
abilities were there in terms of peoples competence in job roles, training, multiskilling and support. It was the more intangible areas like confidence, attitudes
towards empowerment, team building and dependency on other members of
the team that appeared to be issues for development. Formal training and
development can obviously help to develop these areas but these are heavily
dependent on communication, commitment and involvement, and individuals
contributions and abilities in some of the more intangible areas will be diverse
and influence the extent to which they can embrace the principles of
empowerment. There was a distinct feeling by management that some
individuals would not be able to develop the appropriate skills needed for
empowerment no matter how much formal training and coaching was given.
Skills mentioned by the groups as being crucial were an ability to carry out
your job effectively through on job training, an understanding of other staff's
jobs, multi-skilling, an ability to see the wider picture right from the start of
employment, excellent communication skills both within the hotel, inter
departmental and with customers, an air of self assurance and self confidence
and excellent customer care skills. Despite concerns regarding individual
differences and differing employee ability, all staff felt confident that these
skills were being addressed through ongoing training and development.
The very nature of empowering a person involves them adopting new roles
and people will undoubtedly have difficulties with this transition either due to
an unwillingness to change or due to lack of ability. Essential here was
adequate training and moral support. Clear links emerged between this and
leadership.
Leadership
The research suggests many issues which could positively or negatively
influence the future of empowerment under this theme. The staff groups
stressed the need to know ``that no matter what decision was made by them it
would be backed up by the management team''.
Again this focuses on the felt need for support by the front line and possibly
again highlights a lack of confidence, in that their willing participation in
empowerment will be conditional on knowing they will be supported if things
go wrong. There appears to be something of a dichotomy in the relationship
between front line dependence on management support alongside the
empowerment ethos of taking responsibility for your own actions. As one
manager put it: ``There is too much reliance on duty managers to provide the
answers''. This is one of the inherent tensions in the empowerment debate that
requires something of a balancing act to ensure both supportive and
empowering leadership skills.

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Management groups stressed the need for more evaluation when mistakes
were made, summed up by one comment ``staff are left with a feeling of `don't
do that again' and we never have time to analyse where things went wrong and
how we can put it right the next time''.
Other comments related to the senior management executive team who
should ``stop relying so much on department heads and duty managers and
have more confidence in front line staff's responsibility''. Others felt that the
department heads needed to have more confidence in front line actions and
communicate this ``trust'' more openly to build confidence.
All respondents agreed that commitment from the top was vital for
empowerment to succeed. This cliche is often referred to, but the groups were
agreed that ``knowing that the managing director is committed to
empowerment'' was crucial. The need for a different management style was
mentioned:
the gap between what they (management) do and what we (staff) do has narrowed, so their
(management) style should change as a result.
the difficulty is being able to relinquish power on the one hand, retain some power on the
other and change our management style all at the same time!

These quotes clearly show the difficulties both management and staff can
experience under empowerment, requiring both parties to change their
respective perceptions and expectations of one another.
Sustainability
Rather than a theme arising from the focus group discussion this was the final
question to be asked of the group ``Can you identify the factors which will help
or hinder the growth of empowerment in the long term?''. This generated much
discussion, a summary of which can be found in Table I.
As can be seen, there are some areas of common agreement between the
management and employee groups and other areas of disagreement.
Many of these areas have already been raised and have been discussed
under different themes, but it is interesting to note that different forms of
communication were mentioned by all groups as both a driving and restraining
force emphasising its importance and impact. The groups mentioned both
incentives and recognition as driving forces. Incentives were agreed by the
employee respondents to be important not monetary incentives, rather as
they put it ``motivational incentives''. When asked for examples they talked
about recognition, feedback and appraisal ``knowing that your effort is being
noticed and rewarded''.
This recognition of high achievement was also agreed on by the
management group but this was discussed more in the context of ensuring that
the policies and procedures of the organisation were in keeping with and
supporting the culture. ``If empowerment is so important we should have more
explicit measurements as to whether it is present or not.'' This appeared to be
an important issue but the discussion did not extend to examples of how this

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Employee responses

Management responses

Agreement

Driving force
Workgroups to discuss problems and
create solutions
More interdepartmental integration
Multi-skilling
Restraining force
Lack of communication

Similar

Driving force
Incentives encourage involvement
through motivation
Involve all staff in the process
Commitment of all managers to the
process

Driving force
Better analysis of mistakes
More interdepartmental meetings and
team building
Multi-skilling
Restraining force
Communication between management
and staff
Driving force
Take a step back and evaluate what
the hotel needs now
Build empowerment into policies and
procedures
Reward and recognise high achievers
Change definition of empowerment
and involve all staff in the new
definition
Recognise individual differences
Restraining force
Attitude change needed by some
Great difference in individual
capabilities of staff

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274

Table I.
Focus group responses
to the question ``factors
Different
which will help or
hinder the growth of
empowerment in the
long term?''

Restraining force
Certain people will never accept
empowerment
Some staff will be able to take on
more responsibility more effectively
than others
Driving force
Guidelines to follow
More management support in terms of
limits of empowerment

Driving force
No guidelines this destroys the
ethos of empowerment

would work in practice. It certainly suggests the importance of organisational

policies and procedures, such as feedback, appraisal and performance
management in sending the correct messages to all staff regarding their
participation in the empowerment process and the subsequent link to
performance, recognition and reward.
Discussion
In attempting to interpret and understand their past experiences of success and
failure, this organisation refused to accept the erosion of empowerment and
recognised that although empowerment on the surface may have a lot to offer,
it is not easy and cannot be achieved other than through an ongoing investment
in training, more communication and an alignment with other aspects on the
organisations culture, structure and internal and external environment. As can
be seen from Figure 1, the key themes arising from the focus groups are
illustrated in the form of a cultural web, similar to that discussed by Hendry
and Hope (1994). They argue that the complexity of culture change results in an
interlinking web of factors which are ``mutually reinforcing, it is usually

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impossible to change one without changing them all'' (1994, p. 402). This was
confirmed by the focus group findings in that each of the five areas discussed
were seen to be dependent on each other. For example without communication
there would be no real commitment to the process of empowerment and
likewise commitment was seen to be influenced by ownership of the problem
and good leadership. Each of these factors was crucial in terms of devising a
framework within which empowerment could grow, as identified by those who
had experienced empowerment and learned from the process. The focus group
discussions generated a great deal of curiosity from all participants. Many
negative issues were balanced with a more positive solution and although
many questions were left unanswered the climate was one of healthy
participation and a certain satisfaction from the respondents at having been
involved in the analysis of such a challenging organisational issue. The
learning that has taken place as a result of participating in the empowerment
process has resulted in a much more realistic assessment of what the key issues
are for the organisation than any pre-empowerment discussion could ever have
provided. This emphasises the nature of organisational change as being a longterm continuous process which cannot be introduced as a quick fix or one size
fits all approach but must be adapted to the organisation's strengths. It is
hardly surprising that organisations view empowerment as such given the
popular approach defined earlier and it is easy to believe it is the answer to
many organisational problems and that any difficulties encountered are
surmountable. The reality is that many complications do not tend to be
crystallised until the empowerment process has begun. As we have seen, the
literature suggests many different levels and ways that empowerment can be
introduced it may be the case that organisations should endeavour to assess
the most appropriate level for them before implementation. This case study
demonstrates an approach to introducing empowerment which is similar to
many others, in that little attention was paid to the ``type'' or ``level'' of
empowerment that was to be achieved in the early stages. By re-visiting the
empowerment process in order to revitalise it, the organisation will now be
better equipped to identify an approach that will fit into its already existing
strengths and weaknesses. For example, one of the strong messages from the
research is the need to individualise the empowerment process and accept that
not all employees or managers will be able to develop the concept to the same
degree. Taking this into account, the focus should perhaps be on empowering
each individual to empower him or her self to an acceptable level to themselves
rather than squeezing square pegs into round holes. This would not result in
some individuals being less committed to the process as those who do not
empower themselves to such a degree should be supporting those who do. This
is an underlying theme of much of the more critical literature which rightly
questions and challenges how universal an empowerment approach can be.
The role of the manager was also seen to be important in determining the
ability of the team to cope with the empowerment process. We would take this
further and suggest that the success of empowerment could be dependent on an

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individual focus on staff abilities, and successful management of this is crucial

to avoid the negative effects of empowerment and ensure that all staff feel
committed despite varying levels of involvement. In trying to introduce the
concept of empowerment the organisation was assuming that its staff wanted
to contribute and could be trusted to do so it seemed appropriate therefore to
extend this trust to involving them in an examination of the dysfunctionality of
the empowerment process itself and make the organisational learning that can
be gained from an open critical evaluation such as this a part of the
empowerment approach. The critical question they must now consider
however is the effect of this open and honest exchange on future change efforts.
Are employees going to be more motivated, more determined and more positive
and supportive as a result of understanding the problems and participating in
the analysis or will they be more suspicious, cynical and less enthusiastic? This
process could potentially have very different outcomes and impacts on the
sustainability of empowerment in the future.
The experiences of those empowered were certainly not overtly negative as
can be seen from the focus group discussion. On analysing the data it seems
that much of this is due to the organisations culture and other organisational
factors which were already in place and were important in demonstrating a
commitment to areas which underpin empowerment. Respondents concerns
related to the empowerment process itself rather than organisational factors
(such as those in Figure 1) which were seen to be lacking. This is an important
point and emphasises the need for the right conditions to be in place before
empowerment can be successfully introduced. Employees took for granted
areas such as open communication, multi-skilling, customer care and skills
training without these empowerment would have no base from which to
grow.
This paper has shown that while empowerment is an appealing concept, its
successful application is very much contingent on a complex mix of factors
which may vary greatly from one organisation to the next. There will be some
organisations where it can be successfully introduced or may indeed have
always been in operation, but the scope for changing most organisations may
be more limited. The more simplistic approaches to empowerment ignore the
complex cultural web of factors which will differ from organisation to
organisation and individual to individual. The success of introducing
empowerment would appear to benefit from a contingency approach rather
than a universal approach.
Empowerment would appear to be an appealing and simple concept on its
own, offering much attraction in particular to those wishing to enhance their
intrinsic satisfaction. However, when it is applied to a real organisation it
undoubtedly becomes more complex. It no longer stands alone, but is
frequently introduced at a time of change and becomes subject to the
machinations of organisational life including culture, management style, and
other aspects of the internal and external environment which make it harder
to determine whether it will achieve the expected results and how it will impact

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on the workforce. This company may not have arrived at their expected
destination, but the value of the journey to get there should not be
underestimated. Organisations should view the journey towards empowerment
as a learning experience, with a potentially bumpy ride and many surprises
along the way. Before arrival at the desired destination can be guaranteed,
further detailed research is needed to disentangle the many threads
surrounding it.
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