EMPOWERING HRM (1)

WHAT IS EMPOWERMENT?
WHAT IS THE PIG ?
 DISCUSS
“WHAT IS EMPOWERMENT”
LOOKING FOR DEFINITIONS?
Empowerment is (1)
 “…a process of enhancing feelings of self-efficacy
among organisational members through the
identification of conditions that foster powerlessness
and through their removal by both formal
organisational practices and informal techniques of
providing efficacy information
(Conger and Kanungo, 1988: 474).

 ‘the psychological state of a subordinate

perceiving four dimensions of meaningfulness,
competence, self-determination, and impact, which is
affected by empowering behaviours of the supervisor
(Lee and Koh, 2001: 686)
Empowerment is (2a)

Empowerment:
sharing power in such a
way that individuals learn
to believe in their ability
to do the job!
Empowerment is (2b)
“ Making employees full partners in the
decision-making process and giving
them the necessary tools and rewards “
 Power is viewed as an unlimited resource.
 Traditional authoritarian managers feel
threatened.
Empowerment is (3)
 “a process by which people gain control over
their lives, democratic participation in the life
of their community”
(Rappaport, 1981 cited in Perkins and Zimmerman, 1995:569).

 "an intentional ongoing process centred in

the local community, involving mutual
respect, critical reflection, caring, and group
participation, through which people lacking
an equal share of valued resources gain
greater access to and control over those
resources"
(Cornell Empowerment Group, 1989, cited in Perkins and
Zimmerman, 1995:569)
Empowerment is (4)
 an approach of alternative development that
is centred on people and their environment
rather than production and profit in the
mainstream economic paradigm
Friedman (1992).

 `bottom-up' social mobilisation in society as a

challenge to hegemonic interests within the
state and the market.
(Mohan and Stokke, 2000).
 Concept Development
- workplace context -
Period Influential scholars Central Contributions
Marry Parker Follet vs Theory of co-power to overcome the
Taylorism empowerment - disempowerment dualism
1920s-1950s Ordway Tead Extension of American democracy to
workplaces
Elton Mayo Human Relation School
Herzberg Job enrichment
McGregor Theory X-Y
1960s-1970s
Kanter (1977) Empowering strategy for marginal groups in
workplace
Peters and Waterman (1982) Productivity through people, autonomy and
entrepreneurship
Walton (1985) Transformation from control to commitment
1980s-1990s strategy
Block (1987) Empowered management as alternative to
patriarchal management
Stewart Clegg Circularity of power
Dimensi Pemberdayaan (1)
Content
PSYCHOLOGICAL STRUCTURAL

•Empowered •Empowering
•Passive •Active
•Powerful feeling •Power Sharing
Dimensi Pemberdayaan (2)
Process

TOP-DOWN BOTTOM-UP

•Top’s discretion •Bottom’s rights

•Given •Taken
 Comparison across
Disciplines
Organisational Human Resource Community
Politics
Behaviour Management Psychology

Focus psychological (mainly structural and psychological and structural

cognitive) psychological structural
(mostly structural)

Process top-down (management top-down bottom-up (taken, not bottom-up/grass

discretion) (management given) root approaches
discretion)

Mechanism enhance powerful transfer of participation in involvement in

feeling (sense of power/discretion in community socially and
meaning, competence, decision making organisations; politically relevant
self-determination, through direct collective decision- actions such as
impact) involvement, from making and shared voting, political
employee suggestion leadership; collective lobbying, and
to self management action to access access to bases of
government and other production.
community resources
Main employee employee member, powerless citizen, the poor
beneficiaries individual/group in
society
Typology of empowerment
Top-down/
Superordinate
discretion

Organisational
Psychology/ HRM
Behaviour

Psychological/ Structural/
Motivational Relational

Community
Psychology Politics

Bottom-up/
Subordinate
rights