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

1920s-1950s

1960s-1970s

Influential scholars

Central Contributions

Marry Parker Follet vs

Taylorism

Theory of co-power to overcome the

empowerment - disempowerment dualism

Ordway Tead

Extension of American democracy to

workplaces

Elton Mayo

Human Relation School

Herzberg

Job enrichment

McGregor

Theory X-Y

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

strategy

Block (1987)

Empowered management as alternative to

patriarchal management

Stewart Clegg

Circularity of power

1980s-1990s

Dimensi Pemberdayaan
(1)
Content
PSYCHOLOGICAL

STRUCTURAL

Empowered

Empowering

Passive

Active

Powerful feeling

Power Sharing

Dimensi Pemberdayaan
(2)
Process
TOP-DOWN

BOTTOM-UP

Tops discretion

Bottoms rights

Given

Taken

Comparison across
Disciplines
Organisational
Behaviour

Human Resource
Management

Community
Psychology

Focus

psychological (mainly
cognitive)

structural and
psychological
(mostly structural)

psychological and
structural

structural

Process

top-down (management
discretion)

top-down
(management
discretion)

bottom-up (taken, not

given)

bottom-up/grass
root approaches

Mechanism

enhance powerful
feeling (sense of
meaning, competence,
self-determination,
impact)

transfer of
power/discretion in
decision making
through direct
involvement, from
employee suggestion
to self management

participation in
community
organisations;
collective decisionmaking and shared
leadership; collective
action to access
government and other
community resources

involvement in
socially and
politically relevant
actions such as
voting, political
lobbying, and
access to bases of
production.

Main
beneficiaries

employee

employee

member, powerless
individual/group in
society

citizen, the poor

Politics

Typology of empowerment
Top-down/
Superordinate
discretion

Organisational
Psychology/
Behaviour

HRM

Psychological/
Motivational

Structural/
Relational

Community
Psychology

Bottom-up/
Subordinate
rights

Politics