ORGANIZATION EMPOWERMENT

Organization Empowerment

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION3

THE REQUIRE TO IDENTIFY THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE LITTLE BUSINESS5

EMPOWERMENT7

WHAT MAKES A GOOD PROCESS - HOW DOES IT TAKE PLACE?8

KEY DETERMINANTS/ELEMENTS10

DRAWING ON CASE STUDY INSIGHT: A MALAYSIAN FURNISHINGS MANUFACTURER11

SUMMARY14

REFERENCES16

Organisation Empowerment

Introduction

The general aim of this item is to discover the nebulous concept of “empowerment” inside the context of small business management and to propose that, while much of the learned publications tends to talk about the concept from a kind of informative perspectives and proportions, in the major such consideration falls short to address the characteristic characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the small business.

All organisations, large and small, are today labouring to evolve in an external functioning natural environment which is epitomised by turbulence and uncertainty. Practitioners and academics alike are focusing on the requirement for productive utilisation of persons as the key asset in sustaining comparable benefit in such an unsure environment. Within this context of productive person's management, “empowerment”, often seen as another buzz-word for “employee involvement or participation” or some variety of “delegation”, has obtained a large deal of vigilance, occasionally being proffered as the “elixir” to organisational success.

Within the small business context research displays that owner-managers outlook person's management as one of their most significant functions, and yet one of the jobs they find the most tough (Hankinson et al., 1997). While a multitude of ideas, concepts and directing borders of insight have appeared over the years and are adopted inside the human asset management information groundwork, it can be contended that much of this information has relevance to large organisations and falls short to address the characteristic characteristics of the small business. This paper commences by depicting the small business as a promise exclusive difficulty kind whereby qualitative as well as quantitative dissimilarities differentiate it from the large company. Such a conceptualisation is used to illustrate the high grade complexity of the small firm management task as it strives to contend with the vagaries of the up to designated day functioning environment. Attention is drawn to the hazards of examining the small firm as a microcosm of a large business and to the possibly restricted utility of person's management ideas, concepts and advances which are propounded as applicable inside the large business context.

Having differentiated the small business context and alerted of the require for caution in the uptake of management information bases which may not completely address that context, the concept of “empowerment” is analyzed as a propounded “mechanism” for the effective and productive utilisation of the human resource. It is proposed that while a large deal has been in writing about “empowerment” in latest years, the concept as evolved inside the publications is, in the major, oriented in the direction of large organisations and much of its content will not be gladly “transferred” to small businesses. It is farther proposed, although, that, if advised inside the distinct functioning contexts of the small business, “empowering management processes” may really be a characteristic of those small businesses which do well in maintaining ongoing development, and ...