A study on the elusiveness
and charm of empowerment via the managerial lens
Joseph Kim-keung Ho
Independent
Trainer
Hong Kong, China
Dated: February 5,
2016
Abstract:
The empowerment
notion, albeit being around for many years, has been described as highly
elusive, loose and attractive in the academic literature. Its intellectual
influence spans both the business management and non-business management
domains. In this paper, the empowerment notion is examined based on a
literature review, including newspaper article study, and a Facebook-based
questionnaire survey on its perceptions in Hong Kong. By doing so, it further
clarifies the essence of the empowerment notion as well as informs learning and
practices in the business and non-business sectors. Overall, the paper mainly
examines the empowerment notion from the managerial perspective. Finally, it
recommends mastery of literature review skills, e.g., on learning empowerment,
to strengthen an individual’s managerial intellectual learning capability.
Key words:
Delegation; Empowerment; Facebook-based questionnaire survey; Literature
review; Newspaper article study
An earlier version of the paper appears in the journal
of European Academic Research as
Introduction
From
time to time, the notion of empowerment comes up in the literature of business
management as well as other social sciences, e.g., housing studies. It catches
the writer’s attention in his teaching activities, especially with one of the
writer’s student doing a final-year dissertation on this topic. On top of that,
as an intellectual concept, empowerment is said to be “highly elusive”,
“attractive” and “loose” (Lincoln et al.,
2002). This sets up the context that motivates the writer to conduct a
literature review and a Facebook-based questionnaire on empowerment.
Specifically, the paper aims at:
(1) reviewing
the essence of the empowerment notion
(2) examining
people’s perceptions on and experience with the empowerment
Achieving
these two aims should inform the theoretical development of the empowerment
concept as well as students in social sciences, e.g., management and housing
studies, to learn this concept. The two aims are also related: knowledge on the
essence of the empowerment notion enables a better evaluation of people’s
empowerment perceptions and experience. The present study, nevertheless, is
done mainly via the managerial lens so as to make the scope of study
manageable.
**********
For further details of the paper, please click on this link
No comments:
Post a Comment