Abstract:
Business challenges posed by turbulcnt local and global operating conditions are driving
the adoption of new manufacturing strategies. Employee empowerment is vicwcd as a
key enabler of these strategies within manufacturing enterprises. Analysis of the
empowerment literature revealed that empowerment is poorly conccptualiscd. Little
empirical evidcncc exists on the factors that influence the rcalisation of empowerment
in manufacturing production. Paralld analysis in other domains reveals knowledge that
could potcntially be applicd to opcrationalise empowerment in practice. This
knowledge remains unexplored within the context of empowerment.
The thesis proposition is that making empowerment operational depends on a prior
understanding of the dimensions of the concept, which are specific to differing
organisational contexts. The research endorses the necessity of considering
empowerment from a differentiated systems perspective. Organisational control is
confinned as a dominant management concern in operationali sing empowerment.
It was determined that the development of a conceptual framework to synthesise the
diffuse elements of empowerment could enhance understanding of the implications of
operational ising the concept in manufacturing production. The author develops the
framework using theoretical knowledge identified following a detailed analYsis of
empowerment from literature. The theoretical propositions that constitute the
conceptual framework are triangulated and the framework is operationalised using
domain targeted industrial trials.
The conceptual framework constitutes the prime deliverable of the research. The
framework provides a mechanism for envisaging possible empowerment
implementation scenarios within the context of manufacturing production. It is
intended to be used by senior managers as a means of reflecting on the organisational
contingencies of the application domain in which empowerment is to be
operationalised.
