An exploratory study of information systems in support of employee empowerment

The notion of employee empowerment in today's organizations is becoming inc reasingly important with the growing degree of responsibility individual em ployees hold. This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study whic h examined the relationship between computer-based information systems (IS) and empowerment in detail drawing heavily on empirical work carried out in the British manufacturing industry. The paper elaborates and discusses the conceptual issues which are relevant to the idea of empowerment and its re lationship with IS, before determining empowerment to be in essence the dec entralization of decision-making authority to lower levels of the organizat ion. The lack of any research on this topic led us to carry out a combinati on of empirical research. A large-scale postal survey of 450 UK manufacturi ng companies followed by a series of 20 in-depth interviews in 18 top UK ma nufacturing organizations formed the basis for this paper. The findings con firmed that empowerment is indeed pursued by many UK manufacturing organiza tions within their various efforts at improving their organization of work. The research participants viewed IS as an important enabling tool for empo werment offering many opportunities, but clearly noted that the role of IS in this is supportive rather than initiating; IS do not lead to employees b ecoming empowered. However, the interviews revealed that manufacturing orga nizations are facing a wide range of problems and difficulties with their e xisting IS raising a number of constraints. The paper concludes with a numb er of practical suggestions for using IS as a supportive means for empoweri ng employees.