Demystifying empowerment

Abstract

It would appear that the concept of empowerment has become popular and is so widely used that it has become a fad. It is also generally poorly understood and this results in a degree of mistrust and cynicism. There is often a lack of clarity as to the role and contribution of empowerment in organisations, and how empowerment differs from concepts such as employee involvement and participation. The key dimensions, benefits and paradigm of empowerment are also misunderstood areas. To overcome these problems this literature and theory assessment attempts to define empowerment, to provide a basis for a healthy empowerment paradigm and to stimulate further theoretical and empirical research. Opsomming Dit blyk dat bemagtiging as konsep so populer en wyd gebruik word dat dit 'n gier geword het. Die konsep word maklik misverstaan en word, in 'n mate, met wantroue en sinisme bejeen. Dit ontbreek dikwels aan duidelikheid oor die rol en bydrae van bemagtiging in organisasics en hoedanig bemagtiging van konsepte soos werknemerbetrokkenheid en -deelname verskil. Die sleuteldimensies, voordele en paradigma van bemagtiging is areas waaroor onduidclikheid bcstaan. Ten einde hierdie probleme te oorkom is daar aan die hand van 'n literatuur- en teorieverkenning gepoog om bemagtiging te definieer, 'n basis vir 'n gesonde bemagtigingsparadigma te bewerkstellig en vcrdcrc teoretiese en empiricsc navorsing te stimuleer.