The Effect of Strategic Alignment between Organizational Culture and Organizational Structure towards Employee Empowerment: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Employee empowerment is a workplace revolution concept that started to gain traction in the 1990s, and is reappearing again recently. This is a way for organizations to respond to the changing business landscape in a volatile-uncertain-complex-ambiguous (VUCA) world. Employee empowerment is understood as a way of providing autonomy and decision-making power to employees, and many studies have demonstrated the relationship between employee empowerment and performance of the organization. Many previous researchers have demonstrated the individual effect of organizational culture or organizational structure towards employee empowerment, as well as the symbiotic relationship between organizational culture and organizational structure. However, studies of a combined effect are very scarce. In other words, little to no research has been conducted to explore the multidimensional effect of strategic alignment between organizational culture and organizational structure towards employee empowerment. Thus, the relationship between the strategic alignment of both organizational culture and organizational structure are not clearly defined and is currently a gap in the research. This study would like to address this gap and examine the effect of organizational culture and organizational structure towards employee empowerment. The outcome of this study is expected to benefit the theoretical body of knowledge with regards to employee empowerment, as well as provide a better understanding to practitioners and organizations wishing to embark on employee empowerment, in turn impacting overall organizational effectiveness and performance.
 Keywords: empowerment, structure, culture