Empowerment Management Research Articles

JDSU uses personality typology during management Empowerment Camps

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to gauge the success of optical product maker JDSU’s effort to engage Human Resources as a strategic partner in building an international company culture using training in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to bring diverse teams together with a common management language for discussing interpersonal and team dynamics. Design/methodology/approach – The study relied on interviews with managers, employees, and designers of JDSU’s Empowerment Camp on their experience of improvement in management and communication in the organization. Findings – With a common language for discussing communication, management, and interpersonal interaction centered around insights derived from management’s training in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator through the Empowerment Camp, members of the organization encountered a more unified and effective management approach across JDSU’s diverse web of international offices. Originality/value – This paper is the first to explore a company’s effort to engage Human Resources as a strategic partner in building an international company culture.

Empowerment or Disempowerment of Middle and Lower Level Managers as an Efficient Model of Managing a Manufacturing Company in Poland – A Case Study

During the field studies concerning job satisfaction and commitment, the authors observed that there were no fundamental differences between answers provided by middle and low level managers and ordinary workers, concerning determinants of these phenomena: they showed the same low level of empowerment and complained about the same items to a comparable degree. The authors conducted the survey in a manufacturing plant with foreign investment by a worldwide operating company, located in Poland (Lower Silesia) in the Spring of 2014. The sample consisted of 81 workers, 25 administrative staff and 11 managers, thus general n=117. The chi-square test of independence, a p-value calculated by Monte Carlo simulation were used to determine whether or not and in which spheres the questioned managers differed from the workers and administrative staff. Consequently, the authors show that in conditions similar to those encountered in the analyzed manufacturing plant, centralization of power may be considerably high and managers of the middle and lower level may be more similar to workers in many respects. Next, the possible reasons for that “disempowerment” in terms of the so-called “end-of-the-pipe model” structure are given and discussed. The authors show also that some kind of remedy can be found in such situations using the simplest empowerment strategy – the so-called suggestion empowerment, as well as TQM or Lean Management practices (e.g., quality circles, 5M, TPM).

The replication process of a global localisation strategy: a case study of Korean firms

Providing differentiated products and services in emerging markets to counter stagnation in developed markets and foster growth in emerging markets, including BRICs, has recently become a source of competitive advantage. Therefore, it is important to examine the success factors of a localisation strategy. This paper presents a research framework that describes the nature of localisation strategies and their replication processes. Using this research framework, we present case studies on two LG Electronics divisions, LG India and LG Poland, describing the story of LG executives who implemented the empowerment management style in India and Poland. The lessons of the localisation successes in these two countries provided an excellent learning effect in Korea. Moreover, the middle manager who learned the principles of localisation from a senior executive in India moved to Poland, where he successfully applied the same principles of localisation. The lessons of this case study are summarised and its managerial implications are discussed in this paper.

Metodología para la evaluación alimentaria y nutricional desde una perspectiva de equidad

In Latin America, the new social policies to fight on poverty have food and nutrition programs as the spotlight, whose social impact is assessed in most cases based on their biological outcomes or administrative criteria such as compliance with selection beneficiaries. Our proposed model to evaluate nutritional programs combines qualitative and quantitative methods and incorporates the evaluation of the structure, processes and outcomes in the following dimensions: food and nutrition security, right to food, citizenship, territorial planning, empowerment of women and program management. The evaluation results include the perception of different actors such as recipients of programs and those involved in its implementation.

Knowledge as an interactional tool in the management of client empowerment

ObjectiveTo examine the way speaker and recipient knowledge is managed in interaction by a call taker at a mental-health information line, to achieve the institutional goals of information provision and client empowerment. MethodsThis study utilizes conversation analysis in the analysis of a single call to the line. ResultsAnalysis demonstrates the ways in which a call taker produces turns-at-talk that construct a caller as knowing what help they wanted prior to that moment in the interaction, and that invoke ‘common’ knowledge of sources of such help. ConclusionTalk that orients to knowledge is used as an interactional resource that allows the call taker to avoid talk that may be considered advice, and to be heard to achieve the goal of client empowerment. The asymmetric identities of help-seeker and help-provider are managed in this process. Practice implicationsClient empowerment can be seen as something interactionally achieved and managed in talk-in-interaction, while not necessarily objectively experienced by the client.

Studying the Effect of Reconstruction and Renovation of Cultural Heritage in Enabling the Old Texture Residents: Case Study of Zeinabieh in Isfahan, Iran

Isfahan is the cultural capital of Iran. It has so many valuable historical places of which Zeinabieh is one of the most famous places which is located in district 14. Zeinabieh, as a cultural heritage, is regarded as the potential and motivation for the development of this district. The people’s participation in this district can be used in order to not only change the texture and cultural situation of this neighborhood, but also makes people to be more capable. Therefore, present study is done aiming at providing the infrastructure to sustainably and comprehensively improve the current condition to optimize the inefficient texture; making appropriate conditions to serve the citizens and pilgrims; preparing proper context for the people to fully take part in the process of renovating the old texture and improving the quality of the texture. The methodology of the study is applicable by purpose and descriptive-analytic by nature. The collected data have been descriptively analyzed using SPSS. The findings show that there is no significant correlation between management issues and renovation regarding the cultural empowerment, but there is a significant correlation among economic empowerment, management empowerment and textural empowerment and the effects will be indirect. The social empowerment is directly correlated which indicates the effect of urban management on making social capital in the city projects. So, the designing Zeinabieh districts as a main potential and people’s attraction center can lead to improvement of serving quality, texture quality, people’s life style and their participation.

The Ganges Basin management and community empowerment

This paper explores the ecological effects of the top-down Ganges Basin water management systems in Chapra, Bangladesh, based on my ethnographic fieldworka data collected in 2011-12. An example of this top-down system is the Farakka Barrage in India that causes major ecological system failures and challenges to community livelihoods. The reduction in Ganges Basin water flow in Bangladesh based on the pre and post Farakka comparison is helpful in understanding these failures and their effects on community livelihoods. My argument is that basin communities are capable of becoming empowered by Ganges Basin water management and failures in the management create major challenges to the livelihood of these communities. In this context, I analyze the current Ganges Basin management practices, focusing specifically on the Joint River Commission and the 1996 Ganges Treaty between India and Bangladesh, and their effects on the basin communities in Chapra. My fieldwork data point out that the current shortcomings in basin management can be overcome with an improved management system. Water governance based on a multilateral approach is a way to restore the basin’s ecological systems and promote community empowerment. Based on this empowerment argument, this paper is divided into the following major sections: importance of the basin ecosystems for protecting community livelihoods, limitations of current basin management practices and community survival challenges, and proposed water governance for community empowerment.

The Role of Electronic Management of Human Resources in Psychological Empowerment of Human Resources in Shiraz Gas Company

The main purpose of this research is investigation of the role of human resources electronic management in psychological empowerment of gas company employees in Shiraz. The present study is the descriptive research which was conducted by survey. The population of this research is the staff of Gas Company located in Shiraz. The considered population consisted 347 employees that 180 0f them were selected and studied as a sample based on Morgan table. The instrument for gathering data in this research is questionnaires. For determining the validity of questionnaires, the content validity has been used. In addition, the masters’ corrective comments have been applied. In this study, for investigating the reliability of instrument the Cronbach's alpha coefficients was used. The coefficient reliability of e-HR management questionnaires is 0/95 and the coefficient reliability of psychological HR questionnaires is 0/9 which shows desirable reliability of this questionnaire. Results and findings of the research: the obtained results indicate that there is positive and direct relation between the two variables of electronic system for appointment and career path management and psychological empowerment of staff located in Shiraz Gas Company. And there is positive and direct relation between two variables of electronic system of payment based on performance and psychological empowerment of staff in Gas Company located in Shiraz. And the results show that between two variables of electronic system of education management and psychological empowerment of staff in Gas Company in Gas Company in Shiraz, there is a positive and direct relationship. There is a positive and direct relationship between two variables of electronic system of recruitment and election and psychological empowerment of staff in Shiraz Gas Company. Also, between two variables of electronic system of management performance and psychological empowerment of staff in Shiraz Gas Company there is a positive and direct relationship. Regarding the conducted survey, it is indicated that between demographic features (gender, age, education level, working experience and psychological empowerment) there is a significant differences.

The New EU–Arab League Dialogue: The Contours of a Cooperation

Relations between the European Union and the League of Arab States have seen a new impetus in recent years. A new meeting structure was adopted in 2012 and a new work programme that encompasses the fields of energy, culture, empowerment of women, legal affairs, human rights, humanitarian assistance, crisis management and electoral processes has been launched. In 2014 the parties agreed to pursue deepened institutional contacts and cooperation through an EU–LAS Strategic Dialogue to discuss regional conflicts and terrorism. This Profile will outline the main traits of the new EU–Arab League dialogue. We note that the EU–LAS dialogue allows the EU to overcome some of the shortcomings of other frameworks of EU–Arab cooperation, although others still remain.

Comportamentos Ambientalmente Responsáveis e Sua Relação com a Educação Ambiental

This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the environmentally responsible behaviours and the perception of Environmental Education of students and public servants of a Federal Public Institution of Education through an electronic questionnaire applied to students and workers of the institution. The data analysis was done by using descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, t-tests for independent samples, variance analysis, and regression trees. Those results contribute to understand the behaviour considered as environmentally responsible of individuals from a Federal Public Institution of Education, before their perception regarding Environmental Education. Based on the results presented in this survey, one can devise strategies for teaching, research, outreaching, empowerment, and awareness of future technicians, graduates, and technologists as well as other stakeholders involved with environmental issues. Thus, this study contributes to the surveyed institution in the sense that, based on it, goals and strategies towards the empowerment in education and environmental management can be traced, highlighting themes that address waste management, sustainable biddings, labour life quality, raise of students’ awareness, empowerment of the civil servants, and rational use of resources. The study also contributes to identify what are the environmentally responsible behaviors in an organizational academic environment.

Hospital Public–Private Partnerships in Low Resource Settings: Perceptions of How the Lesotho PPP Transformed Management Systems and Performance

—Public–private partnerships (PPPs) seek to expand access to quality health services in ways that best leverage the capacities and resources of both sectors. There are few examples of PPPs in the hospital sector in developing countries, and little is known about how the involvement of the private sector transforms the delivery of health services in this context. In 2006, the government of Lesotho adopted a PPP approach for the health sector, contracting out to design, build, and operate a hospital network in its capital district. This case study examines differences between a government-run hospital and the PPP-run hospital that replaced it, using in-depth interviews with key informants, observation of management systems, and document review. Key informants emphasized changes in infrastructure, communication, human resource management, and organizational culture that improved quality and demand for services. Important drivers of improved performance included better defined policies and procedures, empowerment and training of managers and staff, and increased accountability. Well-functioning support systems kept the hospital clean and equipment functioning, reduced stock-outs, and allowed staff to do the jobs they were trained to do. The Lesotho PPP model provides insight into the mechanisms by which public–private partnerships may increase access and quality of care.

Clinically led performance management in secondary healthcare: evaluating the attitudes of medical and non-clinical managers

IntroductionImproving the quality and activity of clinicians’ practice improves patient care. Performance-related human resource management (HRM) is an established approach to improving individual practice but with limited use among clinicians....

Employee Empowerment and Team-Work in Management of Change : Techniques , Challenges and Prospects

This study examines employee empowerment and team-working in the management of change in some selected Nigeria organizations. Traditional command and control hierarchies, where higher management directs employee behaviour, are less appropriate in today’s business environment. Instead, employees must learn to take initiative, be creative, proactive and accept responsibility for their actions. The objectives of the study are to ascertain techniques for team empowerment in management of change and to find out if team empowerment holds good prospects for sustenance and viability. The research design adopted for this study was survey. The data used for this study were sourced from both secondary and primary sources of data. The data were analyzed using frequency tables, percentage and, mean. The hypotheses were tested using z-test. The study found out among others that technique for empowerment of teams includes changing management roles from supervisory to coaching, delegation and setting realizable goals. It was also identified that allowing employees to suggest and make procedural changes that make their jobs more efficient, companies benefit by saving money. Employee empowerment can lead to increased organizational responsiveness to issues and problems and an increase in productivity, which also lead to a greater degree of employee commitment to organizational goals. The researcher recommended that managers need to create clear guidelines for empowerment, or they may risk the possibility that the hierarchy within the organizational structure will break down, making it difficult for them to maintain control over their employees. Key Word: Empowerment, Team-Working, Change, Challenges, Prospects

The HOSHIN KANRI TREE. Cross-plant Lean Shopfloor Management

Shopfloor Management (SM) empowerment methodologies have traditionally focused on two aspects: goal achievement following rigid structures, such as SQDCME, or evolutional aspects of empowerment factors away from strategic goal achievement. Furthermore, SM Methodologies have been organized almost solely around the hierarchical structure of the organization, failing systematically to cope with the challenges that Industry 4.0 is facing. The latter include the growing complexity of value-stream networks, sustainable empowerment of the workforce (Learning Factory), an autonomous and intelligent process management (Smart Factory), the need to cope with the increasing complexity of value-stream networks (VSN) and the leadership paradigm shift to strategic alignment. This paper presents a novel Lean SM Method (LSM) called “HOSHIN KANRI Tree” (HKT), which is based on standardization of the communication patterns among process owners (POs) by PDCA. The standardization of communication patterns by HKT technology should bring enormous benefits in value stream (VS) performance, speed of standardization and learning rates to the Industry 4.0 generation of organizations. These potential advantages of HKT are being tested at present in worldwide research.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Use of Biomarkers of Rare Genetic Diseases

Rare genetic diseases are a general classification of some 6000 disorders impacting millions of people. Most rare genetic disorders are life threatening or have a serious impact on the quality of life, often requiring lifelong medical intervention and support. Despite the large number of rare genetic diseases, relatively few drugs have been approved (approximately 400). The challenges facing developers of treatments for rare diseases are multiple. Surrogate biomarkers for rare diseases hold great promise to enable successful drug development, long term management of disease and patient empowerment. Rare disease drug development is often challenged by a lack of scientific knowledge about the disease, small patient populations, expensive trials, regulatory hurdles, and high cost of commercial failure. However, great opportunities exist for the treatment of rare diseases. Large and small biopharmaceutical companies have proven that developing and marketing treatments for rare genetic diseases is viable. Bioanalytical tests have been developed for many disorders; new technologies for hand-held, self-administered tests are within reach. Monitoring devices and healthcare networking applications are ideal for enabling successful treatments for people suffering from rare genetic diseases.

Women Empowerment and Fertility Management in Nigeria: A Study of Lafia Area of Nasarawa State

Women’s empowerment is vital to sustainable development and the realization of human rights for all. Where women’s status is low, family size tends to be large, which makes it more difficult for families to thrive. The ability of women to control their own fertility is absolutely fundamental to women’s empowerment and equality. Hence, this study explores the relationship between women empowerment and their capacity to manage their fertility assuming other factors are held constant. Two hundred women of working age and married were selected in the study area. The selection of the 200 respondents was done using the stratified random sampling technique, to ensure the representativeness of the sample. One hundred and eighty-four (184) copies of the unstructured questionnaire out of the two hundred sent out were returned and treated for the analysis. The co-efficient contingency distribution and the chi-square (X2) techniques were employed. The findings show that the level of women’s education, women’s employment status and women’s level of income, influences them to adopt small family size. The study concludes that fertility management is a very potent tool for women empowerment and vice versa. With advancement towards gender equity and equality and as women’s opportunities for self-actualization expands, their options increase, women will progressively more seek ways of managing their fertility. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n26p9

Caretakers or HR Managers

Do human resources (HR) managers in developing countries have the clout to make strategic decisions during mergers and acquisitions (M&As)? This study aims at establishing the major roles played by HR managers in M&As of public sector companies in Ghana. The research examined the M&As of 10 Ghanaian companies where 10 HR managers gave detailed narratives of their roles and the part they played in the M&A processes. The qualitative method used to solicit the narratives of the HR managers resulted in the following findings: that HR managers in Ghana have a limited role in the planning process of the M&A; that indigenous HR managers perform several tasks in the course of the M&A to get employees stable before and after the M&A processes; nevertheless, they are not part of the policy formulators. The article makes a modest input of the significance of indigenous HR role in international M&As as a panacea to solving the global crises by advocating the empowerment of HR managers in developing context to be partners in the initial commencement of M&As.

Expanding Women's Choices through Employment? Community-Based Natural Resource Management and Women's Empowerment in Kwandu Conservancy, Namibia

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has been heralded for promoting development by creating employment in rural areas. However, limited scholarly attention has been given to the effects of CBNRM-derived employment on individual women. We use an empowerment lens to evaluate claims that CBNRM benefits communities because it creates formal employment for women. A case study of Kwandu Conservancy, located in Namibia's Caprivi region, generated 49 interviews of a wide range of female conservancy residents. Data were also collected through participant observation, document review, and 20 key informant interviews. Data analysis revealed that employment has a mixed impact on women's choices and their empowerment, bringing both costs and benefits to female employees. Understanding this range of experiences allows us to consider how CBNRM efforts can be structured to enhance employment opportunities more broadly within the social structures of a conservancy while anticipating and mitigating negative effects on women.

Iranian nurses’ perceptions of palliative care for patients with cancer pain

The purpose of this study was to identify Iranian nurses' perceptions of palliative care for patients with cancer pain. The study took a qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews were held with 15 nurses with Bachelor's degrees working in three teaching hospitals in Iran. Transcripts of the interviews underwent content analysis, and categories were extracted from the material. The findings came under two main categories: management of physical pain and psychological empowerment. Management of physical pain had two subcategories: the importance of communication, and pain palliation using drugs. Psychological empowerment also had two subcategories: supportive behaviour and distress reduction. The sample felt that palliative care for patients with cancer pain must include psychological empowerment, support, and communication as well as physical pain relief.

THE IMPACT OF EMPOWERING LEADER BEHAVIOR AND STRUCTURAL EMPOWERMENT ON EMPLOYEE PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT

Background. Employees will be highly motivated to fulfill new responsibilities, when they actually feel psychologically empowered , i.e. would positively evaluate their own professional competence, wish to solve job related problems independently and show initiative at work. In Lithuania, the phenomenon of psychological empowerment was virtually not examined yet; therefore it is highly relevant to analyze its expression, diversity of contributing factors and their characteristics in managers and specialists. The aim of the study was to examine the expression of psychological empowerment and its relation with empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment. Method . Three methodologies were used in this study: the questionnaire of psychological empowerment (Tvarijonavicius ir Bag- dziuniene, 2013), the questionnaire of empowering leader behavior (Ahearne et al., 2005), and the questionnaire of structural empowerment (Laschinger et al., 2001). There were 280 participants in this study: specialists (N=205) and middle managers (N=75), working in 14 organizations in Lithuania. Results. The results of the study revealed that empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment predicted employee psychological empowerment; empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment predicted employee psychological empowerment directly; also there was an interaction between empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment and its’ dimensions when predicting psychological empowerment; the empowerment predictors for specialists and managers differed. Conclusions. The psychological empowerment of middle managers was higher than of the specialists. The role of empowering leader behavior on psychological empowerment was higher in the conditions of low structural empowerment; the psychological empowerment predictors for specialists were: opportunity to use current and acquire new skills, information about the status of the organization, trust demonstrated be a direct manager, and autonomy for the work provided; while the psychological empowerment of middle managers was only predicted by the opportunity to use current and acquire new skills.