Rooting for empowerment

Quality, flexibility, and commitment are the buzz‐words of management strategy and reflect many of the goals currently sought in business. In order to contribute to these business goals, human resource professionals have had to rethink the contributions they make. This has led to the creation of yet more buzzwords – including the buzzword “empowerment”. Argues that interest in empowerment is not matched by a wider reflection on the factors which have promoted and facilitated these goals, nor is it matched by any wider reflection on the nature of organizations. Argues that these oversights have led to an implicit and passive definition of empowerment being used. To redress this balance, analyzes the forces which have promoted innovation in management, and have made empowerment “thinkable”. Makes a case for viewing empowerment as an ideological construct, and from here offers an alternative, activist model of empowerment.