Integrated action research: Employee empowerment in a leasing company

• Main Author: Arintok, Chris Eugene O.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/4662
• Institution: De La Salle University

Empowerment is among the theories discussed when topics about increasing employee productivity and organizational commitment takes emphasis inside the boardroom. The landscape of human resource qualification has moved from the passive to the more active involvement of employees in attaining organizational goals. Employees who take the initiative and respond creatively to the challenges of the job are game-changers in the organization. The shift made empowerment even more important at both individual and organizational levels. Empowered employees are generally more satisfied with their job, committed and effective at work. This action research centered Kanters structural theory of empowerment as a guide and examined the role of access to opportunity, resources, support and information, and two types of power, formal and informal, as antecedents of job satisfaction. An action research employing the Scheins intra-psychic process of Observation, Emotional Reaction, Judgment, and Intervention was used to determine which among the systematic power factors may be observed in BPI Leasing Corporation to improve organizational commitment and work effectiveness. Results of journaling, FGDs, and Employee Dialogues support Kanter's theory of structural empowerment, which suggests strong relationships between job satisfaction and structural empowerment. It is a link between empowering work settings and organizational outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, effectiveness). Changes on how work is done and providing employees an avenue for improved access to job-related empowerment structures were employed and variations were assessed though employee feedback and observable causal effect. On a practical level, Kanter's structural empowerment theory provides a framework for understanding empowering workplaces and empowered employees.