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1. Empowerment &
ParticipationAdamson University
Human Behavior in Organization
Professor Melvin Vitug Moraga

2. Thoughts to Ponder

4. Learning Objectives
 Explain the nature of empowerment
and its prerequisites
 Illustrate participative process
 Evaluate the benefits of participation
 Examine the benefits of participation

5. Rationale
 Most organizations have employees who are
dependent on others and that their own efforts
will have little impact on performance
 The feeling of powerlessness contributes to the
experience of low self-efficacy
Low self-efficacy is the feeling of people that they cannot successfully perform
their jobs or make meaningful contributions

6. Causes of Low Self-Efficacy
 major organizational
changes
 authoritarian leader
 ineffective reward
system
 lack of job variety

7. EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES
 Feelings of low self-efficacy can be raised by:
 EMPOWERMENT is any process
that provides greater autonomy
to employees through the
sharing of relevant information
and the provision of control over
factors affecting job performance

8. 5 Broad Approaches to Empowerment
1. Helping employees achieve mastery
2. Allowing more control
3. Providing successful role models
4. Using social reinforcement and persuasion
5. Giving emotional support

9. Remove
Conditions of
powerlessness
 Changes
 Leadership
 Reward System
 Job
Perception of
empowerment
 Competence
 Autonomy
 Job Meaning
 Sense of impact
EFFECTIVENESS
SATISFACTIONEnhance job-
related self efficacy
• Job mastery
• Control &
accountability
• Role models
• Reinforcement
• Support
Process of Empowerment

10. What Does Participation Mean?
The mental and emotional
involvement of people in
group situations that
encourages them to
contribute to group and
share responsibility for them
3 Elements:
 I
 C
 R
:
nvolvement
ontribution
esponsibility

11. 3 Important Ideas of Participation
 Involvement
 Contribution
 Responsibility
Participation means
meaningful (ego)
involvement rather
than mere muscular
activity
11

12. 3 Important Ideas of Participation
 Involvement
 Contribution
 Responsibility
• People are empowered
to release their own
resources of initiative
and creativity toward
the organization’s
objectives.
12

13. 3 Important Ideas of Participation
 Involvement
 Contribution
 Responsibility
Participation
encourages
people to accept
responsibility in
their group’s
activities
13

14. Forces Affecting Greater Use of
PARTICIPATION
Research results
Productivity Improvement
Pressures
Utilization of workplace
diversity
Employee desires for
meaning
Employees desire &
expectation
Ethical Arguments
P
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15. How Participation Works
The Participative Process
Participative
Programs
Involvement
 Mental
 Emotional
OUTCOMES
*Organization:
Higher output
Better quality
Creativity
Innovation
*Employees:
Acceptance
Self efficacy
Less stress
Satisfaction
Situation

16. Impact of Managerial Power
• Leader-member exchange
- participation is a sharing process between managers and
employees
- built upon leader-member exchange model of leadership
- leader selectively delegates, informs, consults…
subordinate contributes to task performance
• Two views of power
- increases power of both managers and their employees

17. Impact of Managerial Power
AutocraticView
Power
ParticipativeView
Power
Is fixed amount Is variable amount
Comes from the authority structure Comes from people through both official
and official channels
Is applied by management Is applied by shared ideas and activities in
group
Flows downward Flows all directions

18. Prerequisites for Effective Participation
1. Adequate time to participate
2. Potential benefits greater than costs
3. Relevance to employee interests
4. Adequate employee abilities to deal with the subject
5. Mutual ability to communicate
6. No feeling of threat to either party
7. Restriction to the area of job freedom

19. Contingency Factors
Influence the Success of Participative Programs
Emotional
Intelligence
Needs Responsibilities

20. Contingency Factors
1 Leader’s Emotional Intelligence
 Combination of abilities - to be aware of and understand
one’s own feelings, to realize why one is feeling that way,
and to manage one’s emotions effectively
 It uses leader’s empathy, compassion, optimism, humor,
integrity, caring, and persuasiveness to build the kind of
relationship with employees …

21. Contingency Factors
2 Differing Employee Needs for Participation
 Some employees desire more participation than others
 Educated and higher-level workers often seek more
participation…
 The difference between an employee’s desire and
actual participation gives measures of the potential
effectiveness of participation…
• “participatively deprived” - underparticipation
• “participatively saturated” - overparticipation

22. NOTE: Participation is not something that should be applied equally
to everyone. Rather it should match each person’s needs

23. Contingency Factors
3 Responsibilities of Employees and Managers
 the degree to which all employees recognize that the
opportunities provided are accompanied by a set of
responsibilities
 Be fully responsible for their actions and their
consequences
 Operate within the relevant organizational
policies
 Be contributing team members
 Respect and seek to use the perspective of
others
 Be dependable and ethical in their empowered
actions
 Demonstrate responsible self-leadership
 Identifying the issues to be
addressed
 Specifying the level of
involvement desired
 Providing relevant
information and training
 Allocating fair rewards
Expectationformanagers
Expectationforemployees

24. Benefits of Participation
 Participation brings higher output and a better
quality of output
 Participation tends to improve motivation because
employees feel more accepted and involved
 Participation establishes better communication as
a people mutually discuss work problems.
The benefits may be slow…When one company adopted participative
management, it predicted 10 years would be needed to achieve the full effect.

25. Programs for Participation
 Some organizations give their managers some
discretion to choose which program to use; other
organizations mandate a particular approach
throughout the company
 Participative management is used when a company
uses either an approach with widespread application
or a sufficient number of programs

26. SELECTIVE TYPES OF
PARTICIPATIVE PROGRAMS
SUGGESTION
PROGRAMS
QUALITY
CIRCLES
TOTAL
QUALITY
MANAGEMENT
SELF-
MANAGING
TEAMS
EMPLOYEE
OWNERSHIP
PLANS

27. Selected Types of Participative Programs
 Suggestion Programs
– are formal plans to invite
individual employees to
recommend work improvements
(e.g. cost savings)
 - limited to individual initiative
instead of group problem solving

28. Quality Emphasis: Quality Circles and TQM
 Quality Circles - voluntary groups that
receive training in statistical techniques
and problem solving skills to improve
productivity and working conditions
 meet regularly and generate solutions

29. Key to Successful Quality Circles
 Use them for measurable, short tem
problems
 Obtain continuous support from
management
 Apply the group’s skills to problems
 Train supervisors in facilitating skills

30. Quality Emphasis: Quality Circles and TQM
 An approach which gets employee
involved in the process of searching for
continuous improvements
 Employees are provided with extensive
training in problem solving, group
decision making, and statistical method

31. Self-Managing Teams
 natural work groups that are
given a large degree of
decision-making autonomy

32. Employee Ownership Plans
 employees provides the
capital to purchase control
of an existing operation

33. Limitations of Participation
Theory X belief
Lack of support from higher
levels
Managerial fear of lost –
power, status, control
Lack of adequate training for
managers and employees
Problems encountered in
early stages
Substantial efforts needed to
implement
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34. Managerial Concerns about Participation
 Difficulty of some managers to adjust to their new roles
in a high involvement system
 Lack of preparation either managers or employees
 Shift manager’s role from judge and critic to partners
with employees
 Essence of servant leadership places the needs of
others above one’s own self

35. Managerial Concerns about Participation
 They listen actively
 They treat others with respect
 They seek to engage in dialogue and often
paraphrase to ensure understanding
 They affirm the worth and contributions of each
participant
 They are willing to admit mistakes and ask for help
Servant Leader’s Key Behaviors

36. Summary:
 Many employees want to become empowered
so they can play a meaningful role in the
organization
 Participation is an important vehicle for
empowering employees
 Participation is a sharing process that may
increase the power of both employees and the
manager
 When prerequisites are met, it can provide a
variety of benefits for both employees and
employers

37. Summary:
 A number of participative programs can be
effective, and vary in degree to which they meet
the criteria for full involvement
 Managers need to redefine themselves as
stewards of resources and seek to fulfill servant
leadership role that helps to grow and develop