Empowerment

In this study, efforts are made to find the meaning of empowerment, develop a systematic definition of empowerment and a conceptual framework of empowerment. A survey of 137 industry professionals as well as literature suggest that the understanding of this concept is partial. Keeping the views expressed in literature and these practising professionals, empowerment was defined as , " the process of sharing power and providing enabling environment (removing % hurdles) in order to encourage employees to take initiative and decisions to achieve organisational and individual goals". A conceptual modified framework developed with empowering variables as respect for team members, top management attitude to human resource, open communication, opportunities for learning application, organisational support for innovation, responsive superior, opportunities for self development, low formalisation, performance linked feedback and autonomy and consequences as self efficacy, organisational commitment, work environment satisfaction, role satisfaction and job involvement. A measuring instrument was developed to measure empowerment and consequences.