Literature Review
Discuss about the Strategic Orientation And Business Performance.
Over the past few decades, the international commercial and business scenario has developed immensely and has experienced considerable dynamics. The global phenomena like that of Globalization, innovations in technological and infrastructural aspects, industrial revolutions in different places and also opening of trade sectors of different countries across the world, have cumulatively contributed in making the global business environment more inclusive and integrated, with the countries hugely inter-connected with each other in the contemporary scenario (Peng 2016).
This, in turn, has encouraged businesses to go global, which in turn has resulted in increase in the supply side players in almost all the industries across the globe, thereby increasing the level of competition and the need for efficient operational and productive framework among the businesses across the globe. This efficiency of the organizations, in its turn, depends considerably on the types of productive resources (both human as well as non-human) present with them and how these resources are utilised.
Keeping this into consideration, the concerned study aims to study the aspects of employee empowerment and the impacts of the same in the organizational effectiveness and performance of the business organizations. For studying the same, the research proposes to explore the dynamics in the public-sector business organizations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and aims to explore the impacts which the aspects of employee empowerment bring in these types of business organizations and their effectiveness and overall performance as well as competitiveness.
Dubai, being one of the primary regions of the United Arab Emirates, a highly and globally developed and commercially successful countries in the contemporary period, has over the years flourished immensely, especially in terms of economic, industrial and commercial aspects. The centrally planned and free-market capitalistic economy enjoys immense industrial and commercial activities and global connections in terms of business activities and investment outflows and inflows (Al-Ansaari, Bederr and Chen 2015). Being a centrally planned economy, the public sector of Dubai plays significant roles in the business and commercial prosperity and economic growth of the same.
However, in the contemporary period, with increasing infiltration of global multinationals in each industry and with the level of competition increasing in almost every industry, it becomes extremely essential for not only the private sector but also the public-sector organizations to take into account the means for increasing their competitiveness and efficiencies to ensure their sustainability and profitability in the long run (Hertog, Luciani and Valeri 2013). This in turn indicates towards the need for development of productive human resources in the public-sector organizations, for which the empowerment of the employees appears to be one of the possible and feasibly relevant means. The concerned research, aiming to study the importance of employee empowerment in the public-sector organizations of Dubai, thus appears to be important and relevant, given the contemporary competitive business scenario.
Positive Impacts of Employee Empowerment
The primary objective or aim of the concerned research is that of studying the different aspects of employee empowerment, especially emphasizing on the components, meaning and implications of the same, thereby exploring the impacts which the empowerment of the employees have on the operational frameworks of the concerned business organizations and on their performance, competitiveness and overall effectiveness. The research proposes to observe these factors by especially emphasizing on the public-sector organizations operating in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Based on the objectives of the concerned research, the primary research question in this context can be seen to be as follows:
What are the impacts of empowerment of the employees on the organizational effectiveness in the public-sector enterprises of Dubai, United Arab Emirates?
The secondary research questions, in this aspect, are as follows:
- What is meant by employee empowerment?
- What are the factors which lead to the empowerment of the employees in an organization?
- What are the components of organizational effectiveness?
- How empowerment of employees contributes in influencing the effectiveness of the organizations?
- Are the aspects of employee empowerment present in the public-sector organizations of Dubai?
- What are impacts of employee empowerment in the organizational effectiveness in the public sector of Dubai, United Arab Emirates?
The importance of human resources and proper management of the same, have been increasingly felt by the business organizations, over the years, in the global framework as direct linages of employees and their performances with that of the profitability, prospects, competitiveness and long-term sustainability of the concerned organizations have been observed in many instances. In this context, the aspects of employee empowerment and the need and implications of the same have been increasingly considered in the contemporary international business scenario. Considerable literary works and scholarly evidences can be seen to be present in the global scenario, over the years, in this context. The concerned section tries to analyse and study these literary and scholarly evidences existing in the aspects of employee empowerment and its needs, components as well as implications on the overall performance of the organizations and their effectiveness.
To understand the notion of employee empowerment in business organizations, it is of considerable importance to have an insight about the term “Employee” in the context of organizations. According to Bratton and Gold (2017), the employees or workers of an organization are those human productive resources which are of immense significance for the productivity and overall performance of the concerned organizations. The authors describe employees as the full-time or part-time workers of the organizations, under employment contract, who are assigned with different recognized duties, responsibilities and rights. Armstrong and Taylor (2014), in the working paper, refers to the employees as the most crucial intangible asset for any organization, which help in differentiating the operations and performances of the companies from its competitors.
Augmenting the views of the previous authors, Buller and McEvoy (2012), categorize the employees of business organizations as the “Human Capital” or “Human Resources” for the concerned organizations, who help in efficient utilization of the other factors of production with their skills, knowledge and expertise, thereby accounting for nearly 85% of a typical company’s total productive assets, as much of the growth of the companies is determines by the efficiency and talents of the employee working for them. Berman et al. (2012), in the context of public sectors, assert that the intensions of the public-sector organizations being nor only profit-making but also welfare maximization, in most of the instances, the employees are the base or foundation of most of the public-sector organizations across the globe.
Negative Impacts of Employee Empowerment
The term “Employee Empowerment”, gaining immense importance in the contemporary organizational framework across the globe, is a broad notion, defined from different perspectives by different scholars over the years. One of the most comprehensive and inclusive definition of the notion can be seen to be provided by the elaborate work of Fernandez and Moldogaziev (2013). The authors define “Employee Empowerment” as the process of provision of a degree of freedom, autonomy to the employees in their operational framework in the organizations where they work, specifically in the aspects of carrying out their responsibilities and taking decisions regarding their assigned organizational job roles.
Augmenting the above assertions, Ghosh (2013) indicates that the act of empowering the employees to take the grass-root levels of operational decisions by themselves, independently, help the organizations by freeing the management authorities from micromanagement of each and every aspects of operations and also helps in bringing the unique ideas and problem-solving capabilities of the employees into efficient use, thereby contributing positively to the efficiency of the operational framework of the concerned organizations (Elnaga and Imran 2014).
There exist considerable debates in the contemporary global framework regarding the aspects of studying the need for employee empowerment and how the same can be done in the operational frameworks of the business organizations in the global commercial scenario as suggested by Elloy (2012), in his extensive literary work, the approached being as follows:
- Socio-Cultural Perspective- This perspective specifically emphasizes on the development or redesigning of the operational framework as well as the policies, structures and practices of the business organizations so as to provide their employees with authorities and empowering them to have considerable influences over their works and responsibilities (Choi et al. 2016).
- Psychological Approach- According to this approach empowerment of the employees is related to the enhancement of the personal effectiveness of the employees by developing their sense of competency, meaning and self-determination.
- Critical Perspective- As per this approach, the efforts to empower the employees of different organizations can actually bring negative implications for the concerned organizations by decreasing the controls and monitoring provisions over the employees and their performance and coordination (Jones, Latham and Betta 2013).
Empowering the employees or bestowing the workers of the companies with some extent of autonomy and decision-making freedoms in their individual operational frameworks and job roles may have considerable importance in terms of implications of the same in different aspects of the organizations, the implications having the possibility to be both positive or negative as can be seen to be argues by Sun et al. (2012).
In this context, different literary and empirically evidenced scholarly works can be seen to be highlighting the positive implications of employee empowerment on different organizational aspects in the global commercial scenario, which are primarily the following:
- Greater involvement and commitment of the employees- As per the assertions of Lashley (2012), empowering the employees by increasing their responsibilities and decision-making freedom, leads to increased level of commitment and involvement of the employees in the concerned organizations as they feel themselves to be important parts of the organizations, whose opinions are valued and trusted by the higher officials of the companies (Hanaysha 2016).
- Greater employee satisfaction- Augmenting the above-mentioned opinion, Elnaga and Imran (2014), assert that the greater freedom to work and feeling of carrying out meaning responsibilities increases the level of motivation and morale of the workforce of an organization, thereby leading to the creation of a satisfied and content employee base for the companies.
- Problem-Solving Efficiencies- According to Korkmaz (2012), the employees being the ones who operate and perform different activities of an organization, first-hand, the empowerment of the employees help in easy identification of any issue or problem cropping up in their respective job roles and quick resolution of the same by the help of the innovative and effective ideas of the employee themselves, who are more accustomed to the operational environment.
- Reduction of management stress- One of the primary benefits of employee empowerment, as pointed by Lam and O’Higgins (2012), is that the presence of empowered employees in an organization, with the abilities and the skills to solve their micro-level issues, reduces the stress of the management of the organizations as they are freed from micromanagements of small issues and can focus on broader picture and organizational strategies.
- Increased productivity- Kmieciak, Michna and Meczynska (2012), in this context point out that the increase in the empowerment of the employees leads to more efficient performance and unique problem-solving approaches on their part, which decreases the cost of operations of the organizations and the increased and passionate involvement of the employees in their respective job roles help in increasing the overall efficiency and productivity of the employees as well as of the organization as a whole (Kim et al. 2012).
In spite of the presence of considerable positive implications of the empowerment of employees in organizations, several adverse impacts of the same can also be seen to be highlighted by several researchers, the primary ones being as follows:
- Lack of experience and increased risks- Kariuki and Murimi (2015), argue that handling down crucial responsibilities abruptly to the employees, especially the ones less experienced in problem-handling, can actually lead to higher mistakes and risks for the companies.
- Blurred structure- The dissemination of power and responsibilities more among the employees lead to a more streamlined management structure and the control over the employees decrease with the boundaries of the authorities becoming blurred and ambiguous.
- Efficiency decline- Excessive liberty provided to the workers, as argued by Sofijanova and Zabijakin-Chatleska (2013), can lead to immense confusions and non-uniform decision making on part of the employees, thereby creating efficiency problems down the production and operation-line.
Cameron and Whetten (2013), define organizational effectiveness as the efficiency with which the organizational objectives are met, that is the level of appropriateness of the operational framework of the organizations in achieving the desired effects with minimum waste production. According to Lecy, Schmitz and Swedlund (2012), the effectiveness of organization is its capability too achieve the desired aims with minimal expenditures of its resources, energy and time, with the objectives being both profit oriented or welfare oriented depending upon the nature of the organizations.
Organizational Effectiveness
As per the assertions of Choo (2013), the five key attributes of effectiveness of organizations are the strengths of the same in the following areas:
- Leadership
- People
- Decision-Making and Structure
- Processes of working
- Organizational Culture
The main features in these domains can be seen to be as follows:
The organizational effectiveness, in a generalised framework, is measured by the overall profitability, competitiveness (price and cost efficiency) and long-term sustainability of the organizations.
Although considerable literary works can be seen to be present in the domains of both employee empowerment and organizational effectiveness, not much work can be found to be present regarding their inter-linkages, especially in the domains of public sector organizations. The concerned research, thus aims to bridge this gap by exploring the impacts of employee empowerment in the effectiveness of the public-sector organizations in Dubai.
For any research to be robust and contributing, it is of immense importance to have a proper research methodological framework with relevant research tools, data collection and monitoring aspects and analytical methods.
Deductive approach is proposed to be taken in the concerned research, where the data will be previously collected regarding the issue into consideration, thereby analysing the collected data and drawing relevant inferences on the basis of the data collected and analysed. For this purpose, the exploratory research design (with in-depth analytical structure) is aimed to be implemented (Flick 2015).
A mixed research method, involving both qualitative and quantitative aspects is aimed to be implemented, with the quantitative approach analysing the impacts of employee empowerment on the organizational profit and cost effectiveness and the qualitative approach exploring the manners and factors through which the linkages (if any) are established (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015).
Primary data for qualitative research will be collected in terms of in-depth interviews with relevant public-sector officials of Dubai, in order to view their perceptions regarding the roles of employee empowerment in influencing organizational effectiveness. To study the quantitative dynamics (influence on profits and cost efficiencies), secondary data will be collected from the annual reports of the companies and various other relevant sites and primary data will also be collected through surveys conducted with relevant personnel. For quantitative data analysis SPSS will be used and for qualitative analysis, the research aims to implement the method of thematic analysis (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015).
Keeping into account the importance of presence of ethical framework, the researcher aims to conduct the interviews only after receiving consent from the respondents. The anonymity of the respondents will also be maintained to ensure confidentiality and the preservation of their dignity (Miller et al. 2012).
The research, if done efficiently, has the possibility of building up new insights regarding the importance of empowerment of employees in the public-sector organizations (of Dubai as well as across the globe) and also regarding the actual ways in which the empowerment of employees can contribute in the organizational effectiveness, especially in the public sector. This in turn may help in indicating the importance of employee empowerment and its positive and negative implications on the public sector of Dubai, thereby helping the organizations, under this domain, to design their employee management strategies appropriately, so as to ensure long-term sustainability and profitability of the organizations.
References
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Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Berman, E.M., Bowman, J.S., West, J.P. and Van Wart, M.R., 2012. Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes, and problems. Sage.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Bridgespan.org (2018). Key Elements of Effective Organizations: Bridgespan’s Organization Wheel. [online] Bridgespan.org. Available at: https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/organizational-effectiveness/key-elements-effective-organizations [Accessed 4 Jul. 2018].
Buller, P.F. and McEvoy, G.M., 2012. Strategy, human resource management and performance: Sharpening line of sight. Human resource management review, 22(1), pp.43-56.
Cameron, K.S. and Whetten, D.A. eds., 2013. Organizational effectiveness: A comparison of multiple models. Academic Press.
Choi, S.L., Goh, C.F., Adam, M.B.H. and Tan, O.K., 2016. Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: the mediating role of employee empowerment. Human resources for health, 14(1), p.73.
Choo, C.W., 2013. Information culture and organizational effectiveness. International Journal of Information Management, 33(5), pp.775-779.
Elloy, D., 2012. Effects of ability utilization, job influence and organization commitment on employee empowerment: an empirical study. International Journal of Management, 29(2), p.627.
Elnaga, A.A. and Imran, A., 2014. The impact of employee empowerment on job satisfaction: theoretical study. American Journal of Research Communication, 2(1), pp.13-26.
Elnaga, A.A. and Imran, A., 2014. The impact of employee empowerment on job satisfaction: theoretical study. American Journal of Research Communication, 2(1), pp.13-26.
Fernandez, S. and Moldogaziev, T., 2013. Employee empowerment, employee attitudes, and performance: Testing a causal model. Public Administration Review, 73(3), pp.490-506.
Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.
Ghosh, A.K., 2013. Employee empowerment: A strategic tool to obtain sustainable competitive advantage. International Journal of Management, 30(3), p.95.
Hanaysha, J., 2016. Examining the effects of employee empowerment, teamwork, and employee training on organizational commitment. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 229, pp.298-306.
Hertog, S., Luciani, G. and Valeri, M. eds., 2013. Business politics in the Middle East. Hurst Publishers.
Jones, R., Latham, J. and Betta, M., 2013. Creating the illusion of employee empowerment: Lean production in the international automobile industry. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(8), pp.1629-1645.
Kariuki, A. and Murimi, C., 2015. Employee Empowerment and Organization Performance of Tata Chemicals Magadi Ltd, Kenya.
Kim, B., Lee, G., Murrmann, S.K. and George, T.R., 2012. Motivational effects of empowerment on employees’ organizational commitment: a mediating role of management trustworthiness. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 53(1), pp.10-19.
Kmieciak, R., Michna, A. and Meczynska, A., 2012. Innovativeness, empowerment and IT capability: evidence from SMEs. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 112(5), pp.707-728.
Korkmaz, O., 2012. Differences in employees’ perception of employee empowerment practices. European Journal of Social Sciences, 34(1), pp.43-57.
Lam, C.S. and O’Higgins, E.R., 2012. Enhancing employee outcomes: The interrelated influences of managers’ emotional intelligence and leadership style. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 33(2), pp.149-174.
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Lecy, J.D., Schmitz, H.P. and Swedlund, H., 2012. Non-governmental and not-for-profit organizational effectiveness: A modern synthesis. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 23(2), pp.434-457.
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Sofijanova, E. and Zabijakin-Chatleska, V., 2013. Employee involvement and organizational performance: Evidence from the manufacturing sector in Republic of Macedonia.
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Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
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