Presents a case study concerning the attempts of a particular group of managers to implement an “empowered” system of working within their organization. Rejecting managerialist accounts of empowerment as distorted representations of social processes and social action, the paper investigates...

This paper is written as a reply to the paper “Applying empowerment: organizational model” written by Baruch. The paper argues that Baruch’s account of empowerment, in spite of its attempts to educate managers actually works to obscure understanding. Mounting a challenge to Baruch a...

This paper offers an account of empowerment as an ideological construct. Rejecting management accounts of empowerment as limiting and logically inconsistent, the paper offers a dynamic analysis of empowerment as an essentially ambiguous concept. Based principally upon an analysis of two case...

Attempts to encourage a more reflective and guarded analysis of empowerment. Traces the political and economic factors which have facilitated the development of a particular notion of empowerment in the UK and outlines a dual critique of empowerment. Notes the insubstantial body of rights...

Building on the arguments of an earlier paper which argued that “empowerment” and repression may go hand‐in‐hand, argues that the study of empowerment at work has been ripped from its contextual setting. Argues that studies of empowerment, if they are to be meaningful theoretically and...