Empowering Knowledge Workers

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It is vital to engage the knowledge, experience, talents and energy of employees, to find the hidden value in organizations and leverage that value to achieve strategic goals (O'Reilly III & Pfeffer, 2001). The intelligent organization is able to mobilize the different kinds of knowledge that exist in the organization in order to enhance performance (Choo, 1995). Knowledge workers represent the primary leverage through which organizations maximize the value offered to their customers. They bear unique know-how, underlying core competencies that create value for customers, sustain differentiation of the firm, and provide broad access to markets (Collins, 1998). Empowerment is often the panacea that management has found to harness the full capabilities of knowledge workers. Empowerment is primarily the result of a vision carried through the channel of a strong leader (Appelbaum et al., 1999). It is the vesting of decision-making in knowledge workers, where, traditionally such authority was a managerial prerogative. As a vision and philosophy, empowerment means allowing self-managing teams and individuals to be in charge of making the necessary decisions to reach the organization's planning objectives. As an organizational program, empowerment means giving knowledge workers the resources to unleash, develop, and utilize their knowledge and skills to their fullest potential to resolve organizational contingencies (Turban et al., 2000).

No consensus however seems to have been reached as to the value of empowerment to organizations. Those who extol its virtues would propose that empowering knowledge workers in making planning decisions will circumvent the main problems associated with formal IT planning (Appelbaum et al., 1999). Both individual and organizational benefits are attributed to empowerment including increased productivity, enthusiasm, morale and creativity, higher quality products and services, improved teamwork, customer service and competitive position, increased speed and responsiveness, and lessened emotional impact of demoralizing organizational changes and restructuring (Appelbaum et al., 1999). On the other side of the divide, there are those who denounce its problem-solving potential and point out possible risks and disadvantages, such as loss of control by management, overconfidence, abuse, and misjudgement (Gandz, 1990). The dialectic between empowerment and control seems to permeate the debate (Cohen, 1993; Johnston & Thurston, 1997) and proponents and opponents alike look at empowerment and control as locked in a zero-sum game.

A more recent perspective, however, considers empowerment as a form of management control rather than an erosion of such control (Hardy & Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1998). In this way, empowerment can be viewed as an exercise in the management of meaning to enhance the legitimacy of organizational goals and to influence behavior unobtrusively. By managing meaning and using power to create the perception that organizational and employee interests converge, empowerment programs reduce the necessity of having to use more visible forms of power to ensure that organizational goals are met and to quell resistance. Thus, managers are able to provide employees with greater access to resources, yet still avoid opposition by reducing the will or inclination of employees to use their newfound power in an adversarial way (Hardy & Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1998).

This study joins with this latter perspective on empowerment. Empowering knowledge workers unleashes their potential for value creation, yet their efforts remain largely within the framework of planning objectives set by the organization in a participative manner. The planning culture, which is described next, is a critical lever used by management to keep planning efforts within bounds and avoid undesirable effects of empowerment.

Hypothesis 1: Knowledge workers' empowerment improves IT planning effectiveness

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