The Person/Environment Dynamics of Employee Empowerment: An Organizational Culture Analysis

Using an organizational culture framework, this case study examines the critical preconditions necessary for employee empowerment and highlights how the multiple cultures within one public bureaucracy differently impacted their implementation. SERVE, a large human service organization, initiated an employee empowerment program that contradicted and thus collided with many elements of its overall organizational culture. Despite the best intentions of the organizational leaders, upper management support, and opportunities for participatory decision making, the organization could not foster the critical preconditions needed for employee empowerment. Leaders had difficulty expanding the employees' power and promoting member inclusion. Concurrently, most employees rejected these new opportunities for control and distrusted the leader's intentions. Yet, despite the widespread rejection of these empowerment initiatives, most employees described their work lives as empowering. The role the local site subculture played in promoting employee empowerment is examined. We discuss how a localized (vs. system-wide) empowerment endeavor may be a more appropriate and feasible focus for public bureaucracies seeking to initiate greater staff empowerment. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between individuals and their environments, and how this interaction affects the empowerment process.     

Conducting community‐based participatory research in an urban Malaysian community: Lessons learned and challenges in establishing partnerships

This paper presents the process of how partnerships are established between an urban residential community and an academic institution in Malaysia by employing community‐based participatory research, which involves researchers, community members, and organizational representatives as coresearchers. The research process encompasses colearning, power sharing, and coconstructing of knowledge, with the community members driving the research direction. The research paradigm is grounded on conducting research with the community. This paper highlights the experience and lessons learned while applying the principles of community‐based participatory research that promotes social participation of older persons living in a residential community. Two pertinent challenges surface in the research process. The first challenge involves the complexity noted in the gap between the emancipation of community‐based participatory research and the hierarchical social structure of the society. The second challenge is the prevalence of unspoken yet subtle domination that undermines the local cultural values affecting the process of coconstructing knowledge with the community. Recommendations for addressing these challenges include future partnerships with other Malaysian communities as well as cross‐border research partnerships.     

中小学校长心理授权与工作倦怠的关系研究

选取425名中小学校长进行问卷调查,考察校长心理授权和工作倦怠的现状,并探讨校长心理授权与工作倦怠的关系。结果发现:(1)校长心理授权和工作倦怠问卷的验证性因素分析模型与数据拟合良好。(2)校长心理授权在任职年限上存在显著差异,任职5年以下校长的胜任感和心理授权整体显著高于任职6～10年的校长,任职11年以上校长的自我决定显著高于任职6～10年的校长;(3)关于校长工作倦怠,男校长工作怠慢及工作倦怠整体显著高于女校长,学历为大专及以下校长的情绪衰竭、工作怠慢及工作倦怠整体显著高于学历为本科以上的校长,35岁以下校长的低成就感显著高于41～45岁和46岁以上的校长;(4)校长心理授权各维度与其工作倦怠各维度存在非常显著的负相关;回归分析表明,校长心理授权对其工作倦怠具有显著的负向预测作用。     

A critical analysis of recent work on empowerment: implications for gender

A flurry of publications on empowerment by institutions such as the World Bank that emerged from about 2000–2005 was followed by critiques and then a seeming lull in the popularity of and work on empowerment. However, the concept has reappeared recently in what I take to be an important new development that highlights the relational feature of empowerment. In this paper, I begin with the capabilities approach as delineated by Amartya Sen and, specifically, his application of it to gender. This shapes the background against which I highlight how recent work on empowerment by Jay Drydyk, the World Development Report 2012, Gender Equality and Development, and Patti Petesch utilizes but also departs from Sen. I then argue that insights from this recent research can be developed further through a feminist relational framework. With its focus on relationships, relational theory can better capture possibilities for empowering women in and through an analysis of the relationships they are in.     

Identity and oppression: differential responses to an in-between status

Oppression operates at various levels, with varying degrees of negativity, and groups respond in markedly different ways. In this paper, the in-between status of the colored South African group is used to illustrate issues of identity and oppression under the Apartheid system—and differing ways in which oppression was experienced and used. The colored group had many social advantages over Blacks, but were also used to oppress that group. Habituation, accommodation, and relative advantage were identified as dynamics within the broader context of power and privilege that contributed to cultural and psychological marginality and status ambivalence of the coloreds. These processes must be understood within the historical, social, and political context of the community. What is evident from the data is that groups and individuals can take up various positions along a continuum of oppressor—oppressed, depending upon the contexts, time, and social and legal relationships involved in their interactions.     

Youth Living with HIV as Peer Leaders

Community-based service providers often hire youth living with HIV (YLH) as peer leaders for delivering HIV education to uninfected adolescents. Life narratives were collected from 44 YLH during a hypotheses-generating two-year ethnographic study. About 30% of the youth were employed as peer educators. While 60% of the 44 youth had a lower-class background, only 23% of the peer leaders were lower class. One-fifth of the sample were female, but more than one-half of the peer leaders were female. After identifying and categorizing difficulties experienced by the peer leaders, a frequency count of each theme was conducted. Issues about professional boundaries were evident in 38.5% of the youth's narratives, indicating conflicts in their roles as peer leaders; 23% of the youth engaged in substance use and sexual behaviors that placed themselves and uninfected youth in their peer educator programs at risk; and 8% of the youth reported relapse while peer leaders. The observations suggest reconsideration or restructuring of existing peer-education models that employ YLH.     

Empowerment theory,research, and application

This introduction to the special issue briefly reviews the meaning and significance of the empowerment concept and problems associated with the proliferation of interest in empowerment. We identify some of the topics not included in this issue and relate those to the many broad and diverse areas of psychological empowerment theory and community-based research and intervention that are covered. We present synopses of each article along with some of the themes and lessons cutting across the frameworks, studies, and applications. These include a wide diversity of settings, fairly representative of empowerment interventions, and, at the same time, improved clarity (if not unanimity) of definitions and measurement, which has been a problem in much empowerment research and intervention.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Family Empowerment and Client Outcomes

We examined the relationship between family empowerment, parent satisfaction, and mental health outcome across time. Based on the Vanderbilt Family Empowerment Project Model, increased empowerment should lead to positive changes in client outcomes. Data consisted of the Family Empowerment Scale (FES), which was used to assess the caregiver's perception of empowerment, Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS), which measures the degree of disruption in the youth's current functioning, Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ), and demographic information gathered from families receiving services from a county mental health service system at intake and discharge. The results showed that the CAFAS and CSQ were related to empowerment at intake and discharge. Results also indicated significant increases in the knowledge subscale of the FES and the CAFAS and moderate increases in the advocacy subscale of the FES and the CSQ. We discuss the implications of these findings for systems of care, such as stronger parent-professional relationships.     

“赋能”还是“负担”?领导者授权行为对员工工作行为影响的双刃剑效应探究

在数字化经济迅速发展的时代, 领导者授权行为是一种激励员工的重要措施。然而, 以往关于领导者授权行为有效性的研究存在不一致发现。为了更深入地探讨领导者授权行为对员工的影响, 基于资源保存理论, 系统地构建了领导者授权行为对员工的“双刃剑”影响机制。具体而言, 第一, 基于资源视角, 将授权视为领导者为员工提供的资源, 深入分析领导者授权行为产生的“赋能”过程机制和“负担”过程机制, 并提出员工的调节定向是影响“双刃剑”机制的边界条件; 第二, 从动态角度看待领导者授权行为, 探讨领导者每日授权行为和领导者授权行为的日波动对员工的“双刃剑”影响机制; 第三, 从动态角度看待领导者授权行为所发生的组织情景。探讨相对动态的情景, 即工作事件, 对领导者授权行为“双刃剑”机制的影响。通过结合静态和动态的双重视角, 系统地探讨了领导者授权行为对员工的“双刃剑”影响机制, 具有一定的理论和实践意义。     

On the Edge of Diversity: Bringing African Americans and Latinos Together in a Neighborhood Group

This article describes challenges we encountered when organizing a group of African Americans and Latinos in a community where ethnic tensions had been normative. We relate how the first author, a Caucasian with a university affiliation, entered this diverse community and employed ethnographic methods in an attempt to understand it. The ethnography provides a context for the principal challenge we encountered: ensuring that the group had ethnic balance. Focusing on the group's first meeting, we describe the uncertainty of whether our work would be helpful or harmful to the community. We conclude with reflections on the gaps between science and practice in diverse communities; the utility and limits of ethnography; the multiple ecological levels of influence on the community; dilemmas around a White male taking proactive stances while trying to empower a group consisting mostly of women of color; and the influence of values we brought to the community.