Team Empowerment

ANTECEDENTS OF TEAM EMPOWERMENT

Previous research has identified several organizational characteristics that may act as antecedents to team empowerment. Frequently cited antecedents include autonomy (Chen et al., 2007; Langfred, 2000; Campion et al., 1993), task meaningfulness (Stewart, 2006; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990; Hackman, 1987; Hackman & Oldham, 1980), and team-based human resources practices (Kirkman & Rosen, 1997; Mathieu et al., 2006), such as rewards (Balkin & Montemayor, 2000; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999).

To build effective teams, an organization has to redesign the work process and to modify a wide range of organizational systems to support the design (Wellins et al., 1991). In the following discussion, I divide the antecedents into two groups: organizational design and organizational support. The reason for such a generalized dichotomy lies in the fact that many antecedents are interdependent with each other within the same group. For example, cross-functional team will enhance employees’ task meaningfulness; and both practices contribute to increasing employee autonomy. However, there are other factors that may increase employee autonomy, such as expanded responsibilities through improving role clarity. Also, in many case studies the implications involved not only one antecedent. Thus, a broader discussion framework is used as it better accommodates these interdependent antecedents and practices that employ different approaches to team empowerment.

Organizational Design – Multi-functionalism is the best approach.

Empowerment often requires taking a new look at the organizational design. The ultimate goal is to improve organizational effectiveness by promoting ownership of work. The fundamental approach, and also ...

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... created a greater sense of ownership and responsibilities among hospital professionals.

• BSD, a software inventory control firm (Belasco, 1991), reorganized its team into multidisciplinary teams, which include sales, service, and technical experts, and each is in charge of a specific customer. By introducing the cross-functional teams, the company give its employees greater empowerment for being responsible for making all decisions.

Another corporate practice for cross-functional team is to integrate different department, such as human resources, finance, and information technology, into one shared serviced team. Shared serviced team is often viewed as an alternative to outsourcing (Janssen & Joha, 2006). By integrating multiple functions into one team, shared services team is able to deliver more efficient service to internal customer, and the team members.