Managing empowerment: adjusting organisational units’ autonomy to achieve corporate agility

Abstract

Purpose - Empowerment is recognised as being a key to achieving organisational agility. Typically associated with a particular leadership style, implications of empowerment for management have remained vague in the literature. Thus, this study aims at unpacking the facets and mechanisms of empowerment in the context of organisational units (OUs). Design/methodology/approach - First, the authors review the extant literature and discuss the crucial concepts in the context empowerment. Then, the authors analyse qualitative data from interviews conducted in four research and development (R&D) departments in the industrial manufacturing industry. Findings - This study finds that the empowerment of business entities is crucial when operating in turbulent conditions. However, empowerment must be accompanied by a clear focus when aiming at higher agile performance. Moreover, different autonomy types and their interplay with critical factors of middle management empowerment could be identified. The research results also reveal important details about the effects of autonomy on motivation and performance and the role of OUs' dependencies. Practical implications - The model proposed in this paper can help senior and middle managers better manage the empowerment of OUs required to enhance middle management agility and, in turn, increase overall organisational adaptability. Originality/value - Beyond regarding empowerment as a leadership style, this paper takes a middle management perspective and unfolds the facets of empowerment in the context of OUs. Adding to the theory of self-organisation, a model is proposed to capture the key factors to determine and manage the autonomy of OUs. These insights are essential to managing autonomy successfully at the middle management level .