Power through empowerment? The managerial discourse on employee empowerment

Abstract

Informed by the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse, the current study explores how employee empowerment is discursively constructed as a management technique. Combing insights from labour process theory, Foucauldian approaches to governmentality and neo-Weberian interpretations of the ideological basis of capitalism, we develop an empirically informed theoretical framework that accounts for the multifaceted character of employee empowerment. Results show, first, that discourse justifies the necessity of this technique by presenting it as an efficient answer to perceived increases in competitive pressures and an ever-changing economic environment since the beginning of the 1990s. The discourse promotes advanced liberal modes of (self-)governance, which are created and maintained through a complex set of means for the control of labour. Second, although the ideological structure of the empowerment discourse is in accordance with the third spirit of capitalism, as identified by Boltanski and Chiapello, it also introduces changes by removing the neo-manager and granting the empowered employee a central role. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that empowerment is associated with strategies for reducing labour costs, such as de-layering and work intensification.

Counting sleep: Ambiguity, aspirational control and the politics of digital self-tracking at work

“…In summary, one might say that the acquired self-knowledge transformed into ‘people’s behaviours and sense of self’ (Lupton, 2016a: 9), becoming a ‘responsibility for outcomes of their lives’ (Lupton, 2016a: 39). The kind of self-control taking place was consistent with the Encorp values (Barley and Kunda, 1992), and the digital self-tracking offered a way of making these values ‘stick to their targets’ – the employees (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002: 628) – which makes management influential via the self-controlling employee (Ivanova and Von Scheve, 2019). However, while the newly acquired self-knowledge enabled the company to ‘remotely control’ its employees while affording employees increased self-control, the digital self-tracking project also left some employees struggling.…”

A Notsie narrative perspective on turnover in the UK financial services industry

“…Our findings indicate that the global discourse on efficiency and productivity (Ivanova & von Scheve, 2020) has proven to be a powerful force driving the highly competitive UK finance industry. As a corollary of this, our data evidence suggests that high performance working regimes have been adopted by many firms operating in the financial sector as an efficient response to rising operational cost and perceived increases in competitive pressures (Russell et al, 2018;Selden & Sowa, 2015).…”

“…More importantly, we contribute a novel perspective drawn from the Global Souththe simple but resonant Notsie narrative, percolating through time and spaceas a reflection on contemporary organizational life, propelled by a continuous obsession with and discourse on efficiency and productivity (Ivanova & von Scheve, 2020). This contributes to an endless and ever more intensive repetition of tasks, limiting scope for variation, creativity, and individual initiative (Deleuze, 2004).…”

Grudge: the emotional side of resentment

“…Today, we know empowerment mainly as a mental business tool. Through coaching and mental training, individuals are supposed to believe in their own strengths and be made fit for the status struggle at work (Ivanova and von Scheve, 2020). However, empowerment has its origins in the Black civil rights movement in the US.…”