The Impact of Emerging Information Technologies on the Empowered Organization

The notion of employee empowerment is becoming increasingly important within the management literature. This paper examines the potential impact of emerging ITs on empowerment. It attempts to understand empowerment through the changes that it entails in an organization and to assess the role of ITs in relation to it. We argue that as empowerment is a conscious and highly political organizational choice, emerging ITs cannot be said to “empower” employees. They should rather be seen as a support tool that can facilitate empowerment depending upon the larger organizational context and more specifically on the four main organizational variables; structure, culture, people and tasks and procedures. The form that these variables take in different organizations mediate the role of ITs and ultimately determine whether they will facilitate or inhibit empowerment. A conceptual framework describing the impact of ITs on empowerment is developed. From the framework we elicit some key indicators which can be useful in an assessment of the impact of ITs on a specific organization.