Working Paper Series Empowerment in organizations: Autonomy as second-order capacity

The aim of this paper is to show that the conception of autonomy as second-order capacity, i.e. the capacity to reflect on and change our personal motivational structures, e.g. preferences and desires, should be of particular interest to the scholarly debate on empowerment. Two major implications of the conception are discerned to support this claim. Firstly, this conception of autonomy can help to get the easily neglected issues of second-order reflection and procedural independence more into focus when empowerment is discussed. Secondly, this conception also makes it harder to neglect employee participation in the strategic decision making.