Employee Participation and Empowerment in TQM: A Review

Introduction: Participatory Management and Empowerment

This paper reviews five scholarly articles examining employee participation and empowerment within the context of Total Quality Management (TQM). Across these sources, a consistent theme emerges: organizations that invest meaningfully in employee empowerment — through shared decision-making, ownership structures, and culturally receptive management — are better positioned for long-term effectiveness and competitive success. Each article is reviewed in turn, with attention to its key claims, the evidence offered, and its contribution to an understanding of TQM.

Participatory management is becoming increasingly common, as innovative service delivery and staff empowerment grow more important across many sectors. The articles reviewed here draw on a range of organizational contexts — public human service agencies, Japanese and Chinese labor systems, American manufacturing industries, street-level government workers, and small businesses — to examine how empowerment functions, where it succeeds, and where it fails.

In "The Person/Environment Dynamics of Employee Empowerment: An Organizational Culture Analysis," Pennie Foster-Fishman and Christopher Keys examine a human service agency called SERVE. Among SERVE's stated goals was the objective to strengthen "the voice of frontline staff in agency decision making and policy formation." Administrators believed that this organizational approach would be an effective means of increasing employee morale and organizational effectiveness (Foster-Fishman, 1997).

Organizational Culture and the Limits of Empowerment

In this particular instance, the employee empowerment initiative occurred within a public bureaucracy, where efforts to empower employees often fail due to strict cultural features. Empowerment, as defined by this article, represents "the process of gaining influence over events and outcomes of importance to an individual or group" (Foster-Fishman, 1997). The primary purpose of adopting an empowerment model was to enhance employees' perceived control over their lives and, subsequently, to affect work outcomes.

The article notes, however, that the overall initiative to introduce employee participation and empowerment failed, though some employees did feel more empowered. This failure was attributed to the inability of the culture within a public entity to adapt as needed to support an empowered workforce. Organizational culture, according to the article, provides the framework for establishing the appropriate fit required for empowerment to succeed. A culture must be willing to embrace individual attitudes and employee behaviors, and it must also involve a "shared system of meaning."

This article contributes to an understanding of TQM by outlining the importance of participatory management and highlighting how organizational culture can either enable or obstruct an organization's ability to empower its employees.

In "Employee Empowerment: Solution to a Burgeoning Crisis?" Ramos and Tseo argue that a model for employee empowerment and participation can be drawn from the Japanese government. According to the authors, the Japanese government works in tandem with corporate leaders to set what is referred to as a "growth agenda," in which management takes on a "paternalistic attitude" related to labor. Workers are regularly encouraged — and indeed expected — to participate in "shop-floor management" (Ramos, 1995).

Japanese and Chinese Labor Models as Case Studies

Despite this perceived notion of employee empowerment, the authors argue that labor in Japan is actually at the mercy of management. Many employees remain loyal to their organizations out of fear rather than genuine commitment, and retention of retirement benefits is contingent on an employee's ability to commit long-term to the same manager.

The article concludes that a better model for employee empowerment would be one that allows for employee ownership, such as that developing in China, where employee ownership programs were at the time enjoying a "vigorous revival." The creation of cooperatives and employee ownership programs are identified as the true path to employee empowerment and meaningful participation in corporate decision-making.

This article suggests that overall quality management is contingent upon a company's ability to offer employees genuine ownership in company practices. Even where stock ownership is not feasible, organizations should invest in mechanisms that allow employees true participatory ability — through information-sharing, voice in meetings, and involvement in organizational strategy.

According to Stanton's article "Employee Participation: A Critical Evaluation and Suggestions for Management Practice," American businesses and industries are challenged to find new ways to improve their effectiveness in an ever-increasingly competitive market. Improving productivity has become one of the most urgent priorities organizations and production manufacturers face.

Conclusion: Implications for TQM

All of the articles presented in this analysis support the notion that employee participation and empowerment are essential to the future success of TQM. They contribute to an understanding of the subject by providing qualitative and quantitative data supporting the idea that employees seek something more from their organizations — and that "something more" generally involves ownership, empowerment, and meaningful participation in corporate events and decisions.