Employee empowerment from a sustainable HRM perspective: An exploratory study
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2019-04-23
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en
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate what role employee empowerment can play for organizations from a sustainable HRM perspective. Through a qualitative method, a total of fifteen semi-structured interviews conducted in two different organizations located in the Netherlands were analyzed, using a template analysis. The study resulted in a conclusion that, from a sustainable HRM perspective, employee empowerment can be beneficial for the two involved organizations in order to be more sustainable regarding HRM. In addition, that both organization A should improve their impact-control orientation and both organizations their long-term orientation and multiple-bottom lines orientation to be more sustainable in general and facilitate employee empowerment in a more sustainable way. The results of this study contribute to the existing theory about employee empowerment and the sustainable HRM theory which is still scarce. Thereby, it contributes to the statements of several researchers that employee empowerment is beneficial for sustainable HRM. The results are interesting for organizations who want to facilitate empowerment in a sustainable way and are interested in what it involves for them. At the end of this study some limitations were established regarding the internal and external validity. During the interviews was recognized that the respondents were not familiar with the construct employee empowerment. In addition, it was impossible to relate each empowerment dimension to each orientation of sustainable HRM. This led to a reduced internal validity. The external validity limitation is because this study was only conducted at two small organizations that are both located in the Netherlands, and both employ a mainly Dutch and relatively young workforce. Suggestions for future research included further research regarding employee empowerment from a sustainable HRM perspective, using quantitative methods. In addition, further research regarding employee empowerment from a sustainable HRM perspective, using the social-structural empowerment perspective instead of the psychological empowerment perspective.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen