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Empowerment or enslavement? A case of process‐based organisational change in Hong Kong

Robert Davison (City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong)
Maris G. Martinsons (City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

Information Technology & People

ISSN: 0959-3845

Article publication date: 1 March 2002

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Abstract

Employee empowerment is commonly a fundamental part of the prescriptions offered to improve business performance. However, business process improvement and many other organisational development and change initiatives tend to encapsulate the values of the societies and organisations in which they were developed – and such values are not universal. The case of a business process re‐engineering project in Hong Kong illustrates an attempt to empower team members that paradoxically resulted in their psychological enslavement. The roles of cultural differences and reward systems in producing unintended consequences are analysed while the implications of the case for both research and practice are considered.

Keywords

Citation

Davison, R. and Martinsons, M.G. (2002), "Empowerment or enslavement? A case of process‐based organisational change in Hong Kong", Information Technology & People, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 42-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/09593840210421516

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited

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