IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jomstd/v43y2006i3p521-555.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empowerment and Accountability: Evidence from the UK Privatized Water Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Stuart Ogden
  • Keith W. Glaister
  • David Marginson

Abstract

abstract Empowerment initiatives have become popular in recent years in programmes of organizational change, but their impact as a practical managerial policy remains shrouded in ambiguities. We attempt to provide a fuller understanding of their impact, firstly by exploring managers' understanding of what constitutes empowerment, and secondly by locating the analysis of changes in managers' experiences of empowerment in the context of their experiences of changes in accountability practices. Drawing on data from interviews with managers and a mail questionnaire, we argue that the experience of empowerment is multi‐faceted, and shaped by managers' attitudes towards it. Moreover we find that accountability plays a more significant and independent role in encouraging managers to engage in empowerment than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Suggested Citation

  • Stuart Ogden & Keith W. Glaister & David Marginson, 2006. "Empowerment and Accountability: Evidence from the UK Privatized Water Industry," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 521-555, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:43:y:2006:i:3:p:521-555
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00600.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00600.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00600.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gallie, Duncan & White, Michael & Cheng, Yuan & Tomlinson, Mark, 1998. "Restructuring the Employment Relationship," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294412.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Junne, Jaromir, 2018. "Enabling accountability: An analysis of personal budgets for disabled people," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 46-62.
    2. Max Baker & John Roberts, 2011. "All in the Mind? Ethical Identity and the Allure of Corporate Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(1), pages 5-15, March.
    3. Roberts, John, 2009. "No one is perfect: The limits of transparency and an ethic for 'intelligent' accountability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 957-970, November.
    4. David Bevan & Hervé Corvellec & Eric Faÿ, 2011. "Responsibility Beyond CSR," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(1), pages 1-4, March.
    5. Joe Christopher & Philomena Leung & Shane Leong, 2017. "Can Employees Be Used to Overcome Independent Audit Limitations?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 27(4), pages 442-456, December.
    6. Virginia R. Stewart & Deirdre G. Snyder & Chia-Yu Kou, 2023. "We Hold Ourselves Accountable: A Relational View of Team Accountability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(3), pages 691-712, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bryson, Alex, 2001. "Union effects on managerial and employee perceptions of employee relations in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4957, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Dennis J. Snower & Alessio J. G. Brown & Christian Merkl, 2009. "Globalization and the Welfare State: A Review of Hans-Werner Sinn's Can Germany Be Saved?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 136-158, March.
    3. Fernández-Kranz, Daniel & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2011. "The part-time pay penalty in a segmented labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 591-606, October.
    4. Simon Luechinger & Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2010. "Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed?: Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap Between the Public and the Private Sector," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(4), pages 998-1045.
    5. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
    6. John H. Pencavel, 2004. "The Surprising Retreat of Union Britain," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 181-232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. K Clark & M Tomlinson, 2001. "The Determinants of Work Effort: Evidence from the Employment in Britain Survey," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0113, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    8. Duncan Gallie, 2012. "Skills, Job Control and the Quality of Work:The Evidence from Britain Geary Lecture 2012," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(3), pages 325-341.
    9. Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez & P Willman, 2003. "Why Do Voice Regimes Differ?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0591, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Francis Green, 2004. "Work Intensification, Discretion, and the Decline in Well-Being at Work," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 615-625, Fall.
    11. Colin Hales, 2005. "Rooted in Supervision, Branching into Management: Continuity and Change in the Role of First‐Line Manager," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 471-506, May.
    12. Susan Sayce & Peter Ackers & Anne-Marie Greene, 2007. "Work restructuring and changing craft identity," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 21(1), pages 85-101, March.
    13. Zoe Zoupanou & Mark Cropley & Leif W Rydstedt, 2013. "Recovery after Work: The Role of Work Beliefs in the Unwinding Process," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-9, December.
    14. Mark P. Taylor, 2006. "Tell me why I don't like Mondays: investigating day of the week effects on job satisfaction and psychological well‐being," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 169(1), pages 127-142, January.
    15. Alex Bryson & Erling Barth & Harald Dale-Olsen, 2013. "The Effects of Organizational Change on Worker Well-Being and the Moderating Role of Trade Unions," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(4), pages 989-1011, July.
    16. Ida Regalia, 2001. "Local-level concertation: the scope for innovative regulation of non-standard forms of employment in Europe," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 7(4), pages 657-673, November.
    17. Elbanna, Said, 2016. "Managers' autonomy, strategic control, organizational politics and strategic planning effectiveness: An empirical investigation into missing links in the hotel sector," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 210-220.
    18. Francis Green, 1999. "It's been a hard day's night: The concentration and intensification of work in late 20th century Britain," Studies in Economics 9913, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    19. Francis Green & Yu Zhu, 2010. "Overqualification, job dissatisfaction, and increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(4), pages 740-763, October.
    20. White, Michael & Bryson, Alex, 2019. "The Impact of High-Performance Work Systems on Employees: A Sectoral Comparison," IZA Discussion Papers 12527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:43:y:2006:i:3:p:521-555. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2380 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.