Ethics and Empowerment

Ethics and Empowerment is a major contribution to the ongoing debate about the role of business in society. People expect more meaning and empowerment at work at a time when competitive pressures are seducing business into taking ethical short-cuts. How is this to be reconciled? Through a thorough examination of the issues of power, control and autonomy addressing such questions as empowerment being a matter of justice, through case-study based examinations of the organisational experiences of empowerment programmes and through looking at the ethics and empowerment debate from the wider perspective of business and social responsibility, this book seeks to make ethics more relevant and accessible to today's business world.

Is Empowerment Ethical? Why Ask the Question? PART ONE: ETHICS AND EMPOWERMENT Empowerment and Justice Does Empowerment Empower? Organisational Empowerment: an Historical Perspective and Conceptual Framework Ethico-power and the City Ethics, Empowerment and Ownership PART TWO: THEORY AND THE EXPERIENCE OF EMPOWERMENT STRATEGIES Beyond Rhetoric: A Typology of Empowerment Strategies Found Within One Organisation Empowerment and Teams: Ethics and the Implementation of Socio-Technical Systems Negotiated Reality: the Meaning of Empowerment Empowerment in a Government Agency Ethics and Empowerment: Managerial Discourse and the Case of Teleworking PART THREE: BUSINESS AND SOCIETY: THE NEW EMPOWERMENT RESPONSIBILITY Empowering Consumers through Co-operatives Empowerment in a Community of Purpose The Social Responsibility of Businesses: to Empower Employees by Listening and Responding Ethical Guidelines for an Empowered Organisation

RICHARD BADHAM Professor at the BHP Institute for Steel Processing and Products, Head of Research programme on Managing Innovation and Change Agent Cultures (MICAC), Wollongong University, Australia JOHNSTON BIRCHALL Lecturer in Public Policy, Brunel University, UK FREDERICK BIRD Professor of Comparative Ethics, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada PAUL COUCHMAN Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Management of Integrated Technological and Organisational Change, Wollongong University, Australia JULIA M. CHRISTENSEN HUGHES Associate Professor, School of Hotel and Food Administration, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada BARBARA GOODWIN Professor of Politics, University of East Anglia, UK PETER JONES Consultant in change management and organisational development PAUL JOYCE Professor and Director of the Management Research Centre, University of North London, UK JOHN KALER Senior Lecturer, Plymouth Business School, University of Plymouth, UK IAN MCLOUGHLIN Reader and Head of Management Studies, Brunel University, UK ANNE MILLS Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organisational Change, Business School, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK CHRIS MOON Senior Lecturer, Anglia Business School, UK EDNA OJEIFO Consultant in brand development and brand management KEITH PHEBY formerly taught organisational ethics in US, UK and Japan CELIA STANWORTH Senior Lecturer in Human Resources and Industrial Relations, University of Greenwich, UK RICHARDWARREN Principal Lecturer, Department of Business Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK DIANA WINSTANLEY Lecturer in Human Resource Management, Imperial College Management School, UK ADRIAN WOODS Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences, Brunel University, UK