Case Studies
Why Case Studies?
Case Studies play a vital role for organisations trying to implement employee empowerment and how valuable lessons can be learnt.
The aim of my doctoral study was to investigate what employee empowerment means in theory and in practice, (Huq, 2016).
As case studies are used to allow researchers examine complex issues and situations in-depth, I chose this method, to get a deeper understanding of what employee empowerment means in theory and how organisations apply it in practice.
I used multiple data collection methods, such as, focus groups, interviews, observations, and company documents, to gather rich and detailed information.
Case studies can also identify links between the problem that is being studied and the outcomes and findings, this also helps generate new and innovative way of finding solutions to the problem identified, helping to build theory.
I was also aware that conducting case study would mean I would have to learn about qualitative research, which already had an attraction for me, and this would be a valuable tool for the research. It can provide in-depth information to understand people’s experiences of empowerment by going deep into the core of the subject, and interestingly how it may differ from theory, or whether it does at all or not.
Interpreting the data
It is important to highlight that case study data collection is not merely a matter of interviewing people, recording the data, one must also be able to interpret the information without bias, and this is so relevant with AI now. There is a plethora of data around us, but the critical thing for people in organisations is to be able to interpret the data produced by AI in a non-biased way.
What I liked about using the case study method is that case studies are noted to be useful tools for contributing to knowledge which interestingly the findings of my research do, and I will share this in another blog post.
Considering these points, I used the case study method, of two information-rich organisations in the UK, one was a Large Organisation, a British-owned multinational communications company and the other an SME, Small Organisation, privately owned manufacturing company.
The interesting thing about choosing the case organisations was that there was one important criterion that both these organisations had to fulfil, that is, they had to have addressed employee empowerment and implement in their organisation.
As both my case study organisations were winners of The EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) Excellence Award (link), they would necessarily have had to address the employee empowerment sub-criterion and would have been assessed in relation to it, so in this respect they fulfilled the requirements of the study.
Valuable lessons learnt about employee empowerment from my case studies.
Through one-to-one interviews and focus groups, I uncovered the real stories behind the data. The narratives and the conversations provided fresh insights into how people felt during the employee empowerment process. I was able to capture the 'behind-the-scenes' psychological, emotional, and the unfiltered stories of the human side of what really happens during organisational change, which in these cases, were introducing ‘empowerment’ in trying to change the culture of the organisations.
What was highly interesting is that both the case study organisations chose two different pathways to employee empowerment; Large Organisation implemented through formal methods while the Small Organisation went mostly for informal methods.
There are valuable lessons to learn about employee empowerment from my case studies, as you will find out in this and future blogs.
Patton’s (1987) point that case studies are particularly valuable when the interpretation aims to capture individual differences or unique variations was relevant to my research. I began to look at the similar and dissimilar aspects of both the case study organisations, and did an in-depth cross case analysis, that made it more interesting and made it less cumbersome!
Tell the boss, but don’t tell my name.
During the qualitative interview, one employee said to me, ‘Rozana, I would like you to tell my boss how we feel that our organisation is paying lip service to empowerment. But please keep my name anonymous, however, I want you to give this message from our department to our senior management without saying who said it.’
This is the message: ‘We are told we are empowered, but if we go ahead and take a decision without consulting our manager we get told off’!’
The promise was kept, the message was passed on with anonymity.
I’m not sure if anything was done about the fear and anxiety felt by employees.
Why employees felt ‘alienated.’
It was obvious that people’s emotions and the psychological implications of employee empowerment were not given much attention. Another middle manager said to me, ‘we are not good at dealing with the problems of soft skills.’
But if ignored, the soft skills can be the hardest to solve in organisations.
As my research was concerned with people’s personal experiences of employee empowerment, qualitative methods were appropriate to retell their story and ‘… capture the richness and diversity of human experience …’ (Sommer and Sommer, 2002). Thus, an interpretive approach employing qualitative methods was used in my research study.
Several authors have noted this, and Wilkinson (1998) remarks that the term employee empowerment has become part of everyday management, and it tends to be regarded as providing a solution to the ‘age-old problem of Taylorised and bureaucratic workplaces where creativity is stifled, and workers become alienated.’
This is echoed in my research, where call centre operators in a large telecommunications company remarked in an honest way that they felt more ‘alienated’ since the organisation tried to implement employee empowerment.
‘Why is this happening?’ ‘Why are employees feeling alienated?’
Implementing employee empowerment is a radical change in organisations because empowering people amongst other things, means that they must be allowed to make decisions, more responsibility means more autonomy, and this leads to power shift.
Why senior management and leaders were blamed.
Why senior management and leaders are blamed and seem to be paying ‘lip service’ to any kind of change is mostly due to lack of knowledge and information, and planning about what they want to change, and how they want to implement it?
During the interviews, several people in senior management positions admitted that they did not have a clue what employee empowerment meant in the corporate world, and how they would go about it to empower people.
They were ‘told’ by another layer of senior leaders that a new culture is being implemented which was about empowering employees, and they were told to move away from the current ‘command and control’ approach.
None of the senior management leaders went through any formal learning about employee empowerment, which explains why they did not have a clue about what empowerment was, or how they would incorporate any behavioural change that was expected of them.
Those in charge of the employee empowerment programme did not realise that learning was important for senior management
Another important factor was ‘resistance’ to change, this was not considered and how to manage it.
Gradually, from the interviews and focus group discussions, more evidence was found as to why there was resistance to change.
Senior management was steeped in their own traditional style of behaviour and did not see the need for change.
In some departments, the needle hardly moved, while in others senior management and leaders were genuinely trying to give employees more autonomy, which I will share in another blog about ‘power-sharing’, and for some leaders this was the toughest part of the empowerment process!
So, as a senior leader if you feel resistance to any changes in your organisation, don’t feel you are the only one, it is normal to resist. However, the important thing is not to ignore it, but to learn that it needs to be talked through with the board, and the team and solutions to resistance can be found through communication and collaboration.
And, for that matter, resistance does not only happen at the very top, several people in middle and junior management also resisted change, including people in non-management positions as well.
It is naïve to think that being empowered, able to make decisions by people in non-management positions or front line staff would be always welcomed, but here too there was resistance – for very different reasons.
Not everyone is ready for empowerment – whether they are in leadership, management, or non-management positions.
Preparing and giving support to be psychologically ready was a critical factor, which was largely neglected in the case studies, and this is important for managing change in organisations.
I will be sharing more interesting insights from the case study findings.
Happy Learning!
To learn more get the book:
https://www.rhmleadership.com/books-by-dr-rozana-huq
References
Huq, R. (2016) The Psychology of Employee Empowerment. Concepts, Critical Themes and a Framework for Implementation. Publisher Routledge. https://www.rhmleadership.com/books-by-dr-rozana-huq
Patton, M.Q. (1987); How to Use Qualitative Methods in Evaluation, California, Sage Publications.
Sommer, R. and Sommer, B. (2002); A Practical Guide to Behavioural Research, Tools and Techniques, 5 Edition, New York, Oxford University Press.
Wilkinson, A. (1998); Empowerment: Theory and Practice, Personnel Review, 27, 1, pp. 40-56.
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Leadership Learning with Dr Rozana™ Blog is written by Dr Rozana Huq