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Employee empowerment is the main ingredient in a baking company's competitive strategy
Author(s) -
Grigg Alfred
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
global business and organizational excellence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.227
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1932-2062
pISSN - 1932-2054
DOI - 10.1002/joe.20304
Subject(s) - employee empowerment , empowerment , agile software development , business , competitive advantage , work (physics) , organizational culture , marketing , public relations , management , engineering , economics , political science , mechanical engineering , economic growth
The acquisition of a baking company prompted its modest first steps toward greater employee involvement and a team‐based culture, but management vision and competitive threats drove the effort further, leading eventually to major structural changes and the empowerment of self‐directed work teams to keep the company lean and agile. The author discusses the importance of a strategic imperative for sustaining top management commitment and will, and describes the three stages of the plants' multiyear journey toward ever‐greater team responsibility and authority; the training and infrastructure support; and tools for providing structure and guidance without impairing empowerment. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.