Empowerment and Professional Ethics in Functional Context of Design, Cost, and Construction Working Teams

Ellen Lau ； Vikki Lew

《International Journal of Sociology Study》 1卷1期 (2013/03) Pp. 1-16

並列摘要

In view of the diversified requirements arising from the organizational changes affecting knowledge workers, it is uncertain how knowledge workers are empowered and whether the empowerment process can be differentiated among working teams carrying out different functions. Although the theory of empowerment and research is well-established, there exists a knowledge gap with regard to the question of whether acting in an ethical way on the job is empowering and whether this similarly applies to knowledge workers carrying different job functions. Yet, no work has been done to determine how ethical codes fit in the empowerment process. Since empowerment can be experienced via the form of ＂performance expectancy or the belief in personal efficacy＂, an industry case approach is used to evaluate empowerment profiles in functional context of professional knowledge workers striving for high level of ethical codes laid out by professional organizations. It is contended that people are more empowered if they hold ethical values relating to those stipulated by the professional institutions. In this case, ethical principles are adopted as the structural variables to study empowerment in this research. Data were collected via a survey of professional workers in the field of cost, design and construction functions. Quantitative analysis is carried out with 138 responses using general statistical instrument and confirmatory factor analysis. The findings suggest that even within the same industry, professional workers of different functions exhibit different relationships between their empowerment profiles and the professional ethics they abide by. The results show that there are variances in the job functions. This study contributes to the literature of empowerment and the construction industry, in generating an insight that ethical value is one important denominator of empowerment.

並列關鍵字

Empowerment ； Professional Ethics ； Job Characteristics ； Autonomy ； Construction Industry