Abstract
Self-managing, self-directed or empowered work teams have become a core feature of contemporary organisational and work redesign (Ors-burn et al. 1991; Lawler et al. 1995; Knapp et al. 1996; Wellins et al. 1996). However, their application has been controversial. For promoters of socio-technical system design they represent a radical break from ‘inhumane’ Tayloristic and Fordist work design and a means by which genuinely empowered and autonomous work can be brought about. For critics, team-based working represents a new and more manipulative form of management control whereby workers become complicit in their own exploitation. The apparent ‘ethical ambiguity’ surrounding current trends towards team-based working and empowerment raises serious questions for system designers and change agents seeking to intervene in organisations along lines promoted by socio-technical theory.
Ethical system design is trying for an ideal, but it also has to recognise the art of the possible. If the philosophy and actions of the systems designer ensure that the new system is ‘better’ in human terms than it would otherwise have been, a great deal has been achieved. Although large gains should be striven for, small gains should not be regarded as less than satisfactory.
(Mumford, 1996, p. 106)
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© 1999 Ian McLoughlin, Richard Badham and Paul Couchman
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Mcloughlin, I., Badham, R., Couchman, P. (1999). Empowerment and Teams: Ethics and the Implementation of Socio-technical Systems. In: Quinn, J.J., Davies, P.W.F. (eds) Ethics and Empowerment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372726_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372726_9
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