Journal Press India^®

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This paper critically examines the perceived importance and actual implementation of Employee Empowerment (hereafter EE) practices in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (hereafter SMEs) . Our findings show that the level of actual implementation of EE practices is significantly lower than the degree of importance attached to them. Moreover, our study identified implementation differences between SMEs and large firms. Smaller firms seem to be less involved in formal EE activities than do their larger counter parts due to their informal nature, short term and unsystematic in their operational practices. We recommended that SMEs should be encouraged to develop strategic awareness about the potential advantages of practicing EE initiatives. Paper is purely based on secondary sources of data collection. Since our findings are based on intuitional and subjective perceptions of owner/managers of SMEs, the conclusions must be considered tentative and interpreted with care. We propose that future research should focus on the HOWs and WHYs of actual processes through which SMEs motivate and encourage employees to improve quality, productivity and performance.

Keywords

Employee Empowerment, Small firms, Human Resource Management

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