This book provides a critical insight into the ongoing debates and controversies that surround employee empowerment and workplace innovation. It highlights competing interests and conflicting values, and illuminates some basic tensions between confident rhetoric and everyday realities. Martin Beirne's contribution marks a contrast with established academic investigations in this area. It combines sober analysis with advocacy to claim space for a research-based activism among coalitions of critical researchers and like-minded practitioners that can anticipate and promote genuinely enriching and empowering ways of managing and organizing work. Advanced students of management and organization will discover an invaluable, thought-provoking resource. It offers fresh insights, stimulating arguments and applied knowledge that will also appeal to managers with responsibility for work and employee relations, and to educators and researchers in the areas of critical management studies, work and employment. Contents: Foreword Foreword to Empowerment and Innovation 1. Perspectives on Empowerment and Progressive Change at Work Part I: Contemporary Developments 2. Progressive Teamworking: Disputes, Promise and Practicalities 3. Technology and User Empowerment 4. Financial Participation 5. Gender and Empowerment 6. Culture, Management and Innovation Part II: Enabling, Enacting and Regulating 7. Sustaining a Voluntary Commitment 8. Public Policy and Regulatory Initiatives References Index

"This book claims to be 'like no other' and that is so true. The editors and authors each add quality guidance around distributed leadership to readers, providing evidence-based examples, useful websites and key reading material to support and supplement the ideas being presented." Bridie Kent, Professor in Leadership in Nursing, University of Plymouth, UK "This book, thankfully, isn't about self-defined heroic organizational leaders or power-hungry political leaders - it tells the stories of the people doing leadership every day in their work to make healthcare happen." Scott Taylor, Business School Director of Admissions, University of Birmingham, UK This innovative book brings together experts from health sciences, nursing, business and management backgrounds to provide a broad analysis of the growing field of distributed leadership. The book offers health professionals practical guidance on applying distributed leadership, resulting in more effective forms of collaborative clinical teamwork and lasting improvements in care. The text: *Offers a comprehensive collection of perspectives, featuring chapters by expert clinical, nursing and management studies contributors *Synthesizes and explores recent developments in the leadership and distributed leadership research literature *Supports research and theory with examples of cases of effective distributed leadership in clinical practice, service quality, patient safety, leadership development, general nursing, midwifery education, oncology services, intellectual disability, evidence-based practice and organizational change and development *Provides an international focus, to encourage reflection on learning from experiences across Europe and beyond Distributed Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare is essential reading for health professionals, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and researchers working in the field of leadership. Edited by: Elizabeth A. Curtis, Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Martin Beirne, Emeritus Professor of Management and Organisational Behaviour at the University of Glasgow, UK John G. Cullen, Associate Professor, Maynooth University, Ireland Ruth Northway, Professor of Learning Disability Nursing, University of South Wales, UK Siobhan M. Corrigan, Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

This book provides a critical insight into the ongoing debates and controversies that surround employee empowerment and workplace innovation. It highlights competing interests and conflicting values, and illuminates some basic tensions between confident rhetoric and everyday realities. Martin Beirne's contribution marks a contrast with established academic investigations in this area. It combines sober analysis with advocacy to claim space for a research-based activism among coalitions of critical researchers and like-minded practitioners that can anticipate and promote genuinely enriching and empowering ways of managing and organizing work. Advanced students of management and organization will discover an invaluable, thought-provoking resource. It offers fresh insights, stimulating arguments and applied knowledge that will also appeal to managers with responsibility for work and employee relations, and to educators and researchers in the areas of critical management studies, work and employment. Contents: Foreword Foreword to Empowerment and Innovation 1. Perspectives on Empowerment and Progressive Change at Work Part I: Contemporary Developments 2. Progressive Teamworking: Disputes, Promise and Practicalities 3. Technology and User Empowerment 4. Financial Participation 5. Gender and Empowerment 6. Culture, Management and Innovation Part II: Enabling, Enacting and Regulating 7. Sustaining a Voluntary Commitment 8. Public Policy and Regulatory Initiatives References Index

The revolution in new technology gave rise to new work patterns and improved productivity, all of which affect the management of human resources. Expectations for increased efficiency have not always been fulfilled because of the problems that have arisen in workings of labour relations. How can management maximize the benefits of these technologies while co-operating with their employees? How far are trade unions involved in the decisions as companies adopt new technology? Is the workforce consulted in systems design? This book, originally published in 1992 looks at the problems of developing strategies in information technology when considering labour relations. Experts in industrial sociology, human resource management and organizational behaviour assess the achievements and failures, including consideration of issues such as public sector work, gender and race. Drawing on empirical evidence, the contributors cover a wide range of industries including case studies in electronics and banking, together with international comparisons.

The revolution in new technology gave rise to new work patterns and improved productivity, all of which affect the management of human resources. Expectations for increased efficiency have not always been fulfilled because of the problems that have arisen in workings of labour relations. How can management maximize the benefits of these technologies while co-operating with their employees? How far are trade unions involved in the decisions as companies adopt new technology? Is the workforce consulted in systems design? This book, originally published in 1992 looks at the problems of developing strategies in information technology when considering labour relations. Experts in industrial sociology, human resource management and organizational behaviour assess the achievements and failures, including consideration of issues such as public sector work, gender and race. Drawing on empirical evidence, the contributors cover a wide range of industries including case studies in electronics and banking, together with international comparisons.

Employee empowerment is one of the most widely touted and potentially potent concepts in modern management. It raises fundamental questions about the nature and scope of management and organisation, and about the respective roles and responsibilities of front line practitioners. The terms for a viable collaboration between employers, managers and employees also come under scrutiny. Calling upon a wealth of research material, this book relates the various debates behind employee empowerment to a broad range of practical scenarios, charting opportunities as well as constraints and drawing insights from a rich combination of settings and sources across industry, commerce and the public sector. Connecting theory to practice, and adopting a polemical as well as an analytical position, the book speaks directly to researchers and policymakers, and especially to current and aspiring managers, who favour a fresh approach to work and employee relations. It will appeal to those who regard empowerment as a progressive rather than a casual reference point for managerial activity.

Employee empowerment is one of the most widely touted and potentially potent concepts in modern management. It raises fundamental questions about the nature and scope of management and organisation, and about the respective roles and responsibilities of front line practitioners. The terms for a viable collaboration between employers, managers and employees also come under scrutiny. Calling upon a wealth of research material, this book relates the various debates behind employee empowerment to a broad range of practical scenarios, charting opportunities as well as constraints and drawing insights from a rich combination of settings and sources across industry, commerce and the public sector. Connecting theory to practice, and adopting a polemical as well as an analytical position, the book speaks directly to researchers and policymakers, and especially to current and aspiring managers, who favour a fresh approach to work and employee relations. It will appeal to those who regard empowerment as a progressive rather than a casual reference point for managerial activity.