| Organization executives have invested extensive leadership attention and resources to develop the capacity of their corporations, particularly in the areas of employee empowerment. Incentive programs such as stock options rewards, participation rights, continuous employee skills development and granting of ownership and functional decision-making abilities are expected to increase the productivity, efficiency, accuracy, dedication/commitment and bottom line results of organizations. Better organizational performance will not result unless employees' capabilities are developed and maximized to release the power now latent within them.; The purpose of this study was to discover/explore the impact of empowerment programs that encompass continuous training and development, participation rights and decision-making authority on the bottom line profits of Fortune 500 corporations. The research question was: What are the differences in productivity and profit between organizations that give employees continuous training and development, participation rights, and decision-making authority from those that do not?; A survey was conducted, using a qualitative, non-interactive research approach that encompassed the use of a survey questionnaire on all 2003 Fortune 500 corporations, companioned with the review of empirical resources. Forty survey questions were applied using a web-based and on-the-phone techniques over a four-week period. The survey questions were segmented into three main categories, made up of the three variables in this study. The results obtained from the study were transferred into an Excel spreadsheet, descriptively analyzed and summarized into charts, percentages and narrative format.; The findings in the study revealed that employee empowerment is a key part of the business strategy of most large organizations specifically, Fortune 500 corporations. Results showed that 92.9 percent of the Fortune 500 corporations practice continuous training and development of their employees at various levels, 96.2 percent practice participation rights of some sorts and 96.2 percent grant some level of functional decision making authority to their employees indicating the importance of employee empowerment as a business strategy within large corporations especially as it relates to the variables in this study. |
