Globalization leads to increased competition both in the national and international markets. So, pressure is mounting on organizations for sustained effectiveness. Empowerment is a promising way to improve organizational and personal effectiveness. The success of empowerment depends on the culture of the organization. This article studies the attitude of employees toward empowerment by focusing on the feedback received from employees working in various units of the Madurai Industrial Estate.

Globalization has increased the competition in the national and international market. It is pressurizing organizations to be effective, innovative, to reduce costs and improve quality of products and services. One of the important aspects in performance is the organizational effectiveness. Organizations have been trying to increase the individual and organizational effectiveness by unleashing the creative and innovative energies of employees, by motivating the employees to cater to their needs for self-determination and be in control. Empowerment has been accepted as an important organizational factor in satisfying the psychological needs of the employees in the workplace. Empowerment is seen as a process that results in individual employees enjoying autonomy while performing their jobs. This also ensures accountability on their part and thus develops a sense of ownership and increases the sense of fulfillment, while achieving shared organizational goals. Organizational culture plays an important role in these matters and if empowerment is a success and can be extensively practiced in the west and in Japan, this is because of their organizational and national culture. The industrial society of India is dominated by labor unions and managements which perceive that they are paid to work and workers are paid to perform a task, respectively. In such a culture, there is a dire need for a change in the mindset, on both the sides of the employee as well as the employer. Hence, the present study focuses on the mindset of the employees towards employee empowerment.

The study was undertaken at the selected industries in Madurai Industrial Estate. With the help of the District Industries Center, Madurai, 24 industries were identified and approached. Only 11 industries permitted to collect the relevant information from their employees. In total, 181 employees were working at the selected 11 industries. But only 86 employees were able to disclose the required information for the research. So, the present study is based on the data collected from the 86 employees.