Empowerment in the Context of Transformational Change: A Study of Acquisitions and Privatizations in Eastern Europe

This paper examines conditions under which empowerment (decision autonomy, dialogic leadership) is connected with positive and negative effects, respectively, in regard to managing transformational change in Eastern Europe. Acquisitions by foreign investors in Poland and Russia (N = 45 companies) and privatizations through employee buy-out in Romania (N = 5 companies) are contrasted in this study. It is shown that empowerment within these two variants of transformational change is connected in different ways with success indicators of crisis management. From these findings, we deduce practical consequences for empowerment and transformational change, along with suggestions for future research.