The Role of Employee Empowerment in the Organization of Lean Production

Lean production is a production system named as Toyotaizm by Toyota company in 1950s and developed to prevent any dissipation in production process. Decreasing demand stemming from the stagflation after the economic crisis of 1970s accelerated collapse of Fordizm, and then lean production was adopted in principle by the industries seeking a remedy for economic problems. Just after lean production had become the focus of organizational cultures employee empowerment was put forward within the approach of interpersonal relations in business management, and developed in the course of time. In human oriented approaches, an organization can have flexibility in adaptation to the changing conditions of marketing and enhance its competitive power only through workers having high standards of work and satisfied with their jobs. In that connection, employee empowerment is directly related to organizational culture. Empowerment applications depend on organizational structure, managerial approaches, requirements of production process and qualifications of employees. To what extent they can meet their expectations such as personal and career development or autonomy also plays a crucial role.In other words, lean porduction can only be implemented in the event that employees are empowered in relation to the lean management approach. Within this study, a questionnaire research was conducted in order to reveal the conditions of employee empowerment in lean production, and determine the variables related to employee empowerment and also its connection with job loyalty. As a result of this research, there is a positive relation between autonomy and goal internalization which are the dimensions of job loyalty and employee empowerment while there isn?t a meaningful relation to competency