Abstract
It would appear that the concept of empowerment has become popular and is so widely used that it has become a fad. It is also generally poorly understood and this results in a degree of mistrust and cynicism. There is often a lack of clarity as to the role and contribution of empowerment in organisations, and how empowerment differs from concepts such as employee involvement and participation. The key dimensions, benefits and paradigm of empowerment are also misunderstood areas. To overcome these problems this literature and theory assessment attempts to define empowerment, to provide a basis for a healthy empowerment paradigm and to stimulate further theoretical and empirical research.