Find the new article by Florent Noël, Professor at the Sorbonne Business School and Benoît Grasser, Deputy Vice-President for Scientific Policy, at the University of Lorraine.
Autonomy at work is not always desirable. Its appeal depends in particular on the organization's environment. Becoming autonomous can be learned and requires support - a necessary but not sufficient condition. Because employees know: in certain situations, autonomy can be a trap.
It often doesn't take long, during a discussion on freedom and empowerment in the workplace, for a voice to be raised pointing out that some workers are reluctant, others are unable, and many are both. Now, if some may claim to reject autonomy, it may be that they've never really tasted it, or that they don't know how to be autonomous, or that the granting of autonomy is seen as a fool's bargain in view of the little real freedom to act that sometimes accompanies it.
It might be worth noting, moreover, that to know that you don't want to be autonomous, or to know in what situation you can or can't be, is already to be able to exercise a certain level of autonomy.