“Delegation is one of the most effective tools there is for breathing new life into tired organizations. In fact, you can get a good idea of how active and energetic an organization really is just by finding out how free employees are to think, plan and act on their own – how much authority has been delegated to them”
Authority is only meaningful if it has a budget – and this leads to a new awareness of the need to balance expenses against income.
Example: East Japan Railways delegates both authority and budget over several levels – main office to regional office, regional office to stations and maintenance crews. Budgets are able to be used for what employees think needs to be done. – Giving people this freedom, JR has “found new reserves of energy and self-reform”
Source: Katayama, O. (1996). Japanese business into the 21st Century: strategies for success.