Organizational Culture of Participation: Development and Validation of a Measure

Abstract

This article specifies the concept of “Organizational Culture of Participation” (OCP) as that part of an organizational culture which is linked to employee participation. Three OCP-types are distinguished by the way participation is promoted and supported in an organizational culture: (1) leader promoted, (2) employee promoted, and (3) institution promoted OCPs – all types are considered to have different processes and outcomes of employee participation. The OCP concept's relevance for research on employee participation and a first validation of this concept is described. For this we developed a measure of OCP and conducted an empirical study to analyze construct, discriminant and incremental validity. After presenting this study implications for future research and of practical relevance are derived.