Forms Of Employee Participation Research Articles

Innovating employee participation in the Netherlands

In this article, thirteen case studies are analysed which study the innovation processes renewing structures and forms of employee participation in companies in private and public sectors of industry in the Netherlands. In the majority of the case studies, new hybrid forms between representative and direct participation have been launched, in which elected members of works councils co-operate with non-member employees, mostly in temporary projects. These initiatives show successful results in mobilizing employee involvement in representative as well as in direct workers’ participation, and in improving efficiency and effectiveness in consultations with management in the workplace, as well as with company directors. At the same time, however, works councils have compromised on lowering the number of seats on their councils, leading to dilemmas around questions of democracy, formal powers and coordination. Furthermore, these experiments show limitations in their scope. Firstly, they hardly address more effective inclusion of the many (younger) workers with flexible contracts in employee participation schemes, nor the broader potential impacts on companies’ strategic decision-making. It can be concluded that practices aimed at renewing employee participation develop within the confines of the traditional characteristics of Dutch industrial relations, such as cooperative relationships between works councils and management, a low level of interventions from trade unions and a focus on the field of operational management (rather than on conflictual workers interests and strategic issues).

Employee participation and job satisfaction in SMEs: investigating strategic exploitation and exploration as moderators

The study introduces three forms of employee participation in decision making in SMEs (work role, HR, and strategic) and tests two competing hypotheses regarding their positive and negative relationships with one aspect of employee wellbeing, namely job satisfaction. It further explores if one internal boundary condition – firms’ exploitation and exploration – moderates the three participation-satisfaction relationships. Using multilevel data collected from top managers and employees in Swedish SMEs, the results support positive connotations of participation, with work role participation having the strongest relationship with employee job satisfaction. The results additionally highlight the role of firms’ explorative orientation as an internal boundary condition for the three participation-satisfaction relationships. Specifically, the positive relationships of work role and strategic participation forms with job satisfaction were stronger under high levels of exploration. Surprisingly, participation in HR issues related negatively to satisfaction under the same conditions. The study advances HRM-SME research by discussing these findings, highlighting their implications for practitioners in SMEs, and proposing avenues for future research.

Эффективность участия работников в капитале предприятия: зарубежный и российский опыт

The use of employee participation in the ownership of enterprises has become widely spread since the second half of the twentieth century. Alongside the development of various forms of employee participation in property, there have been ongoing theoretical debates about the effectiveness of these forms, for instance, whether employee property is a reliable method to increase the efficiency of a capitalist enterprise or just an attempt to implement elements of the socialist doctrine. The study aims to analyze the international perspective on employees’ equity participation in property, in particular the focus is made on the world’s most common ESOP plan. The methodological framework is based on international studies discuss-ing the impact of ESOP plans on the economic and financial performance of enterprises. These studies deal with the experience of developed countries as well as developing countries, from China to Cameroon. The positive impact of employee property on increasing the productivity of the enterprise is shown. In terms of financial indicators, the research results are inconsistent. In general, there is a weak positive, mainly indirect impact of partial ownership of employees on the financial performance of their enterprises. Moreover, in developed countries the effectiveness of ESOP is higher than in developing ones.The authors draw conclusion on unsatisfactory state of Russian enterprises with employee ownership which is reflected in steady decline in quantity of Russian public enterprises. The study includes explanation of reduction in the number of public enterprises, and recommendations for their organizational and legal type reform in order to improve the effectiveness in appli-cation of collective ownership in Russian conditions.The research results are used to give recommendations for improvement of the efficiency of shared employee ownership in Russia. It is shown that the concept of collective ownership in Russia should be reconsidered and the new types of employee par-ticipation in enterprise ownership should be based on protected minority corporatization.

The effects of employee participation in creative-relevant process and creative self-efficacy on employee creativity

Employees are the key determinants of an organization’s success because they possess the greatest source of the organization’s creativity. To produce a highly creative thinker, employee participation in the creative-relevant process is required. However, different forms of employee participation may benefit the organization differently. Mainly, researchers agreed on three forms of participation, namely full-autonomous or discretion over individual work tasks, semi-autonomous teamwork and consultative participation. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the different forms of employee participation in creative-relevant process and employee creativity. In addition, creative self-efficacy has demonstrated a relationship with creativity among employees. Underpinned by the Social Cognitive Theory, this study further examined the effect of creative self-efficacy on employee creativity and as a moderator for the relationship between creative-relevant process and employee creativity. We employed a quantitative approach by distributing questionnaires to employees who are working in public/private service sectors in Malaysia and 250 employees had responded. The study hypotheses were tested using PLS structural equation modeling. The results of the study showed that there is (a) a significant relationship between full-autonomous and consultative participation in the creative-relevant process; (b) a non-significant relationship between semi-autonomous and creative-relevant process; (c) a significant relationship between creative-relevant process and employee creativity; (d) a significant relationship between creative self-efficacy and employee creativity, and (e) a non-significant moderated relationship of creative self-efficacy. This study adds to the body of knowledge on the importance of examining the different forms of employee participation and enforcing continuous training in creative-relevant process in order to develop employee creativity. Keywords : consultative participation, creative-relevant process, creative self-efficacy, employee creativity, full-autonomous, semi-autonomous

The perceived effectiveness of democratic management, job performance, and citizenship behavior: evidence from a large Chinese state-owned petrochemical company

Democratic management, a unique union-based form of employee participation in China, is seldom studied in the employee participation literature. This paper investigates the associations between employees’ perceived democratic management effectiveness, employee job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), using 988 matching surveys of both workers and their supervisors in a state-owned petrochemical firm from the central region of China. We find that our measure of an employee’s perception of democratic management effectiveness is positively associated with an employee’s job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. However, the association between perceived democratic management effectiveness and employee performance is negative if the employee is a dispatch worker. Our interpretation of the findings suggests that an employee’s perception of democratic management effectiveness is a source of employee performance.

Are Mandated Health and Safety Committees Substitutes or Supplements for Labor Unions?

A recurring debate in the academic and applied world is whether workplace committees and other forms of employee participation are substitutes or supplements to labor unions. This study addresses this question by examining the effect of workplace committees on the enforcement of public policies. A number of empirical studies demonstrate a positive relation between unionization and enforcement of government labor policies such as OSHA. Mandatory employee committees may similarly improve the implementation of public policies by acting as collective agents for employees in the workplace, thereby increasing the probability that workers will exercise rights granted them under labor regulations. The paper tests this hypothesized committee effect on the exercise of rights by examining the state of Oregon's experience with mandated safety and health committees. By comparing OSHA inspection records for the two years preceding and following the implementation of committee mandates in 1991, it shows that mandated committees significantly increase the differences between OSHA enforcement in union and nonunion workplaces following passage of committee mandates. As a result, the predominant effect of committees is that of a supplement rather than substitute for labor unions in the realm of public policies directed towards safety and health.

Does Informal Participation Increase Job Satisfaction in Public Organizations? A Study on Civil Servants in Beijing, China

The current literature has deepened our understanding of the participation–job satisfaction relationship in public organizations. However, employee participation has various forms and each form may produce different effects on job satisfaction. The literature often fails to account for the effects of different forms of participation. This article fills this gap by specifically examining the effects of informal participation and the possible moderating effects of interpersonal relationships and career development support. Based on a survey of civil servants in Beijing, the article finds that informal participation has positive and statistically significant influence over job satisfaction. The effects are positively moderated by interpersonal relationships and negatively moderated by career development support. The results help us to gain a fine-grained understanding of the effects of informal participation and may serve as a starting point for more research on different forms of employee participation.

Direct employee participation in the management of polish companies

The main objective of this paper is to present the range of distribution of direct employee participation, its subject scope, and its eff ects in Polish enterprises. The fi rst part of the paper presents the essence of employee participation and its basic levels, measures and types. The paper also discusses the principal consultative and delegative forms of direct participation. Particular attention has been paid to the benefi ts resulting from the deployment of participatory methods of work organization in enterprises. The analysis in the study is primarily based on the results of our own survey and case studies conducted under the NCN funded project titled “The types, extent and economic eff ectiveness of direct forms of employee participation in Poland compared to the old EU countries.” Conducted analysis reveals a widespread use of forms of direct participation in Polish companies, but its scope and distribution have less intensity. The main motives for introducing forms of this participation in enterprises were economic reasons (productivity), and primary benefi t of its use was the improvement in quality of products and services.

The Role of Employee Participation in Generating and Commercializing Innovations in China

In this paper we are investigating the effect of different forms of employee participation on innovation generation and commercialization in China. To date, the concept of employee-driven innovation (EDI) finds very little recognition in China in research as well as in management practice. It seems to fundamentally contradict traditional values in Chinese culture. On the other hand, work realities change rapidly in China. Research suggests that EDI might be particularly relevant for innovations in skilled labour contexts. Based on a survey of 620 medium-sized and large companies in China we found clear indications that different forms of employee participation have a positive impact on innovation generation, but not commercialization, while the application of non-monetary incentives mediates a positive relationship of employee participation on both innovation stages. These findings underpin that EDI is also relevant for China.

The Impact of the Workplace Relations Act on Regional Patterns of Industrial Relations: The Illawarra Region of Australia, 1996— 2004

Work Choices fundamentally restructured the Australian industrial relations system in 2005, by marginalizing the role of awards and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, privileging individual contracts and restricting industrial action by trade unions. The Workplace Relations Act 1996 (WRA) represented a significant first step in this direction prior to the Liberal National coalition gaining control of the Senate in 2005. However, there has been no extensive workplace data of the kind produced by the Australian Workplace Relations Survey to take stock of the impact of the WRA. This study undertakes a stocktake of the impact of the WRA for the Illawarra region. It compares data for trade unions, employer associations, forms of employee participation, workplace reductions, industrial disputes and payment systems from the Illawarra Regional Workplace Industrial Relations Survey 1996 with a further survey in 2004. It concludes that while the WRA did impact on the region, the Illawarra nevertheless maintained a distinctive pattern of industrial relations in which the New South Wales State system was more influential. If this provides any indication of the wider impact of the WRA, it offers strong reasons as to why the government proceeded with Work Choices.

The development of employee financial participation in Estonia

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the development of employee financial participation in Estonia from patterns of employee ownership which was promoted during the privatization of enterprises in the transition period, to the emergence of different forms of employee participation, including employee share ownership and profit sharing schemes. The analysis of the changing institutional setting and legislation in Estonia in the context of EU accession serves as a basis for examining the actual diversification of forms of employee financial participation, and provides some suggestions of likely further development.Design/methodology/approachThe study combines results from earlier research, analysis of Estonian legislation from the late 1980s to the present time, interviews with social partners, data collected through enterprise surveys during the transition period and case studies, examining recent examples of financial participation.FindingsThere is no historical tradition of employee financial participation in Estonia. By far the most important development was in relation to early privatization, with the employee takeover of many small enterprises. However, majority ownership by employees in these firms has changed quite rapidly, so that now the dominant ownership pattern is of ownership by managers and outside owners. This phenomenon was observed both in quantitative studies and in case studies. There are very few cases of profit sharing. The need to transform acquis communautaire into national law in connection with the EU accession has recently led to debates about employee participation in decision making. Although the government and other influential political players do not promote financial participation, the discussion on the implementation of EU directives shows that the issue will be addressed and even new legislation could be adopted if an EU act on financial participation of employees were approved.Research limitations/implicationsIn contrast with employee share ownership, the incidence of which was quite recently assessed in a survey study of January 2005 for 722 enterprises, profit sharing has not been the subject of regular and/or recent studies. Thus, one should be cautious when estimating the extent of the spread of diverse forms of financial participation in Estonian companies.Practical implicationsDescription of the current status of employee financial participation can be important for policy makers for further development of the labour market in Estonia. Development of legislation following the trend in the EU, together with changes in the taxation system, could promote different forms of financial participation by employees, and could lead to strengthening employee motivation and productivity, especially in knowledge‐based companies.Originality/valueThe paper is a comprehensive description of the development and current status of employee financial participation in Estonia. The paper provides suggestions for further research.

Participation in European Companies: views from social partners in three Member States

The decision to establish a European Company (SE) is determined not only by the company but also by institutional factors outside the company. Employers' organisations and trade unions, with their long history of interaction within national systems of industrial relations, influence basic attitudes towards European integration, international business and related issues, such as board-level participation. This paper looks at the attitudes of social partners towards the SE and employee participation in three EU Member States: Germany, the UK and Spain. While Germany has a well-established system of co-determination, Spain and the UK had, until recently, hardly any form of employee participation. These two countries, and certainly their employers' organisations, were at least hesitant towards, and sometimes opposed to, all forms of regulation on employee participation. This attitude has long hampered policymaking on the SE and employee participation and may also determine future prospects for legislation. The authors conclude that employee participation in an SE will need to be the subject of the same learning process as has been the case with respect to European Works Councils.

The Influence of Ownership and Organizational Conditions on Employee Participation in Russian Enterprises

This article examines the incidence and forms of employee participation in decisions reported in a survey of one manager and one employee from each of 45 Russian enterprises in the fall of 1996. Of these enterprises, eight were state-owned, 10 had 'mixed'ownership, 17 had been fully privatized and 10 were newly created private firms. These four ownership sectors differed greatly in the forms taken by employee participation in decisions, but not in its overall incidence. Participation was reported to be significantly more common in enterprises in which employees had become owners, and in enterprises that had been shedding employees.

Are Mandated Health and Safety Committees Substitutes for or Supplements to Labor Unions?

A subject of recurring debate in both academia and the business world is whether workplace committees and other forms of employee participation are substitutes for or supplements to labor unions. One well-established effect of unionization is increased enforcement of government labor policies such as OSHA; this study investigates the enforcement effects of mandated safety and health committees. A comparison of OSHA inspection records for the two years preceding and following the implementation of committee mandates in Oregon in 1991 shows that mandated committees significantly increased the differences between union and nonunion workplaces in OSHA enforcement, with enforcement strengthening considerably in union workplaces but edging upward only slightly in nonunion workplaces. The committees thus appear to have acted more as supplements to than substitutes for labor unions.

The distribution of employee participation schemes at the workplace

Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning literature on the type of work organization which is most conducive to high performance. A common theme running through this literature is the need for firms to introduce schemes for enhanced employee participation. In this paper the distribution of such schemes is considered and the factors associated with their adoption examined. The willingness of establishments to embrace different forms of employee participation is found to be particularly strong in larger establishments that are part of big organizations. More recently established workplaces and those using advanced technology are also highly likely to have introduced a number of different employee participation schemes. The presence of unions at the establishment is not found to constrain their introduction. Employee participation is, however, a wideranging phenomenon and individual schemes differ markedly. It is therefore important to distinguish between unlike schemes. Their distribution is seen to conform to a four-way demarcation proposed by Marchington et al . (1992) and significant differences are found in the correlates associated with the incidence of these groups. In particular, representative participation is favoured by very different types of establishments over other types of employee involvement, though these are also far from internally homogeneous.

Symposium on Employment Relations Reform in the World Automobile Industry: Introduction

The international automobile industry provides a useful basis for examining the degree and nature of change in employment relations under a variety of external conditions. By studying auto firms in various economies, it can be observed how employee relations strategies relate to overall governance of the firm, to industry-level structures and institutions, and to the macro-economic and political institutions. These broader institutional arrangements in industrial relations may have a significant effect on how well the industry operates in both the domestic and international marketplace. From the studies which have been undertaken in a wide range of countries and automotive companies, some general patterns have emerged (see Kochan et al, 1997). Yet there are considerable variations in the pace of change and the degree to which both firms and industries in different countries have been able to adapt through incremental adjustments, as opposed to fundamental transformations. One common aspect of the adaptation process has been the search for greater flexibility in how work is organised and labour is deployed. Those systems which already have institutional arrangements that promote flexibility, and are generally decentralised in terms of their employment relations, have been better able to adapt through incremental adjustments. These include mature industrialised market economies, as well as some of the newly industrialising economies. For example, decentralisation has been particularly beneficial in the United States by providing the opportunity for wide-ranging experimentation with new work methods. By contrast, economies which have more centralised systems have had greater difficulties in adjustment. Another feature of the global auto industry, as pressures for greater productivity and quality intensify, is a greater premium being placed on workforce skills. New technologies require a higher order of both analytical and behavioural skills. Firms are having to adjust their payment systems accordingly, in order to attract and develop employees who have the required skills to ensure that the new production systems are successfully implemented and maintained. Some countries, such as Germany and Japan, which have well developed systems for skills enhancement have fared better than others. This is despite the fact that Germany and Japan have contrasting approaches to the way in which skills are acquired either on or off the job. In most economies, however, automobile producers are adapting their systems of remuneration to reward employees for skills rather than other criteria such as years of service. A third common factor in the experience of firms in the auto industry is the challenge of providing appropriate forms of employee participation or 'voice' in governance issues at the enterprise level. In most industrialised market economies, the trade union movement has been the traditional channel for employee representation in the enterprise. Indeed, the auto industry has been one of the strongholds of unionisation featuring some of the world's leading unions such as the UAW in the United States and IG Metall in Germany. However, declining rates of unionisation in many mature economies, such as the United States and Europe, as well as the development of non-unionised plants (for example, those owned by the Japanese in North America), have greatly weakened the union movement within countries where they were previously the strongest. However, there are some exceptions where levels of unionisation have remained very high. Some European countries such as Germany, which have legislated systems for employee representation, have experienced a smaller decline in unionisation. Newly industrialising economies such as the Republic of Korea, meanwhile, have experienced increases in unionisation and union militance. The issue of employee representation and involvement, nevertheless, remains a concern for the auto industry in all parts of the world. …

Worker Representation on Boards of Directors: A Study of Competing Roles

The study examines worker representation on boards of directors as a form of employee participation in organizational decision-making in 14 U.S. firms in the early 1980s. The authors develop a model of worker director role definitions and role performance to explain how opposition by managers and conventional board directors to labor advocacy on the board can make worker directorships ineffective labor voice mechanisms when other structures of participation are absent in a firm. The analysis shows that corporate managers and workers had widely divergent definitions of the worker director role: management emphasized downward communication from the board to employees, whereas worker directors and their constituents stressed the protection of workers' interests as the main function of worker directors. Both management and labor influenced worker role definitions and role behavior through selection and socialization processes.

Employee Participation in TQC: An Integrative Review

Employee participation is now considered a key element in the successful implementation of new management strategies in manufacturing industry. Relevant literature on the various forms of employee participation is reviewed with emphasis on its role in Total Quality Control (TQC). The complexity of the relationship between employee participation and satisfaction and some of the change processes associated with the introduction of TQC are also discussed. This information provides the background for a subsequent article, also published in this special issue of IJQRM, which presents a longitudinal study of the effects on employee participation and job satisfaction when TQC was implemented in a large Australian manufacturing organisation.

Joint Health and Safety Committees in the United Kingdom: Participation and Effectiveness-A Conflict?

There has been renewed interest in forms of employee participation in the United Kingdom. This paper examines aspects of one such form-employee participation in joint health and safety committees. After surveying the moves from a voluntarist to a statute based system of committees, the paper assesses the impact of recent UK legislation in creating new committees in manufacturing industry. Using data from a survey of 51 such committees the nature of employee participation and the relationship between employee representatives and the workforce is examined. Potential conflict between efficiency and democracy is probed, and weaknesses in the relationship between committee members and the shop floor are discussed.

Industrial Marketing under Employee Participation

Suggests that, although a number of European countries have introduced different forms of employee participation in decision making using more or less tight legislation, the most rigid, perhaps, was passed in Sweden in 1976. This law sets aside management's ‘right to lead and divide the work’ and ‘declares any and all matters of company decision making bargainable items’. Points out that, for instance, the USA have not moved towards this latitude at all. Maintains that present trends in company decision making are standard, though employee participation in this will differ from country to country. Chronicles that this trend is here to stay and that this may change the nature of industrial marketing and organisational buying behaviour. Uses empirical data from Sweden to reflect new situations for buyers and sellers on industrial markets. Summarizes by saying that the trend seems quite clear and that the correct direction seems to be the Swedish one.