Worker Participation In Decision Research Articles

From Taylorism to teams: organisational and institutional experimentation at France Télécom

In this article we examine work reorganisation in technician units at France Télécom (FT/Orange) following the social crisis associated with employee suicides in 2007–2009. As a result of trade union campaigns and changes in leadership, the company moved to a more collaborative model, relying on broadened skills and enhanced worker participation in decision-making. Drawing on the framework of organisational and institutional experimentation, we argue that the crisis provided an opportunity to shift from top-down, Taylorised practices to a high-involvement model based on multi-skilled teams. This new model fostered mutual gains for workers in terms of increased autonomy and broadened skills, and for the employer through improved efficiency and customer service. It was underpinned, however, by the strengthening of labour’s countervailing power following the social crisis, which encouraged and supported managers in prioritising psychosocial health as a key organisational objective.

Museums as supportive workplaces: an empirical enquiry in the UK museum workforce

ABSTRACT Museums’ vibrancy and viability are heavily dependent on supporting the development and well-being of talented and dedicated people. Although issues of organisational culture and good management have gained increasing importance for the sector, there is little empirical research on how leadership and day-to-day work conditions in museums shape workers’ job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Framed through organisation theory, this paper draws on survey data from UK museum staff and volunteers to examine the role of transformational leadership in driving workforce job satisfaction and organisational commitment outcomes, as mediated by key job resources and demands. Our findings show that where a transformational approach to leadership effectively communicates a shared organisational mission there is a positive impact on worker attitudes. Practical measures are suggested on how museum leaders can achieve such outcomes by inviting worker participation in decision-making, promoting a sense of task significance, highlighting impact on museum beneficiaries and reducing role ambiguity.

Participative Decision Making and Employee Performance in the Hospitality Industry : A Study of Selected Hotels in Owerri Metropolis, Imo State

This study investigated the extent of the relationship between participative decision making and employee performance in selected hotels in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objective determined the relationship between leader behavior and employee commitment. Descriptive survey and questionnaire was adopted as instrument for data collection. The total population of the study comprised of 92 people. Simple random technique was adopted in distributing the questionnaire to the target audience. The hypotheses were tested and analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Coefficient to test the relationship between leader behavior and employee commitment. Findings showed that there is a positive relationship between leader behavior and employee commitment in the selected hotels in Owerri, Imo State. The following recommendations were made. It is advisable for organizations to integrate management by objective (MBO) at every level of the organization to promote high productivity in the workplace. Finally, organizations are encouraged to increase the frequency and level of worker participation in decision making between manager and subordinates.

Trust, Participation and Performance

This article studies the possible impact of citizen and worker participation in decision making (PDM) in the Israeli National Insurance Institute (INI) on the perceived performance of this organization, and trust in it. Such an impact is expected according to the rationales suggested by the New Public Management (NPM) approach. The findings show that customers and employees of the INI correlate trust with performance and outcomes much more than with participation in decision-making processes. We suggest a potential explanation for the weak relationship between PDM and trust based on the idea of alternative politics and segments of the political culture.

National Culture and Industrial Relations and Pay Structures

The paper develops an explanatory model of comparative industrial relations and labour market structures based on national culture. The four cultural variables derived by Hofstede (Culture’s Consequences, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984) are used to investigate the relationship between national culture and various dimensions of industrial relations and pay structures. The paper finds national culture to be associated with the centralization of bargaining, the extent of corporatism, the degree of co‐ordination in bargaining, the coverage of collective bargaining, trade union density, the extent of worker participation in decision making, and most dimensions of the pay structure. Hofstede’s MAS variable, measuring cultural values representing gender social structuring, is associated with both industrial relations institutions and the pay structure. The results provide support for our cultural model.

Worker participation in decision-making: Who benefits?

Abstract This article examines the benefits that derive from worker participation in decision-making (WPD) in enterprises and explores the question of who benefits from such participation. It does so by summarising the findings of three major surveys on WPD and one in-depth study of a fresh fish processing factory. It concludes that WPD leads to greater job satisfaction and increased worker morale in roughly two-thirds of the cases and to improved production performance in about one-third of the cases From the indepth case study it shows that not all stakeholders necessarily benefit from WPD in that fish workers did not benefit materially from improved performance at the factory. The article demonstrates that it is not always workers who do not benefit from WPD and identifies some conditions required to ensure that all stakeholders do benefit from WPD.

The Effects of Worker Participation, Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing on Economics Performance: A Partial Review

For alternative sharing arrangements, we review theory on the economic effects on employment, productivity, investment, income and wealth distribution, and life cycle and survival. We find that predictions are often ambiguous and that sometimes the nature and size of the specific effect is determined in part by the particular institutional arrangements. Next recent econometric work is studied. We review studies using aggregate and industry level time series data for Japan as well as studies that use enterprise and establishment level data for firms in North America and Western Europe. Worker participation, employee share ownership and profit sharing schemes are often found to affect that studies obtained conflicting results. However, available evidence is strongly suggestive that for employee ownership schemes to have a strong positive impact they need to be accompanied by provision for worker participation in decision making.

Russian managers' beliefs about work: Beyond the stereotypes

This study examines the beliefs about work of 292 Russian managers who were surveyed using Buchholz's (1977) 45-item instrument depicting six major belief clusters: humanistic belief system, organisational beliefs, work ethic, beliefs about worker participation in decisions, leisure ethic, and Marxistrelated beliefs. Although there were numerous similarities among responding groups, differences in some beliefs were found for managerial groups depending upon managerial level, age, and gender. Some of these findings go against stereotypes of the way Russian managers view their work. In addition, beliefs for two major managerial groups, Soviet-era executives and new entrepreneurial managers, are illustrated with profiles of two real-life managers. Interpretations and conclusions are offered for Western managers involved in selecting and motivating Russian managers and business partners, as well as for investors in Russian businesses.

Worker Participation and Productivity in Labor-Managed and Participatory Capitalist Firms: A Meta-Analysis

Using meta-analytic techniques, the author synthesizes the results of 43 published studies to investigate the effects on productivity of various forms of worker participation: worker participation in decision making; mandated codetermination; profit sharing; worker ownership (employee stock ownership or individual worker ownership of the firm's assets); and collective ownership of assets (workers' collective ownership of reserves over which they have no individual claim). He finds that codetermination laws are negatively associated with productivity, but profit sharing, worker ownership, and worker participation in decision making are all positively associated with productivity. All the observed correlations are stronger among labor-managed firms (firms owned and controlled by workers) than among participatory capitalist firms (firms adopting one or more participation schemes involving employees, such as ESOPs or quality circles).

Work organization, employment security, and macroeconomic stability

There is substantial evidence that both training and worker participation in decision making are more effective when employers avoid layoffs. When one company's choice to avoid layoffs affects the relative costs of layoffs for other firms, there is an externality and multiple equilibria are possible. If all firms lay off workers in recessions, then recessions will be deeper. Deep recessions, in turn, raise the costs of firms that have high levels of training, participation and employment security. On the other hand, if all firms have no-layoff policies, then recessions will be shallower, lowering the costs of such policies. In three data sets, training and participation are more common in companies with high levels of job security.

Should Formerly Socialist Economies Attempt to Leapfrog Classical Capitalism?

Formerly socialist economies of Eastern Europe have been advised by the West to adopt the property rights of classical capitalism. Yet the Western economies from which this advice emanates are all struggling to overcome productivity stagnation, resulting from the tensions between the interests of capital and labour. Experiments range from quality circles to far fuller worker participation in decision making and ownership. However, these experiments are coming forth slowly and timidly. Once in place, property rights are exceedingly difficult to alter. Thus those property rights chosen within East European economies over the next several years may be those which define these economies for the foreseeable future. Consequently, it would be an ironic and tragic twist of fact if East European economies were to turn now towards classical capitalism only to find that the future belongs to post‐capitalist forms of productive organization.

Public Policy Implications of Imperfections in the Market for Worker Participation

Increasing worker participation in decision-making can often increase productivity, but remains uncommon in the US. This paper reviews theories of why the market may produce less than the efficient amount of worker participation. A novel policy intervention in which tax subsidies are tied to multiple imperfect measures of participation is proposed.

Predictors and Moderators of Employee Responses to Employee Participation Programs

This paper explores mechanisms that help account for the relationship between individual involvement in employee participation programs and variations in affective responses to such programs. Proximity to and duration of members' involvement in participation programs are investigated, as are two potential moderating factors: organizational citizenship propensity, and individual discontent with the extent of worker participation in decision making. Proximity and duration both are associated with increased liking of employee participation programs in this study. The positive association is enhanced for those low in organizational citizenship or high in discontent. Implications of these findings for the creation and management of employee participation programs are discussed. Directions for future research are also suggested.

Participation, Productivity, and the Firm's Environment

While increasing worker participation in decision making can often increase productivity, it remains relatively rare in the United States. This article discusses how the product, labor, and capital market conditions that firms face can work against participatory firms and why the free market may provide too little encouragement for worker participation.

New technology: international perspectives on human resources and industrial relations

Part 1 Introduction: technological change, industrial relations and human resources management, Russell D.Lansbury and Greg J.Bamber. Part 2 From industrial relations towards human resource management: technological change - American unions and employers in a new era, Everett M.Kassalow collective bargaining and new technology - some preliminary propositions, Thomas A.Kochan and Boaz Tamir. Part 3 Towards industrial democracy and employee involvement: co-determination and technological change in the German automobile industry, Greg J.Bamber and Russell D.Lansbury worker participation in decisions on technological change in Australia, Ed Davis and Russell D.Lansbury employee involvement and worker perceptions of new technology in North America, Anil Verma and Wilfred Zerbe technological participation - options and constraints in human resource management and industrial relations, Peter Cressey and Vittorio Di Martino. Part 4 Managing change and the socio-technical approach: social factors in the introduction of new technology - a Scandinavian case study, Gert Graversen human resource management and the socio-technical approach, Frank Heller. Part 5 Gender, structural change, skills and labour market segmentation: technological change and women workers, Rose Marie Greve new technology, economic progress and employment in Sweden, Anders Backstrom new technologies - skills mismatch and the challenges ahead, Hedva Sarfati and Margaret Cove. Appendix: model new technology agreement.

Le mouvement participatif dans l'industrie automobile américaine : vers une nouvelle forme sociale structurelle ?

During this examination of the American movement of worker participation in decisions related to new practices of on-the-job négociation, the role of the participationist movement in the social history of the labor movement in the United States is recalled. Unlike in European countries, the establishment of a system of collective decison-making about work problems is related to the development of the unions in factories-shop stewards play a major role in work groups' activities.

Analysis of perceptual differences of factors related to participation in decision making: A quality circles based study

Worker participation in decision-making (PDM) has been advocated as a vehicle to improve organizational effectiveness. A number of studies have shown inconclusive findings on the impact of PDM on various measures of performance. In this paper, it has been hypothesized that this inconclusiveness could be attributed to the perceptual differences between supervisors and the workers. Information theory has been used to measure and compare the perceptual differences as they relate to (1) supervisors and quality circle (QC) workers, (2) supervisors and non-QC workers, (3) QC workers and non-QC workers. The findings indicate that information theory may be a useful paradigm to explain such perceptual differences.

Occupational stressors, biological stress and workers' health.

The evidence that occupational physical stressors can cause disease--in the sense that exposure, avoidance or manipulation of them increases, decreases, or removes the risk of becoming ill, or reverses ill health when it occurs--is established for a large number of stressors and diseases. The role of occupational psychosocial stressors is not so clear. Such stressors originate in work-related social structures and processes. They affect the human organism through psychological processes. They influence workers' health and well-being through four types of closely interrelated mechanisms--emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physiologic. The outcome is modified by situational factors (e. g., social support) and individual ones (e. g., personality characteristics and coping repertoire). The work environment-stress-health system is a dynamic one with many feedback loops. The author reviews complementary epidemiological and experimental evidence of patho- and salutogenic interactions within this system, emphasizing the importance of neuroendocrine mechanisms as well as work stress and health related behaviors. There is little direct evidence of a causal relationship between work-related social structures and processes and their change (or lack of change), and the incidence and prevalence of stress-related occupational morbidity and mortality. But, a substantial body of indirect evidence strongly suggests that such associations exist and emphasizes the need to better understand their role. Accordingly, the research approach should aim at being: systems-oriented; interdisciplinary; problem-solving oriented; health-(and not only disease-) oriented; and participative. Among those interventions for which preliminary evidence suggests the value of research are: Increasing a worker's control of the work arrangements; Providing mechanisms for worker participation in decision making on the organization of work; Avoiding monotonous, machine-paced, and short but frequent work actions; Optimizing automation; Helping workers see their specific task in relation to the total product; Avoiding quantitative work over- and underload; and Facilitating communication and support systems among work mates and others.

Mechanical Handling Engineers—A Case for Engineering Management with Style

This case study concerns a mechanical engineer who has strong views on business management. He purchased a small engineering company in Dunedin, New Zealand, and put into practice his managerial philosophies of worker participation in decision-making and profit-sharing. The paper reviews the progress of the company during its first three years and then discusses the options for its future development.

Productivity effects of worker participation in management, profit-sharing, worker ownership of assets and unionization in U.S. firms

In this paper we provide our first econometric estimates of the effect of worker participation in decision-making, ownership and profits on productive efficiency. Participation has the potential for exerting several conflicting influences on firm performance simultaneously. As a result both the direction and magnitude of its impact are empirical issues. Previous studies have empirically measured the impact of each of these forms of participation; however, no prior study has controlled for the influence of the other forms. Because of the potential for correlation among these forms of participation, it is possible that omitted variables bias has affected the previous results. Using a new panel data set with simultaneous measures of all four types of participation in U.S. manufacturing establishments, we model participation as disembodied technical change, and estimate production function coefficients for each type while controlling for the others. We use both OLS and instrumental variables in order to guard against potential simultaneity. The IV results indicate that participation in decision-making has a large positive productivity effect while the impacts of unionization and profit-sharing depend upon regression specification. Moderate amounts of indirect worker ownership affect productivity positively, while the estimated effect of direct worker ownership is negative. However, this last result may reflect the industrial concentration of the direct ownership firms in our sample.