T his article asks us to consider, on ethical grounds, the superiority of participative management over more autocratic alternatives. The author questions the predominance of the autocratic choice in both management practice and theory. Applying the examples of both political and economic history, the author challenges why management seems to be the last bastion of the autocratic choice. Also based on these examples, the author questions how long the autocratic tradition in management can last.

This article reports a study of five manufacturing organizations with performance gainsharing plans, in which 100 nonmanagement employees responded to job characteristics scales from the Job Diagnostic Survey and were evaluated by their supervisors with respect to prosocial organizational behavior. The number of suggestions employees contributed to formal employee involvement systems was found to be positively related to perceptions of job complexity. A significant interaction revealed that suggestion making was also positively related to assisting behavior (a measure of extra role prosocial behavior), but only for employees reporting that they experienced relatively high levels of job complexity. Suggestion making was not found to be related to compliance (a measure of role-prescribed prosocial behavior). The authors present implications for further research on prosocial organizational behavior and the management of high-involvement gainsharing plans.

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