Employee Perceptions About Participation in Decision-Making in the COVID Era and Its Impact on the Psychological Outcomes: A Case Study of a Cooperative in MONDRAGON (Basque Country, Spain)

Abstract

This research aims to study possible effects or impacts of COVID-19 in the context of a democratic organizational system analyzing how COVID-19 has influenced employees’ perception of their participation in decision-making and its impact on some psychological outcomes and emotions. COVID-19 has accelerated the process of implementation of new frameworks at work (digitalization, teleworking, new skills, and abilities) that have generated the modification of culture and employee management practices. Our hypothesis are, on the one hand, that COVID-19 has generated changes in participation structures and internal communication mechanisms, having to make modifications not to deteriorate the perception of employees about their participation in decision making. On the other hand, COVID-19 has generated changes in the psychological outcomes and emotions of the employees. In the study, we analyze a cooperative belonging to the MONDRAGON cooperative group, where participation in decision-making and ownership is in its DNA. Through qualitative (5 focus groups) and quantitative (short questionnaire) methodologies, involving 42 employees, we investigate firstly, how COVID-19 has affected perceptions about participation in decision-making analyzing what role has played internal communication in these perceptions. Secondly, we investigate how COVID-19 has affected psychological outcomes and emotions. In this case, the perceptions arising from participation in decision-making focus on the assessment that participators make of the governance channels and the day-to-day meetings. Therefore, their appropriateness seems to be a key factor in the perception of participation in the COVID-19 era. Differences have been detected between the perceptions of blue and white collar employees. Such differences have also been founded in the psychological outcomes and emotions. Although this is a single case study, the analysis carried out provides elements of reflection to modify and restructure the decision-making and participation mechanisms, adapting them to the needs of blue and white collar employees in order to “guarantee” the expected outcomes.

An analysis of the Mondragon case's competitiveness from a systemic perspective

“…In a case study carried out by Arregi, Gago and Legarra (2022) in October 2020, the new forms of work incorporated as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic changed people's perception of participation in decision-making in the company. Normalisation of the health situation is expected to change this perception.…”

Participatory Bureaucracy: Addressing Gender Inequality in Worker Cooperatives

“…While the early warnings of cooperative "death or degeneration" may have dramatically overestimated the risk of death-worker cooperatives are no less likely to fail than similarly small non-cooperative businesses (Jones, 1979;Dow, 2003;Olsen, 2013)-the Webb and Webb (1897) degeneration thesis has proved more prognostic. Financial success and longevity have not consistently been correlated with lasting shop-floor democracy or reductions in workplace inequality (Taylor, 1994;Russell, 1995;Stohl and Cheney, 2001;Flecha and Ngai, 2014), although it has also seemed to be that stratified degeneration and egalitarian regeneration are perhaps more reversable and overlapping processes than once claimed (Bretos, Errasti and Marcuello, 2020;Arregi, Gago, and Legarra, 2022). Historically, though, more diverse, democratic, and egalitarian worker cooperatives have rarely thrived economically (Roediger, 1999(Roediger, , 1991Pencavel, 2001;Leikin, 2004), leading to a broad-although not complete-consensus that cooperative workers must choose between less well-paid participatory democratic control, or the economic stability of weakly democratic bureaucracy and a stratified or homogeneous workforce.…”

Determined to be resilient: Analysis of the well-being of people with disabilities (People of determination) in Abu Dhabi during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Surprisingly, social distancing and lockdowns have reduced diagnosis rates of infectious diseases, as would be expected with reduced social contact [7,8]. However, at the start of the pandemic, in general, many public institutions responsible for relevant policies and decisions did not declare the specifics of who is most affected by COVID (i.e., age composition, more elderly, people with disabilities) [9,10]. As a result, the pace of involvement varied significantly from one country to another [11].…”