Nose to Tail: Using the Whole Employment Relationship to Link Worker Participation to Operational Performance

Abstract

Although many employers continue to adopt various forms of worker participation or employee involvement, expected positive gains often fail to materialize. One explanation for the weak or altogether missing performance effects is that researchers rely on frameworks that focus almost exclusively on contingencies related to the workers themselves or to the set of tasks subject to participatory processes. This study is premised on the notion that a broader examination of the employment relationship within which a worker participation program is embedded reveals a wider array of factors impinging upon its success. I integrate labor relations theory into existing insights from the strategic human resource management literature to advance an alternative framework that additionally accounts for structures and processes above the workplace level -namely, the (potentially implicit) contract linking employees to the organization and the business strategies enacted by the latter. The resulting propositions suggest that the performance-enhancing impact of worker participation hinges on the presence of participatory or participation-supporting structures at all three levels of the employment relationship. I conclude with implications for participation research. Suggested Citation

Complementary or conflictual? Formal participation, informal participation, and organizational performance

“…However, while unionization could somehow proxy for an absence of trust, it is probably even more likely to signal the breadth and depth of a formal worker participation program (Cox, Marchington, & Suter, ). Whereas Marchington and Suter describe the formal participation program in their research setting as “dilute and localized” (p. 285), the one we examine—with manifestations at both the strategic and functional levels of the employment relationship, in addition to the workplace level (Litwin, )—appears to be much more far reaching and deeply rooted. Theoretically, these attributes should advantage Kaiser Permanente's program over the one at RestaurantCo, as existing research makes clear that the most effective participation programs are those that are more deeply embedded in the organization (Cox, Zagelmeyer, & Marchington, ; Levine & Tyson, ; Litwin, ).…”

“…In fact, the literature has yet to even converge upon a single label for the participation construct (Wilkinson & Dundon, ). As noted in Litwin (, pp. 169–170), “Terms such as voice, involvement, and empowerment, sometimes prepended with qualifiers like employee, direct or indirect, or online or offline, can be defined any number of ways and with varying degrees of specificity.” In particular, Wilkinson and Dundon (, p. 168) note that researchers could be referring to something as narrow as “formal, ongoing structures of direct communication,” such as teams or team briefings, yet they might also be referring to something as informal as “any form of delegation to or consultation with employees.”…”

“…One possible explanation for this missing evidence is that those who run the firm are not genuinely committed to frontline engagement. This could yield a situation in which workplace‐level participative structures exist in principle but are neither buttressed by an organization that has made a “strategic choice” to engage its workforce nor reinforced by an employment contract that sufficiently incentivizes frontline workers to put forth discretionary effort and tightly held information (Appelbaum et al, ; Ichniowski & Shaw, ; Jones, Kalmi, & Kauhanen, ; Litwin, ). Empirical work that has accounted for these sources of heterogeneity has, indeed, demonstrated the participation‐performance link (e.g., Batt, ; Litwin, ; Rubinstein, ).…”

“…Note that just because there is a mandate from the top of the organization for formal participation does not mean that that mandate is manifesting itself at the workplace level as organizational leaders intend it to (e.g., Litwin, ). In fact, Kaiser Permanente documented this specific problem of workers not even realizing they are UBT members and how alarming that is to Kaiser Permanente managers (Miles, ).…”

Local Adaptation Without Work Intensification: Experimentalist Governance of Digital Technology for Mutually Beneficial Role Reconfiguration in Organizations

“…The literature on technology, work, and employment and the literature on digital innovation, institutions, and professional work each address this question. Scholars of technology, work, and employment suggest that loss of control and work intensification for less powerful actors around technology introduction and integration can be minimized by formal worker protections (Kochan et al 2013, Kochan and Rubinstein 2000, Kelly and Moen 2020, which facilitate periodic collective bargaining (Batt 1999, Gittell et al 2004, Kochan et al 2013) and worker participation during technology implementation (Adler et al 1997(Adler et al , 1999Liu and Batt 2007;Litwin 2011Litwin , 2015). Yet, as noted, formal worker protections are in decline (Kochan et al, 2019).…”