Worker Participation—Some Under‐Considered Issues

Abstract

This paper deals with a variety of issues regarding participation that may have received too little attention or that may be viewed from a different perspective. These include the sometimes faddist interest in the topic, participation as a form of bargaining, and alternate research strategies. It also reports on the current status of several once-publicized participation sites.Worker Participation-Some Under-Considered Issues I         '  (and a related topic, unions) for over fifty years. 1 Perhaps because of my longevity, the editors of this symposium gave me an open-ended invitation to comment on participation generally. I will take advantage of this invitation to discuss a few issues that I find particularly interesting and deserving of more attention than they currently receive. The result, I'm afraid, is a fairly disjointed paper since I seek to avoid issues already adequately covered elsewhere or at least to view them from a different perspective.My perspective on participation has always been somewhat ambivalent and sometimes cynical. I have always believed participation as a theory, in part because when it works (a key point), it provides a win-win solution to a central organizational problem: how to satisfy workers' needs while simultaneously achieving organizational objectives. Today, my view is that workers' participation can "work" (by a variety of measures) but making it work is very difficult. My hopes for it are considerably diminished.

Context, strategy and financial participation: A comparative analysis

“…Strauss (2006: 779) argues that the concept of 'financial participation' is a misnomer: financial schemes do not give workers a real voice in running firms. In most instances, the best workers can hope for in terms of influencing company policy under a share ownership scheme is via annual general meetings; in practice, this is unlikely to be successful, with drivers of shareholder activism commonly being external hostile raiders, for whom the interests of the target firm's workforce are far from constituting a priority (Strauss, 2006). In the US, management frequently acts as the legal trustee of employees' shares and can vote on their behalf at annual general meetings.…”

Economic Development Plan and Employee Participation in Public Sector in Malaysia

“…From the previous literatures, different writers and researchers have used different definition and terminologies in addressing EP in organizations (Strauss, 2006;Parasuraman, 2007). Salamon, (1992, p. 340) claims that EP "is a term which does not have a universally accepted meaning".…”

Better than Nothing? Is Non-union Partnership a Contradiction in Terms?

“…Though management recognised a need for a system of representation, most did not believe union recognition to be appropriate, suggesting that non-union partnership represented part of a specific strategy towards trade unionism and employee voice (Millward et.al, 2000;Strauss, 2006;Wood and Fenton-O'Creevy, 2005). There was limited explicit evidence that the main objective of management was to exclude or avoid unions, by quickly creating a non-union mechanism as a substitute.…”