Participation in Decision-Making and Decentralized Bargaining

This text explores the role of employee participation
in decision-making within the devolved Australian
industrial relations environment. Workplace
Bargaining aimed to facilitate labour market
restructuring and improve productivity, but also
offered employees greater opportunity to participate
in changed work practices, conditions of employment
and improve their rewards. Concerns quickly emerged
as work intensified, hours and job insecurity
increased. Was employee participation even happening?
This text reports on a cross-sectional and
longitudinal investigation, using Structural Equation
Modelling to investigate these relationships. The
results indicate that participatory decision-making
contributes to job satisfaction, affective commitment
and productivity. The caution is that increased
demands for performance need to be matched with
equitable rewards and should not extend to role
overload, which can reduce commitment, satisfaction
and ultimately effectiveness.

Autorentext

Brenda Scott-Ladd PhD, studied at the Graduate School ofBusiness, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. Shehas many years experience as a consultant in OrganisationalDevelopment, Change and Human Resource Management to the privateand public sectors and has taught in Australia, Singapore,Malaysia, Hong Kong and China.

Klappentext

This text explores the role of employee participationin decision-making within the devolved Australianindustrial relations environment. WorkplaceBargaining aimed to facilitate labour marketrestructuring and improve productivity, but alsooffered employees greater opportunity to participatein changed work practices, conditions of employmentand improve their rewards. Concerns quickly emergedas work intensified, hours and job insecurityincreased. Was employee participation even happening? This text reports on a cross-sectional andlongitudinal investigation, using Structural EquationModelling to investigate these relationships. Theresults indicate that participatory decision-makingcontributes to job satisfaction, affective commitmentand productivity. The caution is that increaseddemands for performance need to be matched withequitable rewards and should not extend to roleoverload, which can reduce commitment, satisfactionand ultimately effectiveness.