Participation and common-ownership : a study of employee participation in a common-ownership firm

• Main Author: Hadley, R. D.
• Published: London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) 1971
• Subjects: 331
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.363243

Employee participation in a itish oOtXI!non. OWnerShip firm is e the light of some of the major criticiams of workers' se1f-managemt. Thi'eG aspects of participation are isolated: employee involvement, the purposes of I involvement, arid, the control or influence exercised as a result of involvement. videnca on the nature and extent of participation is drawn from a study of the history of the first nine yeara of the common-ownership experiment, and from a field survey carried out in the firm at the end of te period. This evidence suggests that only a small minority of employees took an active part in the participative system of the organisa'tiori, that there was litti. unity of purpose amongst the nployees in their use of the system, aid that a relatively small degree of irifluenoe or control 'was exereised b,r employees over top mamagemente A model is outlined of the main factors hypothesised. to afjct involvement. These factors include employees' perceived needs, the perceived relevance of participative activities to the satisfaotioi of these needs, arid the perceived I costs of undertaking the activities in question. The low level of involvement identified in the firm studied is related. to a situation in which it appeare4 that the Imrticiative activities concerned were of united, relevance to many of the employees, and. that the participative system was likely to be seen as a 'high cost' one. Charges in the structure and leadership of the partic1pativ system are proposed to maxiuiise the relevance of involvement and mininise its costs, and. so provide the conditions for a more realistic exploration of the potential of self'management. Pinafly, an action research project is described which was carried out subsequently in the firm on the basis of this analysis. The findings of this project tend, to support the hypothesis advanced on tha factors effecting involvement. -