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This thesis explores the role and relationships of employee participation in decision-making (PDM) within the enterprise bargaining context. The advent of the enterprise bargaining to facilitate labour market restructuring has led to dramatic changes within Australian industrial relations, supposedly offering employees the opportunity to participate in changes to work practices, conditions of employment and rewards in return for employer gains in productivity (Niland, 1993). Productivity improvements have been achieved, but some researchers claim this has been at employees expense and that job satisfaction and affective commitment are declining as working hours increase, work intensifies, and job security diminishes. Employee PDM influencing more positive outcomes, such as improved productivity, satisfaction and commitment is appealing, but largely untested.Research data was gathered from the public, private and local government sectors to form two separate studies to test a model of PDM developed from the literature. The first Study analysed cross-sectional data to test the influence of PDM in relation to working conditions, work practices and rewards and outcomes of job satisfaction and affective commitment, while the second Study examined these relationships on an independent longitudinal matched sample. Analysis was conducted using Structural Equation Modelling with the EQS statistical package.Findings from both studies supported that higher levels of PDM correlate with higher levels of job satisfaction and affective commitment and Autonomy is the only significant mediator in the relationship PDM and affective commitment. Employees also perceived that increased task variety correlated with higher levels of PDM. Lower levels of PDM correlated with lower autonomy and perceptions of performance effectiveness. Although positive attitudes to PDM positively influence ++ / satisfaction and affective commitment outcomes, lowered perceived performance effectiveness and rewards compromise the gains achieved. These findings support the crucial role of employee participation in decision-making and sound a warning to practitioners in that increased demands for performance should not extend to role overload that reduces effectiveness, and must be matched with equitable rewards.

Includes bibliography. 1. Considerations of theory -- 2. Background and origins: worker participation in South Australia -- 3. State and party: the development and administration of policy -- 4. Case studies in participation: General Motors Holden; Colonial Sugar Refinery; Fricker Brothers Joinery; Minda Home; South Australian Housing Trust; South Australian Meat Corporation; Engineering and Water Supply Department; Department of Lands -- 5. Issues: the State -- 6. Issues: the labour movement -- 7. Prospect for industrial democracy in Australia in the 1980s.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis argues that the stakeholder paradox (Goodpaster, 1991) has hindered the achievement of meaningful consultation processes because it perpetuates a management-centered discourse of stakeholder engagement aimed at producing stakeholder consent and legitimating organizational action. In order to advance beyond the use of stakeholder consultation as a sophisticated public relations tool, and instrument of organizational power and persuasion, it must be treated as a series of activities (discussion, deliberation and decision making) linked together through the common modality of negotiative communication. / An analysis of practice guidelines, protocols and key informant interviews using a critical organizational communication approach evaluates the extent to which contemporary instances of consultation practice account for the specificity of stakeholder context, address power and capacity gaps between consulting organizations, and enables all stakeholders to engage in a negotiative dialogue that has a direct influence upon the decision-making process of a project. This thesis argues that operationalizing tenets of a critical communication framework within consultation practice has the potential to produce the conditions for conducting a meaningful consultation with community stakeholders.

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The main objective of this study was to investigate different forms of worker participation programmes and their implementation in selected countries including South Africa. Another objective was to study perceptions of managers and workers on forms of participation at two mining companies in South Africa, namely Vaal Reefs and Ergo Mines. The two mines were selected because they had dissimilar characteristics which would affect attitudes differently. Vaal Reefs Mine had a well established trade union movement whereas Ergo Mine was not very strongly unionised. The study focused on a comparison between the attitudes of managers and supervisors toward worker participation, at both mines. At Ergo Mine there was no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of managers and supervisors on a large number of variables which was not the case at Vaal Reefs Mine. The results seem to indicate that at Vaal Reefs, supervisors tended to identify with workers on the shop-floor. Workers at Ergo Mine seemed to prefer direct forms of participation whereas the workers at Vaal Reefs Mine seemed to want to participate in management decision through trade union representation and other forms of indirect participation. The main conclusion was that the form of worker participation in a particular environment depends to a large extent, on historical and prevailing conditions. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1995.

This study investigates the relationships between ownership, control, organisational structure and company operational costs. The workers’ perceptions of participation (financial and decision-making) and empowerment are measured between two labour intensive factories with different ownership structures. The first factory (Kopano) has a workforce that shares equity ownership, or holds proprietary title. It is significant to note that the Kopano workers share in the ownership of the manufacturing section only, and not the upstream activities (mining, etc.), nor the downstream activities (despatch, selling, marketing, etc.). Accordingly, the Kopano owner-workers concentrate on manufacturing only. Employees at the second factory (Lawley) have no equity stake; they do not hold proprietary title and are “normal” salaried employees. The hypotheses seek to identify differences between the two factories, relative to the worker’s sense of participation (financial and decision-making) and empowerment. The rationale is that the workers who hold proprietary title (Kopano) should have a greater sense of financial participation, decision-making participation and empowerment than the workers (Lawley) who do not hold proprietary title. This is tested via questionnaires at both factories and the results obtained strongly support the hypotheses. Given the abovementioned findings, the study then seeks to establish that there will be greater savings in operational costs at Kopano factory (where the workers hold equity title) compared to Lawley (where the workers are not involved in ownership participation). The rationale behind this hypothesis is that operational costs at Kopano should be lower than the operational costs at Lawley (because of the different ownership positions). An analysis of operational costs between factories supports this argument. The study finally seeks to establish a strong balance of probability that the results obtained are because of the different ownership structures. This is confirmed using Mill’s Method of Difference. However, identified weaknesses with this analytical tool suggest that conclusive declaration to this end be the subject of future research. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

This thesis explores attempts by state officials to enable workers and the principal trade union, the Confédération Générate du Travail, to participate at the workplace and in the French state from 1944 to 1948. At a time of increased state intervention and new social welfare policies, workers gained new responsibilities in the comités d'entreprises, or works councils. The regional government, the commissaires, helped to initiate worker control experiments, notably at the Berliet truck plant in Lyon. By the end of 1948, however, the strength of the French labour movement had not significantly increased, either at the workplace or in the state. In their demand for greater participation, workers faced resistance from state officials, employers and even unions. State actors, such as labour inspectors, prefects, and commissaires, actively sought social peace and greater productivity in 1944-1946. At the level of the shopfloor, the new comités d'entreprises gave workers, for the first time, an official voice in the firm. However, they had no say over production decisions. Nor did worker participation extend to unskilled workers, immigrants, or women. Worker participation did not go further at the time for three reasons. Employers intensified rationalisation measures at the workplace and refused to accept new powers given to the works councils. The CGT was insufficiently committed to workplace participation. Finally, the power of the centralised state was entrenched in the domain of economic planning but did not influence the workplace sufficiently to support participation, particularly in 1946-1948. The postwar settlement that led to increased growth in the 1950s was structured around the private sector and the planning capabilities of the state, at the expense of any involvement by labour. The exclusion of workers from planning decisions and the failure of worker control attempts led not only to the strikes of 1947-1948, but to a profound degree of powerlessness that was to mark the labour movement for the next generation.

The subject of employee participation in the public sector has been neglected in the academic literature of Australia. The present research aims to redress this deficiency. Its explicit focus is employee participation in Australian Government Employment (AGE) in the first six years of the Hawke Labor Government, that is, the period 1983-1988. The choice of this period is an important one. The election of the Hawke Government marks a turning point in Australian public administration: this was a government committed to the thoroughgoing reform of the public sector and employee participation was integrated into its reform agenda, albeit in the guise of industrial democracy. (For complete abstract open document)