Managerial Attitudes toward Participative Management Programs: Myths and Reality

Renewed scholarly interest in forms of participative management links theories of employee motivation with job design and organizational change. Of the various obstacles to initiation and implementation of employee involvement plans the managerial barrier, rather than employee, structural, or situational barriers, is the primary concern here. To empirically analyze managerial attitudes toward participative management programs a questionnaire instrument was developed and distributed to managers in four large organizations, netting a sample of over 200 managerial respondents. The findings of the study indicate that: (1) there is a “participation gap” in 13 of 15 practices surveyed where managers would prefer more participation than currently exists and; (2) managers who use participatory techniques overwhelmingly find that they have a favorable impact on employee performance and employee attitudes at work. The implications of the findings are that there is a high degree of interest in participative management and in most cases the actual and perceived benefits outweigh the drawbacks in the view of managerial personnel.