Managing Democratic Organizations I

Volume I

Frank Heller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429779367
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

First published in 2000, this volume, along with its counterpart, consist of contributions to the history of management and management thought which ask and assess how important managing democratic organizations is today, and how important it will prove to be moving forward, presenting both optimistic and pessimistic interpretations. This collection describes three interrelated research programmes in the form of 38 classic essays and lists 21 authors.

Part I
Background, History and Definitions

Overview Part I

The objective of Part I is clear from its title. The following nine essays set the scene for the description of the three research programmes in the following chapters.

The opening essay by Dachler and Wilpert (Chapter 1) has become a classic. It draws attention to the diversity of approaches and lack of theoretical coherence in the existing literature which comes from many disciplines and different value positions. Making use of several disciplines, the authors provide a coherent conceptual framework from a balanced value position.

Malcolm Warner's essay (Chapter 2) gallops through over 2500 years of selected aspects of democratic history. The author shows that there is no linear evolution and probably no progress, just diversity, some successes and many failures. Can we now do better? The arguments and evidence presented in Parts II to V attempt to answer this question.

'The Many Faces of Power and Liberty' by Peter Abell (Chapter 3) treats power from a formal and theoretical perspective derived from a sociological approach to freedom and liberty. Starting with Weber's famous conceptualization and concentrating on two actors, A and B, he distinguishes, inter alia, between a positive and manipulative use of influence and power, Following on from this Heller et al., in Chapter 4, introduce the subject of power from a variety of political, sociological and psychological perspectives. Power and influence are related to organizational decision-making processes, giving rise to the contention that this requires a space-time open system perspective. Cross-sectional studies can make a useful contribution but, in most cases, a processual-longitudinal theoretical framework yields more profound insights. These considerations are relevant for understanding the designs of the three programmes of research described in Parts II-V.

Chapters 5and 6 by Cornelis Lammers describe theoretical models which facilitate an understanding of the complexities of power and participation in a variety of settings. Using distinctions like structural (power equalization-oriented) and functional (effectiveness-oriented) approaches, Lammers explores the role which participation can play in relation to conflict of interests as against harmony in organizations, and he interprets the evidence to suggest that, in conditions when common objectives are accepted, increased participation can be shared at all organizational levels.

In Chapter 7, Frank Heller presents the Motivated Competence Model which relates influence-sharing to experience and skill. Based on research evidence, the model suggests that authentic influence-sharing in complex modern organizations does not take place in the absence of relevant competence. Given this prerequisite, the dynamics of participation enables the available experience and skill to be utilized or at least less underutilized. This theoretical position is reinforced by evidence and arguments in later chapters, particularly 14, 15, 29, 31 and 37.

The last two essays, by Lafferty and Wilpert respectively, put forward powerful arguments and supporting evidence to regard participation as a critical requirement for personal growth, self-fulfilment, maturity and democratic development. This humanistic approach contrasts substantially from the traditional utilitarian assumptions, now dominant in the literature, which assign a functional-mechanistic role, treating participation as a productive outcome. However, it is the participation as life goal philosophy which informs much of the subsequent work presented in the three research programmes and links up well with theories and findings that associate personal growth with the development of competence.

It is interesting that the two authors finish up with almost identical conclusions although Lafferty starts from a political science perspective and Wilpert develops the subject by digging extensively into psychological evidence.

[1]
Conceptual Dimensions and Boundaries of Participation in Organizations: A Critical Evaluation

H. Peter Dachler and Bernhard Wilpert

This paper outlines a broad conceptual framework for participation in organizations, which provides an overview of four defining dimensions of participatory social arrangements in organizations and their often complex interdependences. The dimensions of participation discussed in this paper include the social theories underlying participatory social systems and the values and goals each of them implies for participation, the major properties of participatory systems, the outcomes of participation in organizations, and the contextual characteristics of participatory systems which limit or enhance their potential. The view of participation presented in this paper is of a multidimensional, dynamic social phenomenon, the study of which transcends questions unique to any given discipline paradigm and which requires an integration of micro and macro questions. The implications of this conceptualization for theory building, research, and methodology are briefly discussed.

Introduction

Participation in decision making and other topic labels which appear to designate similar content areas, like industrial democracy, worker self-management, power equalization, autonomous work groups, and democratic leadership, have created a large and rapidly expanding international literature. This literature embraces both vigorous discussions on the social policy implications of participation as well as mounting social science research on the phenomenon of participation. It has become increasingly difficult, however, to disentangle the many and often contradictory issues which are discussed in this literature. No clear set of questions, let alone a set of answers, which begin to define the nature of the participation phenomenon are discernible. Participation literature includes a plethora of undefined terms and characteristically lacks explicitly stated theoretical frameworks. The pervasive value bases underlying topic labels like industrial democracy and power equalization are not usually made explicit and are therefore rarely systematically questioned. But different value systems imply different definitions of participation, so that the term participation has a variety of meanings across investigators. In addition, the questions that are asked about participation, and the answers which are sought, are shaped by various paradigms which come from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, economics, political science, and law. As a consequence one observes a proliferation of concepts and a divergence of theoretical views. Since practice, policy-oriented discussion, and the scientific investigation of participation, transcend the purview of any given social science discipline, we find that the participation literature cuts across micro and macro issues. Thus participation is concerned with topics ranging from individual motivation and ability considerations, through leadership and group dynamic issues, to organizational factors and socio-political structures and processes within and between societies. Unfortunately, there are very few indications in the participation literature that the micro and macro issues are being integrated. We obviously do not yet have the conceptual tools for developing an integrated analytical framework that would allow the investigation of participation in its broadest sense so that the paradigms of the various disciplines could be combined.

The fragmentation of participation research and practice, the divergence of theoretical views, the inherent contradictions, and the heterogeneity in approaches, purposes, and origins of questions in principle could indicate an active, healthy, and rapidly developing area of social science, provided that the literature indicated some process of convergence. it must be emphasized that divergence of theoretical points of view and basic contradictions within a field of inquiry may be a natural outgrowth of viewing a complex and multidimensional phenomenon from fundamentally different vantage points. Orthodox approaches would argue that such divergence and contradictions, if and when they are made explicit, indicate nothing more than confusion, fragmentation, error, or an absence of meaning. Within this understanding, divergence and contradictions have to be resolved or controlled. The definition of convergent validity of psychological measures (Campbell and Fiske, 1959) or earlier arguments on convergent operationalism (Garner, Hake, and Eriksen, 1956) exemplify this view. Alternatively, it is possible to think of theoretical divergence and contradictions as an integral part of social phenomena. For example, Benson (1977) argues that according to a dialectical view of organization, contradictions grow out of socially produced change which then stands in contrast to the established social order. Furthermore, since social production is only partially or not at all coordinated and takes place in different contexts, it results in multiple and often incompatible social forms. Such a view implies that if existing contradictions and apparently divergent theoretical points of view are made explicit and can be integrated into a conceptual framework of the phenomenon under study, a process of convergence at some higher order of abstraction may result. Convergence in this sense may allow an integrated analysis of complex and multidimensional social phenomena which recognizes the dynamic nature of organization and the multiple vantage points from which the same complex social system can be meaningfully studied. In other words, a convergent framework must be able to encompass both divergence and contradictions. This paper begins to develop such a framework.

It is important to recognize that one can, on the one hand, think of participation as a central concept of organizing. It is difficult to specify the attributes of organizations without asking who makes what kind of decisions, and what procedures are used to make them. Rational coordination of activities for the achievement of some common goal, division of labor and function, hierarchy of authority and responsibility — all major attributes of organization — imply some or all of the issues usually subsumed under the term participation. On the other hand, participation in organizations is usually thought of as an organizational treatment or intervention strategy; that is, as a social technology (Scholl, 1976). Our analysis of participation initially concentrates on the organizational treatment view of it. But the main arguments of this paper indicate that the separation of these two views

of participation is an artificial one and is likely to continue the fragmentation which currently characterizes the participation literature.

This paper attempts to outline the major defining dimensions of participation and their interdependencies. A broad conceptual framework is presented in which it may be possible to integrate seemingly fragmented issues on participation. This framework may help in explicating and furthering our understanding of the existing contradictions in the participation literature.

Four broad dimensions of participation and their basic interrelationships are illustrated in Figure 1.

One dimension refers to the social theories underlying participation which represent the basis for the values and assumptions of the designers and implementers of participatory social arrangements in organizations as well as the goals and objectives in participation.

The second dimension involves the properties of participatory systems, i.e., the structures and processes along which different kinds of participatory schemes may vary.

The third dimension is concerned with the contextual boundaries within which participation occurs and which limit or enhance the potential of participatory social systems. These three defining dimensions will each be discussed in some detail.

The fourth dimension, the outcomes of participation, is considered primarily in the examination of the first three, since outcomes and what outcomes should be considered are a function of the other defining dimensions.

Figure 1. Overview of the defining dimensions of participation.

What a participatory arrangement means, i.e., its potential, is considered to be a function of all the dimensions listed in Figure 1 and their complex interdependence. After analyzing each of the dimensions separately and providing examples of their interrelationships, we finally discuss participation as a general dynamic system.

Theories and Goals Underlying Participation

Several authors have referred to various theories, value orientations, or ideologies as the origin for issues of participation in decision making (Pateman, 1970; Strauss and Rosenstein, 1970; Walker, 1974; Greenberg, 1975). Like Greenberg (1975), we distinguish among four major theory orientations for participation: democratic, socialist, human growth and development, and productivity or efficiency. In democratic and s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Series Preface
• Introduction
• PART I BACKGROUND, HISTORY AND DEFINITIONS
• PART II THE TOP MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING PROGRAMME (TMDM)
• Name Index