Employee Involvement Theory

Employee involvement as defined by Marchington and Parker (1990) consists of „those practices which are initiated principally by management, and are designed to increase employee information about, and commitment to, the organization‟. It is a process usually initiated by management to increase the information given to employees and thus, enhance their commitment to the success of the organization.

There are different mechanisms for employee involvement in decision making. Attitude survey is one of the ways of involving employees by seeking their views on matters that concerns them. It can be used to obtain views about processes such as job evaluation, pay determination and performance management in order to assess their effectiveness and

Besides, employee involvement in decision making affects workers‟ performance. As a result of this, commitment of employees to the organizational goals is achieved. One of the channels through which workers‟ performance can be enhanced is giving employees more autonomy in making decisions that affect their job. This also affects the performance of the organization. From an HRM point of view, this is referred to as empowerment (De Cenzo and Robbins, 1994). Bohlander and Snell (2004) defined empowerment as „a technique of involving employees in their work through the process of inclusion‟. Bohlander and Snell (2004) continued to argue that empowerment encourages employees to become innovators and managers of their own work, and it involves them in their jobs in ways that give them more control and autonomous decision making capabilities. This means granting employees‟ power to initiate change, thereby encouraging them to take charge of what they do. However, from managers‟ point of view empowerment means managers desire from their staff to extend their contributions, quicken problem solving, be more proactive and take increased responsibility. Employees also view empowerment as a tool that provides them with more freedom in their decision making processes. It allows them to achieve a higher degree of autonomy (http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Empowerment/143397). The major obstacle to employee involvement in decision making is resistance to change by management (Bratton and Gold, 2003). Managers construct an organizational culture that reflects their own ideologies and styles of management and reinforce their strategies and control. Employee involvement in decision making poses threat to the more autocratic manager. Evidence provided by Rendall (1986) in Bratton and Gold (2003) suggests, however, that many managers tend to resist participation because „it is