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Employee participation is conceived as a four‐stage process (interaction, communication to and from management, influence by and on management, employee effect on decisions). Eighty‐two lower supervisory managers perceived the four stages as highly related except for influence by management. Further, the four processes of participation were found in approximately equal amounts (except for managerial influence). An examination by decision type showed that employee and managerial influence were inversely related on corporate and departmental decisions, but were unrelated on departmental employee and operational decisions. Employees engaged most in participation on departmental employee decisions and least on departmental staffing decisions. This difference in participation was greater for organisations of small size.

Past research identifies many positive outcomes associated with workplace exercise initiatives. Realizing these outcomes is, however, dependent on securing sustained employee participation in the initiative. This study examines how organizational factors influence employee participation in workplace exercise initiatives.

The study utilizes data from 98 employees who were provided with the opportunity to participate in a workplace exercise initiative. Data were collected via an online survey as well as semi-structured interviews.

The paper shows that organizational, rather than individual-level, factors had the greatest impact on employee participation in workplace exercise initiatives. Leadership support for well-being was particularly important and had a significant effect on participation frequency. This relationship was moderated by employee perceptions of employer intentions, such that the more genuine and caring an employer’s intentions were perceived to be, the more likely employees were to participate. Our findings also show that perceived employer intentions have a significant direct effect on employee participation.

We extend research on employee participation in well-being initiatives by considering the influence of organizational, rather than individual-level, factors.

This research is of practical significance as it highlights the importance of positive leadership in fostering physical well-being in the workplace. It reinforces that sustained participation in workplace exercise initiatives requires deliberate planning, promotion and support from organizational leaders.

Most studies of workplace exercise and well-being initiatives focus on individual barriers to participation. Our study highlights the important role of leadership support and perceived intentions as organizational influences on employee participation.

This paper examines the relationship between participation and job performance. It also seeks to identify the impact of individual variables on the level of participation among managerial employees in the Public Service Department in Malaysia. Finally, it attempts to determine whether Porter and Lawler's (1968)‐expectancy model could represent an appropriate framework for studying employee participation. The results indicate that the level of perceived participation among managerial employees is high and that employee participation has acmoderate and positive relationship with job performance. The findings appear to match other studies conducted in the West, suggesting that these studies were not very much different across cultures. Managerial employees place equal importance on intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes. Employee participation could be better managed if employees possess certain critical factors. These include high job abilities, greater need for achievement, and a substantial amount of motivation. This study also suggests that Porter and Lawler's (1968) expectancy model is a suitable framework for studying employee participation.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an applicable solution to help organizations to solve the problem of participation vs privacy in office buildings.

A theoretical model is proposed based on research claims that employees' participation motivated by three issues simultaneously is likely to shape the ideal overall participation map in office layouts. These are organizational, physical planning, and personal characteristics issues. The model was applied to a case study and results were compared with employees' reaction.

Once the model was applied, results revealed misallocation of 63 per cent of staff in their workspaces. Results support employees' reaction towards their dissatisfaction with the level of participation vs privacy they possess in their workspaces.

Each organization could have a different participation map due to variations in organizational and personal characteristics issues. Further research is needed to understand relationships among the three incorporated issues.

The proposed model could be easily applied and would provide organizations with ideal office layouts that would support productivity.

The outcome of the implementation of a Total Quality Control (TQC) programme in a large manufacturing enterprise in Australia is described. Emphasis is given to the effects of TQC on employees′ perceived participation in the programme and concomitant employees′ job satisfaction. An extensive discussion of the relationships between these variables and TQC is contained in the preceding article. The results obtained from this study show that job satisfaction is related to employee participation, but to varying degrees at different job levels. Surprisingly, it was also found that there was a low increase in perceived employee participation following the implementation of TQC. The need for further research in the area is clearly shown. Future research should be based on more comprehensive research designs that incorporate longitudinal studies and investigate the differential effects of TQC at various job levels within an organisation. This approach will facilitate a better understanding of the complex dynamics within organisations when such programmes are implemented.

Employee participation is often suggested to improve employees' relations to the organization. A multidimensional perspective on employee participation may heighten its specificity. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the relationships between multiple dimensions of employee participation and social identification.

The study applies questionnaire data from 166 hospital employees, i.e. nurses, physicians and medical secretaries, in a cross‐sectional design. Hierarchical regression analyses were applied to investigate the hypothesized associations.

The results showed that individual influence on proximal (i.e. work‐related) issues predicted organizational identification. The relevance of proximal issues and psychological involvement in relation to direct participation were suggested to explain why this particular dimension of participation is directly associated with organizational identification. The result qualifies the theoretical notion that participation symbolically signals inclusion and status in the organization.

The result emphasizing participation in decisions about work issues may be limited to the highly meaningful patient work in the health care context. Future studies are to establish if the findings may be generalised to other contexts.

The originality of the study lies in the applied combination of participation dimensions, the inclusion of organizational identity at different social foci, and the application of social identity as a theoretically well‐grounded concept of employees' relations to their organization.

This study examines how employee participation in the performance measurement system affects the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction.

Survey data for this study were obtained from 322 employees in South Korea. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping method were applied to test the proposed hypotheses.

This study first confirmed that authentic leadership positively affects job satisfaction. In addition, the results showed that employees' participation in developing performance measures partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction.

The findings imply that employees' participation in developing performance measures, which is promoted by authentic leadership, can be a strategy for enhancing job satisfaction. Therefore, in order to increase employees' job satisfaction, organizations need to promote employee participation in the performance measurement system and develop authenticity in leaders.

Employees' participation in developing performance measures has not been investigated sufficiently from the leadership perspective. This study expands the literature on the influence of employee participation in the performance measurement system on work-related outcomes by demonstrating that employees' participation in developing performance measures partially mediates the effect of authentic leadership on employee job satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the development of employee financial participation in Estonia from patterns of employee ownership which was promoted during the privatization of enterprises in the transition period, to the emergence of different forms of employee participation, including employee share ownership and profit sharing schemes. The analysis of the changing institutional setting and legislation in Estonia in the context of EU accession serves as a basis for examining the actual diversification of forms of employee financial participation, and provides some suggestions of likely further development.

The study combines results from earlier research, analysis of Estonian legislation from the late 1980s to the present time, interviews with social partners, data collected through enterprise surveys during the transition period and case studies, examining recent examples of financial participation.

There is no historical tradition of employee financial participation in Estonia. By far the most important development was in relation to early privatization, with the employee takeover of many small enterprises. However, majority ownership by employees in these firms has changed quite rapidly, so that now the dominant ownership pattern is of ownership by managers and outside owners. This phenomenon was observed both in quantitative studies and in case studies. There are very few cases of profit sharing. The need to transform acquis communautaire into national law in connection with the EU accession has recently led to debates about employee participation in decision making. Although the government and other influential political players do not promote financial participation, the discussion on the implementation of EU directives shows that the issue will be addressed and even new legislation could be adopted if an EU act on financial participation of employees were approved.

In contrast with employee share ownership, the incidence of which was quite recently assessed in a survey study of January 2005 for 722 enterprises, profit sharing has not been the subject of regular and/or recent studies. Thus, one should be cautious when estimating the extent of the spread of diverse forms of financial participation in Estonian companies.

Description of the current status of employee financial participation can be important for policy makers for further development of the labour market in Estonia. Development of legislation following the trend in the EU, together with changes in the taxation system, could promote different forms of financial participation by employees, and could lead to strengthening employee motivation and productivity, especially in knowledge‐based companies.

The paper is a comprehensive description of the development and current status of employee financial participation in Estonia. The paper provides suggestions for further research.

The authors argue that many core findings are not as established as often assumed in the study of corporate volunteering programs, and they assess this possibility by reporting a meta-analysis of both organizational and employee participation that includes relations with antecedents and outcomes at both organizational and employee levels.

The authors perform a meta-analysis of 57 sources, including 30 peer-reviewed articles, 16 theses/dissertations, 8 unpublished manuscripts, 2 conference presentations and 1 book chapter.

Of the antecedents, organizational size only had a small relation with organizational participation, but the effect of corporate social responsibility orientation was very large on organizational participation. Demographic characteristics as well as personality traits had a small relation with employee participation, whereas the effect of volunteering attitudes was large on employee participation. Of the outcomes, organizational participation did not significantly relate to customer perceptions. Employee participation had nonsignificant or small relations with well-being, commitment, job satisfaction and positive behaviors; however, organizational participation also significantly related to all employee-level outcomes, and the effect was significantly stronger than employee participation for two of four outcomes.

Organizations can better understand the true influence of corporate volunteering programs, aiding their bottom line and employee well-being.

Several commonly assumed antecedents and outcomes do not relate to corporate volunteering participation, and future research should be redirected to more influential effects. The authors’ discussion highlights theories that may be particularly beneficial for the study of corporate volunteering, including social identity theory and role expansion theory.

In the digital age, enterprise social media (ESM) use is becoming more prevalent in the workplace. The “group” function is a very important part in the use of ESM. This paper explores how the characteristics of employees' task requirements affect their group participation behaviors on the ESM.

Based on information processing theory, the authors establish a two-stage research model to explore the impact of task characteristics on employees' online group participation behavior in the context of ESM. Data were collected using a survey of 341 Chinese employees.

The results indicate that (1) task interdependence was positively correlated with participation in small closed groups; (2) task complexity was positively correlated with participation in small groups, large closed groups and open professional groups and (3) task non-routineness was positively correlated with participation in small groups, large closed groups and open professional groups.

This study builds on the literature on task characteristics, information processing theory and employees' online group participation behavior, contributing to the research on ESM in the field of information systems and providing guidance for enterprise practice.