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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.

Public sector site is always known for its continuous games of power and control. Public managers often use control to enhance their power and to legitimise their actions. Empirical evidence showed that during the process of implementing accounting information system (AIS), the management adopted various strategies in securing accountants’ participation such as offering accountants to be part in the implementation process as change agents and change champions. Participation is seen as a mechanism to mitigate resistance and to cement commitment of the accountants to the new AIS which would ultimately produce “consent”. Theoretically, this paper is informed by Tannenbaum & Kahn (1957) contribution to organizational control structure, especially their idea that the total amount of control within an organization can be increased by emphasising decision‐making among different organizational members. Nonetheless, this paper argues that multilevel conflicts need to be resolved before participation can be secured and ultimately management control can be enhanced in organizations. The significance of participation in resolving conflicts in the public sector has been under researched and this deficiency remains the focus of this paper. Case studies were conducted in four Malaysian public sector organizations where the interplay of participation, control and conflict were observed and suggestions are proposed for future research.

Proper management and maintenance of building stock are vital to sustainable development of a city for a number of reasons, for example, the close relationship between building performance and residents' health. However, effective housing management requires active participation of the residents, particularly the homeowners. Yet, homeowners' participation in housing management in Hong Kong is claimed to remain at a low level because of its voluntary nature. This paper aims to empirically explore the determinants of participation behaviour of homeowners in private housing management in the city based on survey findings.

Founded on the literature reviewed, an analytic model for explaining homeowners' participation behaviour in housing management is developed. The model is then tested by means of logit regression with the data collected from a structured questionnaire survey conducted in summer 2009. A total of 346 respondents from 53 private multi‐storey residential buildings in the western district were surveyed.

In general, older, better educated and less wealthy homeowners are active participants in building management matters, keeping other things constant. Sense of community is also found to be a significant determinant. Besides, homeowners' approach towards building care is predominantly reactive since they engage in housing management because of their dissatisfaction with building quality. The findings of the research will provide valuable insights to public administrators for formulating better policies on private housing management.

The analysis results pose a positive view towards the effects of the communitarian approach to avoid free‐riding problems in housing management. In order to heighten the participation rate of homeowners in private housing management, local authorities or other public bodies can try to boost homeowners' sense of community within their residential communities.

This study is the first attempt to empirically investigate the determinants of homeowners' participation in the management of high‐rise residential buildings in Hong Kong.

The aim of this paper is to investigate relationships between strategic planning practice, management participation and strategic planning effectiveness.

A total of 87 questionnaires were collected from privately owned firms working in Egypt. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

Strategic planning practice, but not management participation, is significantly associated with strategic planning effectiveness. Further, both strategic planning practice and management participation jointly enhance the effectiveness of strategic planning.

Longitudinal data would be needed in order to prove that causal relationships exist. The common method bias restricts the inferences that can be drawn from this study. It would be useful to explore whether the results hold when other integrative variables are taken into consideration.

A wide use of strategic planning tools is one important element in organizational success.

Little research has so far examined the use and worth of strategic planning tools in organizations. One function of this paper is to re‐visit this area of research. It does so in one of the areas that have largely been neglected in past research in Arab countries.

In some form or another, the concept of employee involvement in management decision‐making has held an attraction for practitioners and academics alike for a very long time. The objectives which are set for it certainly vary from a desire for increased efficiency or prosperity on the one hand, through to more democratic relations within industry on the other. The favoured forms of involvement have also differed widely from better communication to worker directors, and to more recent “flavours of the month” such as quality circles. In principle, employee involvement as a broad concept has found many adherents.

This paper describes and analyses a system of participation operating in a firm manufacturing kitchen furniture (labelled as Kitchenco). It assesses the way in which the attitudes and behaviour of employees, shop stewards, foremen and managers have an effect upon, and are influenced by, the participative scheme. By organising the approach to the case study loosely around the framework developed by Walker, it is possible to identify the propensity to participate of the shop floor, management's acceptance of participation and the effect of the participation potential on the system at Kitchenco. A variety of research instruments were used for this purpose and it is the contention of the author that use needs to be made of observational techniques and a semi‐structured interview programme, rather than the more usual questionnaire approach, in order to generate a “richer” understanding of workplace industrial relations. One of the primary intentions of the paper is to discount the myth that participation is the latest panacea and to demonstrate that it does have important limitations; and yet to suggest that these drawbacks are not insurmountable but, rather, require discussion and analysis in order to develop our knowledge of them.

Worker participation in management (we will not be dealing here with profit‐sharing), otherwise known as “industrial democracy,” is studied intensively throughout the world, including Israel. Attention is directed at its ideological and theoretical, as well as its empirical, dimensions. Empirical research attempts to assess the degree of success of the different types of participation. Research findings point, disappointingly, to a generally low level of success of worker participation programmes.

Contrary to want-based services, customer participation has got lesser attention in high-credence services like health care. Customer participation for patients with chronic illnesses could be life-threatening and goes beyond the service organization’s physical environment. Realizing the importance of transformative service research in health-care services, this study aims to propose and validate the conceptualization of customer participation for patients with chronic illnesses.

The study uses sequential exploratory research design with mixed method research. The first phase is a qualitative exploration of the nature and meaning of customer participation by synthesizing theory and insights from semi-structured interviews (N = 75) with doctors, patients and paramedical staff. Next, survey data (N = 690) of patients with chronic illnesses is used to validate the proposed conceptualization. Finally, nomological validity was also tested on an additional survey data set (N = 362) using SEM and FsQCA.

The findings reveal that health-care customer participation is a three-dimensional behavioral construct in which a customer can participate by sharing information, involving in decision-making and ensuring compliance. The study also demonstrates that customer participation is a critical driver of satisfaction with life and perceived control on illness.

The research provides policy guidelines for owners and operators of health-care organizations in developing frameworks for collecting participation data, which can be used in strategies for seeking customer participation.

The research conceptualizes and validates “customer participation” as a multidimensional higher-order construct for patients with chronic illnesses, rarely focused in services marketing and management research on health care.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Public sector reform has focussed attention on how different models of change can contribute to organizational metamorphosis. Traditional “top down” approaches are unlikely to achieve the necessary change. Instead, using a case study of an Irish public sector organization, this article argues that direct participation, involving frontline staff, can play a key role in ensuring acceptance of change and in creating the conditions for employees to make effective contributions to their organization. Direct participation plays a vital role in employee development. However, it also places demands on organizations to adopt a more facilitative and supportive style of management and to put in place mechanisms that will ensure that participation becomes an integral part of the work process.