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This study reviewed a body of empirical research on Carole Pateman's democratic spillover thesis, which argues that democratic participation in the workplace spill over into political participation. The review revealed significant variance in defining and measuring of workplace democracy and participation among quantitative empirical studies on the spillover thesis. The review also discovered that majority of the reviewed studies omitted higher level participation as a predictor, and political efficacy, which is a mediating mechanism between workplace participation and political behaviors, in testing the hypotheses. Suggestions for future research and limitations are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between participation in decision making (PDM) and the organizational commitment of Nigerian and American employees working in the public sector environment. A focal concern of this study is the extent to which cultural differences or similarities between Nigeria and the USA impact this relationship.

The study first examined the measurement equivalence across both American and Nigerian sub‐samples for scales assessing levels of PDM and organizational commitment. While the item weights for measures of actual and desired PDM were invariant, the weights for items measuring organizational commitment differed between Nigerians and Americans. These weights were subsequently used to calculate affective, normative, and continuance commitment for the Nigerian and American sub‐samples and to test three hypotheses derived from the theoretical implications of cultural differences between Nigerians and Americans.

Taking into account measurement differences, both actual PDM and actual vs desired levels of PDM were related differently to the affective, normative, and continuance commitment of Nigerian employees compared to US employees. For Nigerian employees, both actual levels of participation and actual vs desired participation are related to affective and normative commitment. Neither measure of participation is related to continuance commitment. For Americans, only actual vs desired levels of participation were positively related with affective and normative organizational commitment. Actual levels of participation were negatively related to continuance commitment.

Future work should expand the sampling to compare employees working in Nigerian owned and managed organizations with American employees of organizations in similar industries and of comparable size.

In addition to its theoretical value, this paper also has substantial practical value. Staff commitment is an organizational outcome variable critical to the success of international development agencies and implementing partners. For example, anti‐US sentiment has increased in the recent years up in the Islamic northern sections of Nigeria. Employee organizational commitment is critical in such challenging terrains, as employees who are more committed are more likely to help their organization weather such negative conditions.

There have been very few previous studies on how Western management practices such as employee participation play out within the African context and how cultural differences affect the relationships between management practices and employee outcomes in Nigeria. Findings in this study may provide public sector managers in these contexts with an understanding of the possible impact of organizational cultures which include PDM.

To date, only a limited number of studies have considered WhatsApp groups. The purpose of this paper is to focus on single WhatsApp groups and explore their special characteristics and dynamics. The present study used the social support perspective, Big Five model and narcissism paradigm to predict the level of participation in WhatsApp groups with these variables.

The research was conducted in Israel during the Spring semester of the 2017 academic year and encompassed 127 students. Researchers used eight questionnaires to gather data: a demographic questionnaire; a perceived social support questionnaire; three characteristics from the BIG5 questionnaire: extroversion, openness to experience and neuroticism; a narcissistic questionnaire; questions about WhatsApp usage; questions about one meaningful WhatsApp group; participation level in the meaningful group; and group importance.

The findings confirmed that psychological factors such as social support, extroversion and narcissism significantly predict the level of participation in WhatsApp groups. It was also found that age, the level of group importance, being the group’s manager, WhatsApp usage and group’s subject play an important role in the participation level.

These results affirmed the importance of psychological factors when exploring new technological platforms, as the paper proposes that individuals may behave differently in various technological environments due to their psychological characteristics. The study expanded current research about a popular communication tool, WhatsApp, by examining it within the special context of WhatsApp groups. This focus enables researchers to follow the special dynamics that take place in a new technological platform.

To investigate the effects of managerial level – a manager's position in the organizational hierarchy – and budgetary participation on managerial performance and job satisfaction.

Questionnaires were administered to 184 managers that participated in an executive development program conducted at a major US university. The responses to 178 questionnaires were subjected to multiple regression analysis.

The results suggest that both budgetary participation and managerial levels have a direct positive impact on self‐reported managerial performance and job satisfaction.

This study shares some inherent limitations with other survey research. All measures used are self‐reported and may be based on self‐perception. As such, they may not reflect formal participation in or influence over budget settings by the respondents. The sample was not randomly selected, and consequently the results might not be generalizable to all managers. In addition, some self‐selection bias might be present: managers who enroll in executive development programs could differ from other managers.

The results have practical implications for organizations that use a budgeting system. They provide further evidence of the positive impact of increased budgetary participation by managers at all levels.

This study fulfils a gap in prior research by examining the effect of managerial levels, a variable not previously included in studies of the impact of budgetary participation in the US. The findings have implications for future research into the effects of budgetary participation by emphasizing the need to include managerial levels. They also have implications for the implementation of participative budgeting in organizations.

This study aims to predict the intention to participate (ITP) in public activities by utilizing five levels of e-participation reported in the literature. The study used the levels of e-informing, e-consulting, e-involving, e-collaborating and e-empowering as predictors of the intention to participate in e-government services.

An empirical test was adopted using a survey to measure the five levels of e-participation and the dependent variable, ITP in e-government initiatives. The survey included items from previous studies translated to Arabic. Subjects responded to a five-point Likert scale to measure their perceptions regarding the sub-dimensions of each e-participation level. Statistical analyses of the collected data were conducted to test the assumed hypotheses. Multiple regression of the five predictor levels was conducted to predict the ITP in e-government services.

All the estimated means of e-participation levels were moderately perceived. The regression results indicated a significant prediction of three levels: e-informing, e-consulting and e-empowering. The other two levels (e-involving and e-collaborating) failed to predict the ITP. The coefficient of determination R² resulting from the regression test was significant at the 0.001 level, which explained 61.9 per cent of the variance in the dependent variable.

The instrument used is a newly developed one in Arabic language, which might have influenced the results. The distinction between e-involving and e-collaborating might not have been recognized by subjects, which might have increased the limitations of the study. The results of this study call for more research to validate the instrument and try to see if new statements of e-consulting and e-involving might be employed. The other side could be to reduce the levels to three levels only or merge the insignificant ones into one (four levels only).

Governments need to assert the role of citizens in the decision-making process. Such assertion is done through the e-participation process.

Jordanians perceive the e-informing and e-consulting levels to be a foundation that can be easily attained, but jumping to the e-empowering level means that the society is keen on the partnership with the government.

This study is the first to use the participation levels (five levels) as predictors of the ITP. Most studies have utilized theories such as technology acceptance model (TAM), theory of reseaoned action (TRA) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and other technology adoption theories. Also, this research has established ground for an Arabic survey to measure such levels, regardless of their prediction or description purpose.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between unemployment and social participation and aim to identify the role of national policies and attitudes as possible mediators.

The authors use the 2006 EU-SILC module on social participation – a data set that provides rich information on social participation for 22/23 EU countries. They adopt a two-step multi-level design, allowing them to directly examine the impact of national policies and norms on individual outcome.

The paper reveals clear evidence that the unemployed have lower levels of social participation than the employed across a range of indicators. The paper also reveals that macro-level variables significantly affect the extent of these differentials in social participation. For instance, the authors found that societies that expose the unemployed to poverty risk have a larger social participation gap between the employed and the unemployed.

While the negative association between unemployment and social participation has been established in prior work, the study is the first one to employ a “large N” comparison and to use a multi-level design to statistically test the degree to which macro-level variables mediate the negative relationship between unemployment and social participation. The analyses were able to show that societal context can significantly alleviate the negative implications of unemployment for social participation.

The involvement of employees in a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR program) is one of the key factors for its success. Hence, it is important to understand employees’ reactions to participatory CSR activities. The purpose of this paper is to examine what kinds of benefits employees perceive from participating in CSR, to identify varying levels of participation and to discuss the reciprocal relationship between the perception of benefits and participation.

Based on semi-structured interviews with employees, the structuring content analysis resulted in a differentiated examination of perceived benefit clusters (classified as functional, emotional and meaning and morality) and in a clustered exploration of varying levels of participation (cognitive and behavioral).

The findings reveal that employees perceived all three clusters of benefits in relation to no/low, passive, active and enthusiastic levels of participation. The data provide insights into the relationship between perceived benefits and varying levels of participation, with a balanced and differentiated perception of benefits seeming to relate to higher levels of participation. However, employees may also benefit without a behavioral form of participation, for instance, from an improved team spirit.

Due to its methodological approach, this empirical study provides a rich picture of employees’ benefits according to varying levels of participation. The paper contributes to current CSR literature by examining self-oriented benefits, through identifying differing levels of participation, and by discussing their reciprocal relation. These findings contribute to research and practice through the implications for promoting sustainability approaches within companies.

The optimal level of customer participation is an important factor in service design. However, researchers know little about the impact of customer participation for their willingness to pay and hence organizations’ financial outcomes. This paper examines the impact of customer participation in a pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing system, allowing customers to pay any price they want for a product or service.

This paper reports the results of three experiments, in which the authors manipulated the level of customer participation (Study 1: Low versus high, Study 2: Medium versus high, Study 3: Low versus medium versus high) and measured customers' PWYW payments (Studies 1–3), customer satisfaction (Studies 1–3), perceived equity (Study 3) and perceived enjoyment (Study 3). Studies 1 and 3 were scenario-based experiments, while study 2 was a field experiment. Study 3 was preregistered.

The results support a direct effect of customer participation in service production on customer PWYW payments, yet only when comparing low to high levels of customer participation. High levels of customer participation lead to a decrease in perceived equity and an increase in perceived enjoyment, which in turn spilled over to customer PWYW payments through customer satisfaction.

This research provides causal evidence at the individual level of analysis for the relationship between customer participation in service production and financial results. The paper also provides insights into its underlying mechanisms.

Sport participation is not exclusively determined by individual socio‐demographic factors (micro level) since infrastructure factors such as the availability of sport facilities and sport programmes (macro level) can also play a role in this regard. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence for these determinants of sport participation using multi‐level analyses.

A survey among the resident population in the city of Munich was carried out in 2008 (n=11,715). Furthermore, secondary data on the available sport infrastructure in every urban district of Munich (n=25) were collected. Multi‐level analyses were conducted to find the micro and macro level determinants of sport participation.

The results show that aside from micro level factors, the availability of swimming pools and parks is especially important for residents’ sport activity. Moreover, sport activity in non‐profit sport clubs can be enhanced by both a good supply of sport programmes offered by sport clubs as well as a poor supply of programmes from commercial sport providers and the municipality.

Multi‐level analyses can be recommended for future research on sport participation. The use of GIS data would be fruitful in this regard.

It can be recommended that municipalities invest in the construction of swimming pools and parks.

The paper shows that multi‐level analyses are a relatively new method of analysis for research on sport participation and that they represent the most suitable approach for analysing multi‐level data.

Sustainable development may best be achieved by enhancing the commitment of local communities. Stewart and Hams (1991) argue that the requirements of sustainable development cannot merely be imposed but that active participation by local communities is needed. However, the terms ‘community’, ‘host community’ and ‘participation’ can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. Before entering a full discussion of host community participation in tourism planning, it is first necessary to explore the various potential interpretations of these terms and to define their meaning and function. This chapter therefore clarifies some of the issues surrounding the terms community, host, host community and participation. The major typologies and available models in relation to host communities’ participation in sustainable planning for tourism are also reviewed.