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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.

The purpose of this study is to examine: direct effects of appearance management and fashion involvement on social participation; direct effects of social participation, appearance management, and fashion involvement on self‐esteem; and indirect effects of appearance management and fashion involvement on self‐esteem through social participation.

A total of 389 females aged 55 and over completed a mail survey measuring appearance management, fashion involvement, social participation, and self‐esteem. Principal component factor analysis was conducted to reduce multi‐items measuring the variables. Path analysis was employed to test direct and indirect effects among the variables.

The results of path analysis showed that social participation and appearance management had direct effects on self‐esteem, whereas fashion involvement had no direct effect on self‐esteem. However, both appearance management and fashion involvement had positive indirect effects on self‐esteem via social participation.

To maintain self‐esteem in old age, individuals should be encouraged to participate in social activities and appearance management activities. The fashion and personal care industry should have an awareness of older female consumers' needs and develop and provide age‐related products and services.

This paper provides important contributions to gerontology, retailing, marketing, and consumer behavior‐related research. Although older adults (55+) are an important market segment, especially for the fashion and personal care industry, little research has included this group of consumers. This study showed that older adult females' self‐esteem was influenced by social participation, appearance management, and fashion involvement. The finding of this study helps marketers developing products targeting seniors.

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.

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.

“All things are in a constant state of change”, said Heraclitus of Ephesus. The waters if a river are for ever changing yet the river endures. Every particle of matter is in continual movement. All death is birth in a new form, all birth the death of the previous form. The seasons come and go. The myth of our own John Barleycorn, buried in the ground, yet resurrected in the Spring, has close parallels with the fertility rites of Greece and the Near East such as those of Hyacinthas, Hylas, Adonis and Dionysus, of Osiris the Egyptian deity, and Mondamin the Red Indian maize‐god. Indeed, the ritual and myth of Attis, born of a virgin, killed and resurrected on the third day, undoubtedly had a strong influence on Christianity.

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.

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.

Today, long-term success requires firms to sense changes in their environments early and react efficiently to them. Increasing middle managers’ participation in decision-making about market-related and product-related questions has been suggested as one way of enhancing this strategic responsiveness; abandoning formal planning, such as annual budgets, has been another. Yet, empirical evidence on the matter is scarce and conflicting. Drawing on data from Denmark’s 500 largest firms, we show that participation of middle managers in decision-making about new products and markets to serve, in-deed, increases firms’ strategic responsiveness as assessed by a reduction in firms’ downside risk. However, this effect is not a direct one. Nor does it interact positively or negatively with the emphasis put on formal planning as submitted in literature. Our evidence suggests that emphasis on planning mediates the relation between stronger participation of middle managers in decision-making and the increase in firms’ strategic responsiveness. This has implications for ongoing theory building and practice.

Participative management is based on the assumption that empowering people throughout the enterprise will result in a more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately more successful enterprise. Participative management is more than a willingness to share influence ‐ formal patterns of participation need to be truly implemented where employees have a right to contribute on all levels of decision‐making. The empirical survey showed that participative management is applied at academic information services in the Gauteng province of South Africa, but more so in low‐level decisions. This indicates that participation is still limited and controlled by management and is not yet experienced as a right by employees.