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Strategic Management

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Participative Management

Introduction

Participation is the term used to designate the process by which people contribute ideas towards the solution of problems affecting the or¬ganization and their jobs. The people exercise some degree of influence in the decision-making process. Participation is ego and task involvement of an individual or group. It includes not only the physical contribution of the person but also intellectual and emotional involvement in the affairs of the organization.
When managers establish means, on either an informal or a formal basis, for obtaining help from subordinates in making of plans and decisions, they are tapping the knowledge and creativity of other because managers cannot pos¬sibly know all the answers to all the problems and issues connected with the work of their de¬partments, they can often obtain valuable advice and assistance from their subordinates. The process of participation brings into play the higher drives and motives of man.

Participa¬tory management has positive values over and above its effects upon productivity and morale. In countries where democratic norms are practiced in real sense and the concepts of political democracy and the rights and duties of individuals to take an active part in the affairs of their country are cherished, the environment at place of employment should be fully com¬patible with these democratic norms. Generally business and industrial organizations tend to be authoritarian in the in¬ternal relations between superiors and subordi¬nates. The system is rather autocratic. Yet this is a basic contradiction, because the executive who practices autocratic leadership at the office preaches the need for maintaining individual freedom in American society as a whole. To that executive it is self-evident that citizens should have a say in the shaping of laws and policies that affect them. But often this executive does not know how...

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