Author Description

This text explores the role of employee participation in decision-making within the devolved Australian industrial relations environment. Workplace Bargaining aimed to facilitate labour market restructuring and improve productivity, but also offered employees greater opportunity to participate in changed work practices, conditions of employment and improve their rewards. Concerns quickly emerged as work intensified, hours and job insecurity increased. Was employee participation even happening? This text reports on a cross-sectional and longitudinal investigation, using Structural Equation Modelling to investigate these relationships. The results indicate that participatory decision-making contributes to job satisfaction, affective commitment and productivity. The caution is that increased demands for performance need to be matched with equitable rewards and should not extend to role overload, which can reduce commitment, satisfaction and ultimately effectiveness.