Organizational Democracy, Organizational Participation, and Employee Ownership: Individual, Organizational and Societal Outcomes

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Background

Organizational democracy refers to broad‐based, and institutionalized employee participation that is not occasional in nature. Written rules, regulations and boards enable employees to exert influence, at least equal to senior management or employers, on tactical and strategic decisions. This is realized through direct or representative co‐determination or collective self‐determination of the employees (e.g. worker cooperatives, self‐governed firms). Additionally, employees often hold a share of their organization’s equity capital (employee ownership).

Research in organizational participation investigates bodies or initiatives through which employees exert influence on tactical or strategic decisions (e.g. by making proposals) while the senior management has the final say. This can be the case in organizations
• practicing legal co‐determination (e.g., union members in company boards; work councils);
• employing collaborating, self‐managed workgroups;
• practicing deliberative change projects;
• in those social enterprises, which employ core ideas of deliberative democracy; or
• in companies in which employee initiatives collectively are trying to remove grievances and improve their work conditions.

In contrast to research on decision making on the level of the individual job (e.g. job control) or the leadership dyad (e.g. participative goal setting) studies on the effects of democratic decision making or participation on higher levels exist only to a much lesser extent. This desideratum is unsatisfying, for example, because in the wake of the digital transformation of the economy a new potential for organizational democracy and participation is assumed regarding areas of highly qualified knowledge work (catchwords: New work, platform economy, agile methods). Researchers have postulated that organizational participation and democracy would form a socialization field for personality development and societal (or, even, cosmopolitan) responsibility through allowing employees to gather experiences in planning and decision making as well as mutual responsibility‐taking. Such a potential spillover effect is relevant for a humane design of the digital transformation since we live in times of increasing debates about corporate corruption, the global environmental crisis, global inequality, or endangered social cohesiveness.

This Research Topic aims at collecting theoretical contributions, systematic research reviews and quantitative or qualitative empirical studies that help to clarify how organizational democracy, participation or employee ownership are associated with psychological, organizational, or societal outcomes. Reports on longitudinal or process studies are especially welcome.

Interconnected research questions referring to work and decision making in democratic, participative or employee‐owned enterprises or organizational units may deal with, for example
• psychological factors causing retention, regeneration or degeneration of participative or democratic decision structures;
• associations with prosocial behavior, innovativeness or employee solidarity, civic and democratic behaviors or employees’ ethical orientations and moral competencies;
• compatibility with leadership behaviors (e.g. democratic, shared, distributed or ethically forms of leadership);
• associations with organizational conflicts, psychological wellbeing, health and safety (e.g., self-endangering work engagement)

Further, it must be clarified which of the following concepts represent mediators, moderators or outcomes of working in participative contexts
• participative organizational climate and organizational justice;
• employees’ needs for participation and attitudes towards participation;
• satisfaction of employees’ basic psychological needs associated with the development of work motivation and work engagement;
• forms of collective and personal efficacy;
• psychological ownership and meaning in work

Please note: An abstract must be submitted prior to any manuscript, with Topic Editors expecting an abstract of about 300-350 words. The abstract submission deadline is 15th December 2020 and the Topic Editors will inform you their decision by 15th February 2021.
In case of theoretical papers: Short description of the theoretical problem / objective, concerned approaches or discourses, existing research, outline of a new concept, model or propositions
In case of empirical papers: Short description of the research question / main hypotheses, theoretical approach, study design and methodology, results, implications

Keywords: Organizational Democracy, Organizational Participation, Employee Ownership, Individual Outcomes, Organizational Outcomes, Societal Outcomes

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