The positive effects of employee decision making

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[...] The main thesis of the paper is that if employee decision making works in automobile manufacturing companies like Toyota and Harley Davidson then it is likely to work in aviation manufacturing companies like Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and Vought Aircraft. All these companies involve project groups and teams with specific tasks to perform. These non-traditional work structures make these companies perfect for participative management and employee decision making. Such responsibilities are said to be means of empowering the employees to be more productive and efficient. [...]

[...] And lastly, if employees have a hand at making decisions and creating change within the organization, then they are more accepting of change. Creating changes within the organization helps the employees become more accepting of the changes that will occur. Naturally, participative management is popular in democratic societies. Some people claim the American companies ought to imbibe participative management due to its democratic nature. There are “powerful ethical and moral imperatives” (Stanton, 1993) involved in the idea of making American companies more people- or employee-friendly. [...]

[...] No study also claims that employee decision making increases employee effectiveness and efficiency. Other criticisms regarding employee decision-making involve the anecdotal reports. These lack the essential controlled experimental design which can endure meticulous scrutiny and are therefore subject to varying interpretations. These reports are believed to be largely unreliable, either due to the type of research method used or to the kind of organization studied (Stanton, 1993). The relationship between participative management and job satisfaction is also debated as to whether this link is applicable to all types of work, employees and organizations. [...]

[...] The cooperation between the management and the laborers is the key ingredient in making employee decision making effective. A number of well publicized examples of labor-management cooperation happened in companies like Nummi, Levi-Strauss, Saturn, and Harley-Davidson (Schuster & Weidman 2006). In Harley-Davidson, collaborative decision making transpires at all levels. This collaboration has greatly affected the organization's culture positively. There has been an increased level of employee support for labor- management partnership practices. Such practices are examples of participative management. The believers of employee participation are management consultants, industrial psychologists, managers, and executives (Stanton, 1993). [...]

[...] They usually do not require much approval from the higher ups except for the project manager's. The project manager simply makes sure that all the activities within the team are geared towards the specified objective or output. In fact, employee decision making happens within the context of teams. (Cappeli & Rogovsky, 1994) Another trend in businesses today is to have a lean production model. This type of production model tries to make the most of its few chosen employees. The employees are better utilized by giving them more responsibility—directly transferred from the administration. [...]