LO5 - Employee Involvement in Decision Making

•  Employee Involvement


  Employees participate in and influence decisions about their jobs, work units, or organization.
• Several levels of involvement

  • Low - employees are individually asked for specific information but the problem is not described to them.
  • Medium low: problem is described, employees are asked for information.​
  • Medium high: problem is described, employees collectively develop recommendations.​
  • High: Employees identify problem, discover alternatives, choose the best alternative, and implement their choice.
• 4 contingencies

  • decision structure
  • source of decision knowledge
  • decision commitment
  • risk of conflict in the decision process
• some decisions are programmed, whereas others are nonprogrammed
• Programmed decisions


  are less likely to need employee involvement because the solutions are already worked out from past incidents
• Two types of conflict undermine the benefits of employee involvement


  • First, if employee goals and norms conflict with the organization’s goals, only a low level of employee involvement is advisable.
  • Second, the degree of involvement depends on whether employees will agree with one another on the preferred solution
• Outcomes of Employee Involvement


  • Better problem identification

  • More/better choices generated

  • More likely to select the best alternative

  • Stronger commitment to the decision