DECISION MAKING

Decision Making

Decision Making

Conclusion

The model developed from the literature was a good fit to the data and provides support for PDM as having a positive influence from an employees' perspective. The findings lend support to previous studies by Brown (1996), Knoop (1991) and Zeffane (1994), who found that higher levels of PDM correlated with greater autonomy, task variety and task identity. Previous claims that PDM improves performance effectiveness (Latham et al., 1994; Pearson, 1991; Yammarino and Naughton, 1992) were supported by the respondents. This does not negate concerns that PDM can be used as a ploy to get the most out of workers (Callus, 1997; Connell, 1998; Humphreys, 2000), but the fact that employees believed they also benefited through improved wages, conditions and benefits, suggests a relationship of mutual benefit. Perhaps most significant in this study was that these changes were not found to moderate either job satisfaction or affective commitment, despite that PDM engenders satisfaction, which in turn promotes affective commitment.

The lack of a mediating effect by the work context variables on either job satisfaction or affective commitment was unexpected and appears to contradict the findings of previous researchers, such as Black and Gregersen (1997), Brown (1996), Pearson and Duffy (1999) and Zeffane (1994). This is particularly of interest as the strength of relationships between PDM and the mediating variables (variety 0.42, identity 0.57, autonomy 0.71, performance 0.58, and gains 0.48) were generally considerably stronger than the relationship between PDM and job satisfaction (0.39). Clearly, participation is valued by employees and one could argue that the relationship between participation in decision making and job satisfaction was merely overshadowed by the other changes. A more likely explanation is that greater levels of participation allows employees to be more effective and receive gains for this; however, they are less happy with their increasing workloads or the gains received as compensation for this extra effort.

Previous findings that employees gain greater opportunities for goal setting (Latham et al., 1994), sharing knowledge (Scully et al., 1995), involvement in task strategies (Black and Gregersen, 1997; Latham et al., 1994) and co-operative problem solving (Tjosvold, 1982) are supported by PDM having a strong influence on autonomy, variety and identity. While employee's contributions to decisions improve their ability to be effective, it also adds to their workload. PDM increases autonomy, and if this is coupled with increased horizontal and lateral expectations, the task becomes more varied. In part, PDM and autonomy then become survival tools that enable employees to cope with the increased load. Another aspect worth considering is that demands for increased performance effectiveness also increases pressure, particularly if linked to rewards. While employees in this study were pre-dominantly permanently employed, they were nonetheless aware of the downsizing environment organizations operate within; indeed many were survivors of such change. The pressure to perform in such an environment can undoubtedly lead to increased stress and insecurity which ultimately erodes job satisfaction (Degeling et al., 2000; Healy and McKay, 2000). This is certainly the case in the Australian industrial ...