Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Workplace democracy
Summary
Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms to the workplace, such as voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, and systems of appeal. It can be implemented in a variety of ways, depending on the size, culture, and other variables of an organization.
From as early as the 1920s, scholars have been exploring the idea of increasing employee participation and involvement. They sought to learn whether including employees in organizational decision-making would lead to increased effectiveness and productivity within the organization. According to Lewin, individuals who are involved in decision-making also have increased openness to change. Different participative techniques can have either a stronger impact on morale than productivity, while others have the reverse effect. Success of the employee-owned and operated Mondragon suggests economic benefits from workplace democracy.
Workplace democracy acts as an agent to encourage public participation in a government's political process. Skills developed from democracy in the workplace can transfer to improved citizenship and result in a better functioning democracy. Workers in a democratic environment may also develop a greater concern for the common good, which also transfers to fundamental citizenship.
Philosopher Robert Dahl claims that 'if democracy is justified in governing the state, it must also be justified in governing economic enterprises'. Some political scientists have questioned whether the state-firm analogy is the most appropriate way to justify workplace democratization.
Workers working for democratic leaders report positive results such as group member satisfaction, friendliness, group mindedness, 'we' statements, worker motivation, creativity, and dedication to decisions made within an organization.
When workplace democracy is used the effect typically is raised employee potential, employee representation, higher autonomy, and equal power within an organization (Rolfsen, 2011).
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.