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Participation by Subordinates in the Managerial Decision-Making Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Robert Tannenbaum  and
Fred Massarik
Robert Tannenbaum
Affiliation:
University of California at Los Angeles
Fred Massarik
Affiliation:
University of California at Los Angeles
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Extract

The role of “participation” by individuals or groups in American culture in general and in industrial organizations specifically has been treated by many writers. Its implications for political theory as well as for a theory of human relations in formal organizations are numerous. However, in spite of this academic and extra-academic interest, a clear-cut, operational definition of the concept, or a precise set of hypotheses regarding its dynamics, has not been developed. While to do so will be the object of this paper, the treatment will not be completely operational. The development of appropriate methods of measurement is conceived as a next step that should follow the preliminary one of conceptual clarification undertaken in this paper.

A review of the literature indicates that three major approaches have been taken in dealing with “participation”:

(1) The Experiential Approach. This approach is exemplified by writers who in the course of their experience in enterprise work have obtained a “feel” for the role of participation in the decision-making process and have put down their experiences in article or book form. Writings such as these provide a set of insights and hunches whose verification in any systematic fashion has not been attempted. The actual referants from which these formulations are derived often are single sets of observations in a single or in a few enterprises—observations generally made in an uncontrolled fashion.

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Articles
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Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , August 1950 , pp. 408 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1950

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References

1 For example: Carey, H. H., “Consultative Supervision and Management” (Personnel, 03, 1942)Google Scholar; Heron, Alexander R., Why Men Work (Palo Alto, 1948)Google Scholar; Nicol, Eric A., “Management through Consultative Supervision” (Personnel Journal, 11, 1948)Google Scholar; Worthy, James C., “Changing Concepts of the Personnel Function” (Personnel, 11, 1948).Google Scholar

2 For example: McGregor, Douglas, “Conditions for Effective Leadership in the Industrial Situation” (Journal of Consulting Psychology, vol. VIII, 03-Apr., 1944)Google Scholar; Allport, Gordon W., “The Psychology of Participation” (Psychological Review, 05, 1945).Google Scholar

3 For the concept of the “natural experiment,” see Chapin, F. Stuart, Experimental Designs in Sociological Research (New York, 1947)Google Scholar, and Greenwood, Ernest, Experimental Sociology (New York, 1945).Google Scholar

4 For a good summary of relevant experimental work, see Lippitt, Ronald, “A Program of Experimentation on Group Functioning and Productivity” (in Current Trends in Social Psychology, Pittsburgh, 1948).Google Scholar

5 For definitions of these terms as used here, see Tannenbaum, Robert, “The Manager Concept: A Rational Synthesis” (Journal of Business, 10, 1949).Google Scholar

6 In connexion with this discussion, it should be noted that when participation takes place within the superior-subordinate relationship, managers have primary control over the nature of the activity; when it takes place as part of the manager-union relationship, they may or may not, depending upon the relative power of the two parties.

7 See Tannenbaum, “The Manager Concept: A Rational Synthesis.”

8 This discussion of the decision-making process is based upon Tannenbaum, Robert, “Managerial Decision-Making” (Journal of Business, 01, 1950).Google Scholar

9 In a democratic group, the choice can be made through a vote participated in by the rank and file. But, in such a case, the leader is organizationally responsible to the rank and file, and the members of the rank and file are not properly, in so far as the decision is concerned, subordinates of the leader.

Members of a democratic group, making the final choice in matters directly affecting them, may be more highly motivated as a result thereof than managerial subordinates who are granted the right to participate only in the first two steps of the managerial decision-making process. For evidence of the motivational effects of group decision, see Kurt Lewin, “Group Decision and Social Change” (in Newcomb, T. M. and Hartley, E. L. (eds.), Readings in Social Psychology, New York, 1947).Google Scholar

10 It is this type of participation that most writers, who deal with human relations in enterprises, have in mind when they use the concept. The following examples illustrate this contention: “One of the most important conditions of the subordinate's growth and development centers around his opportunities to express his ideas and to contribute his suggestions before his superiors take action on matters which involve him. Through participation of this kind he becomes more and more aware of his superiors' problems, and he obtains genuine satisfaction in knowing that his opinions and ideas are given consideration in the search for solutions” ( McGregor, D., “Conditions for Effective Leadership in the Industrial Situation,” p. 60)Google Scholar; “I am not suggesting that we take over intact the apparatus of the democratic state. Business cannot be run by the ballot box…. We must develop other inventions, adapted to the special circumstances of business, which will give employees at all levels of our organizations a greater sense of personal participation and ‘belonging’ ” ( Worthy, J., “Changing Concepts of the Personnel Function,” p. 175)Google Scholar; “Action initiated by the responsible head to bring his subordinates into the picture on matters of mutual concern is not a sharing of prerogatives of authority. Rather, it is an extension of the opportunity of participation in the development of points of view and the assembly of facts upon which decisions are made” ( Carey, H., “Consultative Supervision and Management,” p. 288).Google Scholar

11 The concept of interaction as used here is not restricted to direct person-to-person, two-way communication (as in the process of superior-subordinate discussion), but encompasses more indirect forms (such as, for example, written communication) as well.

12 It may be observed that participation in the latter way, where there is communication between participators and where the act of participation is carried out through the medium of the group (as in cases of “group decision”), may often yield the more useful results. The level of derivable benefits may be higher than if participation had proceeded through channels in which there had been no inter-participator communication. Some factors important in this context are the following: (a) the feeling of “group belongingness” obtained by means of “action together” and (b) the role of norms, set as a result of group discussion, toward which behaviour will tend to gravitate.

13 The term cost is here used in its highly precise form to refer to whatever must be given or sacrificed to attain an end. See “Price,” Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms. The term end is broadly conceived to embrace whatever factors (monetary or nonmonetary) the managers themselves define as the formal ends of the enterprise.

14 For examples, see Lippitt, “A Program of Experimentation on Group Functioning and Productivity”; French, John R. P. Jr., Kornhauser, Arthur, and Marrow, Alfred, “Conflict and Cooperation in Industry” (Journal of Social Issues, 02, 1946)Google Scholar; Productivity, Supervision and Morale (Survey Research Center Study no. 6, Ann Arbor, 1948).Google Scholar

15 See, for example, Bavelas, Alex, “Some Problems of Organizational Change” (Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 1948)Google Scholar; Jacques, Elliott, “Interpretive Group Discussion as a Method of Facilitating Social Change” (Human Relations, 08, 1948)Google Scholar; Lewin, “Group Decision and Social Change.”

16 See, for example, Bradford, L. P. and Lippitt, R., “Building a Democratic Work Group” (Personnel, 11, 1945)Google Scholar; Mowrer, O. H., “Authoritarianism vs. ‘Self-Government’ in the Management of Children's Aggressive (Anti-Social) Reactions as a Preparation for Citizenship in a Democracy” (Journal of Social Psychology, 02, 1939, pp. 121–6).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 This concept of effective authority is expanded upon in Tannenbaum, “Managerial Decision-Making.”

18 These advantages will henceforth be referred to as enterprise advantages.

19 A goal is defined as a result which, when achieved, has the power to reduce the tension of the organism that has caused the organism to seek it.

20 Thus, motion in the direction of goals may be achieved not only by adding forces in the goal-direction, but also by reducing forces impeding such motion. See Lewin, K., “Frontiers in Group Dynamics” (Human Relations, vol. I, no. 1, 1947, pp. 26–7).Google Scholar

21 It must be noted that participation as used in this context is only one device which may lead to additional motivation by bringing about a coincidence of formal and personal goals. For example, some other devices that under certain conditions may result in motivational increases and their derivative benefits to the enterprise are permitting personal discretion to the person to be motivated and stimulation of a sense of pride of workmanship. In the former context, managers in all enterprises must always decide the amount of discretion to permit to subordinates. Many considerations naturally underlie this decision. For present purposes, it is important to emphasize that in many circumstances, the granting of considerable discretion may lead to substantial increases in motivation. Several devices may be used concurrently, and the dynamics of the devices themselves are interrelated. For example, use of discretion may bring about an enhanced pride-of-workmanship feeling.

22 It must be recognized that typically goal configurations, rather than single goals, act as motivating agents.

23 For example, see Maslow, A. H., “The Authoritarian Character Structure” (in Harriman, P. L. (ed.), Twentieth Century Psychology, New York, 1946).Google Scholar For more detailed treatments see the major works of Erich Fromm and Abram Kardiner.

24 It should be stressed that “life spaces” of individuals (that is, their conceptions of themselves in relation to the totality of a physical and psychological environment) and their readiness for action in the light of these conceptions are never static. Constant change and “restructuring” take place, making for an essentially dynamic patterning of behaviour. For alternative definitions of the concept “life space” see Leeper, Robert W., Lewin's Topological and Vector Psychology (Eugene, 1943), p. 210.Google Scholar

25 For the belief that “thinking” as a solution for the industrial problem of motivation is usable more effectively on the supervisory level, but less applicable on the “lower levels” of the organizational hierarchy, see Tomlison, Willard, “Review of A. R. Heron, Why Men Work ” (Personnel Journal, 07-Aug., 1948, p. 122).Google Scholar

26 For analytical purposes, this article differentiates between conditions regarding the dynamics of participation as a psychological process and all conditions outside this psychological participation-to-motivation link. The latter category of conditions is treated under the present heading.

27 See Barnard, Chester I., Organization and Management (Cambridge, 1948), p. 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 See McGregor, “Conditions for Effective Leadership in the Industrial Situation,” passim.

29 For a rigorous mathematical treatment of channels of communication within groups see Bavelas, Alex, “A Mathematical Model for Group Structures” (Applied Anthropology, Summer, 1948, pp. 16 ff.).Google Scholar

30 See French, , Kornhauser, , and Marrow, , “Conflict and Co-operation in Industry,” p. 30.Google Scholar

31 For evidence of no decline in the motivational effect of certain participational procedures in an industrial re-training situation after a relatively brief time period subsequent to initiation of participation had elapsed, see, for example, Coch, L. and French, J. R. P., “Overcoming Resistance to Change” (Human Relations, vol. I, no. 4, pp. 522–3).Google Scholar Also Lewin, , “Group Decision and Social Change,” pp. 338 and 343.Google Scholar For the hypothesis that under certain conditions decline may occur with time, see Heron, , Why Men Work, p. 180.Google Scholar