Employee participation in decision making is used to refer to the process whereby employees are part of the decision making committee. They do not only take orders from their bosses, but are also consulted in the process of making a decision regarding the running of the firm or business entity. Their opinion is sought before the management can pass any decision.
The participation criterion is that system that uses voting criterion. Paradox of participation refers to conditions in which two opposing or competing opinions often challenge each other. A good example is the quest of an equivalent work-life. Organizational employees regularly face a pragmatic paradox in the concept of participation. Employer wishes to empower their workforce in issues such as information sharing and decision making, but the employees consider it as a work load added on their duties. Other paradoxes faced by the employees are paradoxes of structure, paradoxes of agency, paradoxes of identity, and the paradoxes of power.
The ideal for a democracy work place according to Deetz is involvement of many persons and teams in the decision-making process. Deetz suggests four directives towards a democratic conversation and participation in an organization. These directives are: create an environment in which each employee behaves like an owner, it’s mandatory for management of work to be reintegrated with the performing of duties, proper disbursement of information, and social structure should develop from the bottom rather than being reinforced from the top. Multiple stakeholder challenges the idea of effective communication due to passing of information only to a few people rather than to many people.
In the present organization era, the teams formed include; virtual teams, project teams to facilitate completion of projects, quality development teams, and work teams. Advantages of adopting a team based approach in the firm are that there is coordination, cooperation, and efficient working by the members. The disadvantage associated with this approach is the lack of a central control of the members from different departments.
Challenges associated with virtual teams are as follows: cultural barriers, varied cultural beliefs, and job manners. Also, the teams are faced with the challenge of relying on a number of technological tools for support and passing on of information that may fail them.
Communication roles on the team are the steady forms of interaction among members of a team. Communication roles available to members include; the prince role, the task role, the self-centered role, the maintenance role, and the facilitator role. The advantage of using these ranges of roles is that it gives each member a sense of responsibility. The disadvantage of this approach is that it can raise a conflict of interests
Communication networks refer to teams or persons who may be sharing consistent channels of communication. Both communication networks and organizational teams have one common trait of making use of several people in the organization. Communication networks differ from the team in that they are informal and less reliant than teams.
Prominent inter-organizational communication networks in the local community are among peer groups, and individuals performing similar tasks.
New network forms affect the way an organization thinks about growth and expansion by the introduction of new ideas and ways of conducting duties. A new way of thinking attained by the organization increases an organization’s competitive advantage between organizations as the new networks raise new business ideas.
