Participative decision-making amongst employees in a cross-cultural employment setting: evidence from 31 European countries

Abstract

There is a growing consensus among human resources researchers and professionals that a participative environment can enhance job satisfaction, commitment, employee motivation and productivity. Moreover, globalization has caused that organizations operate in a huge number of culturally diverse countries. Studies suggest that understanding national culture as a prerequisite to implementing management initiatives such as employee participation in decision-making (PDM) acquires special interest. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of cultural values on PDM in European organisations. The fulfilment of this purpose entails the following specific objectives: to measure the level of PDM in each European country; to examine the relationship between the six cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede in 2010 (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/feminity, long term/short term and indulgence) and the PDM level of the organisations studied; and to define the national cultural profile of organisations that promote PDM the most and those that do the least.