Participatory management

Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.

This practice grew out of the human relations movement in the 1920s, and is based on some of the principles discovered by scholars doing research in management and organization studies, most notably the Hawthorne Experiments that led to the Hawthorne effect.

While group leaders still retain final decision-making authority when participatory management is practiced, participants are encouraged to voice their opinions about their current environment. In the workplace, this concept is sometimes considered industrial democracy.

In the 1990s, participatory management was revived in a different form through advocacy of organizational learning practices, particularly by clients and students of Peter Senge.

The participatory management model or at least techniques for systematically sharing authority emphasize concerns with the delegation of decision making authority to employees. Participatory management has cut across many disciplines such as [public administration]], urban planning, and public policy making. In theory, the model does much more than recognize that employees ought to be able to recommend changes or course of action, but rather reflect a belief that authority should be transferred to and shared with employees. The belief in this theory stems from understanding what the culture of an organization or institution represents. Conceptually, organizational culture is thought to represent a symbolic and ideal system composed of values and norms implemented by its founders, then shared and reflected to influence behavior of its members or employees in the institution. The culture of the organization or institution is in turn used to guide the meaning of the organization's work.

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