A Typology for Participation in Organizational Decision Making

In this study of faculty (n = 454) employed in two separate school districts the variable is conceptualized as the difference between the number of decisions in which an individual desires to participate and the number of decisions in which he actually participates. After identifying subjects characterized by conditions of decisional deprivation, equilibrium, and saturation, it is shown that individuals in each of these groups differ by age, sex, teaching level, employing organization, seniority, perceptions of administrative influence, perceptions of role conflict, and attitudinal militancy. These findings suggest that a global concept is useful in typifying conditions of decisional participation and that some traditional assumptions about the consequences of decisional participiation should be modified, particularly assumptions concerning the universal desirability of increased participation in decision making.