Power and Participation in Decision-Making in Formal Organizations

The notion that influence (power) is not a fixed amount at the disposal of an organization but rather a potentially expanding resource is developed in two directions. First, it is argued that "power raises" for lower-level participants and their effects on the total amount of power available to managers and managed are comparable to wage raises and their effects as described by modern economists. Second, a review of some European research, most of it relating to indirect participation (joint consulation), leads to the conclusion that the theorem of expanding power (and, therefore, of the relativity of the conflict of power interests) serves as an explanatory scheme for these forms of participation as well as for the forms of direct participation on which most U.S. research is focused.