Influence at work and the desire for more influence

Abstract

What determines whether workers want more influence in their workplace? Much of the literature on employee voice assumes that employees desire a say in how they do their work, and that where they lack influence they are more likely to desire a greater say. This econometric study of 536 Danish and New Zealand employees in four industries indicates that workers’ desire for more influence was not dependent on how much influence they thought they already had. What mattered was age, length of service and specific organisational characteristics. Those who wanted more influence were not learning new things and did not feel that they received sufficient information about the workplace, and those who felt appreciated by management did not desire more influence. The results support human resource management literature that suggests the importance of integrated and mutually supportive ‘bundles’ of employment practices to support high performance.

Keywords

Employee participation employee voice high-performance workplaces

Introduction

Employee involvement or participation has been a recurring theme of interest to human resource management (HRM) researchers and practitioners, not least because of its recent association with high-performance workplaces (HPWPs). However, the concept is ‘extremely plastic’, with ‘a wide variety of meanings for different groups of social actors’ (Knudsen, 1995: 5). Fundamentally, employee participation may be defined as ‘a process which allows employees to exert some influence over their work and the conditions under which they work’ (Strauss, 1998: 15). However, this definition encompasses a wide spectrum of practices and structures at different levels of an organisation, with varying degrees of employee influence, ranging from information-sharing, to consultation, to codetermination or joint decision-making, to control (Markey and Patmore, 2009; Wilkinson et al., 2010a: 10–13).

Broadly speaking, processes for employee influence in decision-making may be divided into two types: direct and representative participation. Direct participation involves job- or task-oriented influence in the production process at the shop or office floor level. Representative participation involves indirect employee influence through representatives in trade unions, works councils, joint consultative committees and company boards of directors (Wilkinson et al., 2010b).

A major focus for research on employee participation has been the effectiveness of outcomes for both employees and managers. This has included a concern with the way in which power relationships are affected by employee participation and influence as well as the potential for union avoidance, and the connections between job satisfaction, work intensification and productivity. Participation has been interpreted as an instrument for increased influence and control by employees over workplace conditions (Beirne, 2008; Brown et al., 2007). Recent HPWP literature particularly has emphasised the positive outcomes for employees and employers in terms of job satisfaction and performance (Boxall and Macky, 2010; Macky and Boxall, 2007). However, participation has also been depicted as a strategy for union substitution (Dundon, 2002; Gollan, 2000; Markey, 2007; Patmore, 2006; Terry, 1999), and some HPWP literature associates work intensification with employee ‘engagement’ through participation, at least under certain circumstances (Busck et al., 2010; Kalleberg et al., 2009). Some researchers have found that representative participation enables greater employee influence than direct participation, while others point to greater effectiveness of outcomes for employees when both direct and representative forms of participation coexist (Cox et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2010; Walters et al., 2005; Wilkinson and Dundon, 2010).

One aspect of participation that has been somewhat overlooked is employees’ perception of influence and whether or not they wish to have more (Delbridge and Whitfield, 2001; Greasley et al., 2008; Jeppesen et al., 2011; Kahnweiler and Thompson, 2000). This article explores the relationship between employees’ perceived degree of influence and their desire for more influence in their workplace, based on a survey of Danish and New Zealand employees. We use a question based on employees’ perceived influence on work processes as an indication of how much influence they already have. This and the desire for more influence are analysed in relation to key demographic variables and a range of responses indicating the nature of the organisational environment. Separate and combined analyses of the New Zealand and Danish respondents were also undertaken to test for the impact of the different national regulatory environments.

This article contributes to our understanding of employees’ perspectives on influence and participation, and the role that organisational context and individual characteristics play in employee perceptions. It contributes to a relatively small field of research that has often been dominated by a focus on organisational performance outcomes, rather than employee perception of and desire for influence. The remainder of the article explores these issues in detail. It commences with a review of the literature regarding employee desire for influence in the workplace. This is followed by an elaboration of the research methods used. Then the article presents the results of the analysis. Finally, it discusses the results and draws more general conclusions from the discussion. The econometric approach to analysing the survey results is presented in Appendix 1.

Do employees desire more influence?

Overall, there is little work directly linking employee perceptions of their influence at work with their desire for influence (Greasley et al., 2008; Kahnweiler and Thompson, 2000). In much of the employee participation literature it seems to be assumed that employees desire influence in the workplace, but there is a handful of exceptions. In a study of quality circles in three manufacturing companies, Liverpool (1990) found that actual participation in work-related matters, such as the division and scheduling of tasks, had little effect on employees’ perception of how much influence they currently had. However, members of quality circles were more likely to want more influence than non-members. These results may indicate that those who already have some influence perceive that they have the skill and ability to participate, and therefore may, with experience, desire more influence.

The collection of survey-based studies by Freeman, Boxall and Haynes (2007) of employees across six Anglo-American countries calculated an ‘influence gap’ between perceived influence and desire for influence over a range of issues. These included how they do their work, the pace of work, setting hours of work, pay determination and working with new technology. The studies also took account of some workplace practices such as equal opportunities, information for workers regarding changes, interesting work, fair wages, bullying, sexual or racial discrimination, opportunities to develop skills, opportunities to have a say, and responsiveness to family responsibilities. However, the main focus was on the effectiveness of representative means of influence through trade unions and non-union structures, concluding that more workers desire union representation than are union members, workers’ needs for representation vary and cannot be satisfied by one form such as unions, and workers endorse the growth of management-driven forms of representation and prefer cooperative forms of voice. Another comparison of employees’ perception of participation, in terms of communication and consultation, across four European countries found that employees generally perceived that they had limited influence over important work decisions, but also did not consider that they ever had ‘too much’ information (Kessler et al., 2004).

Otherwise, the participation literature tends to focus on one side of the equation only: whether employees perceive that they have influence or whether they desire it. For example, Gallie (2010) and Green (2006, 2008) both analysed large longitudinal European databases to identify trends in direct participation, that is, task discretion or influence. Gallie found no common patterns between five key EU countries, and no link overall with trends in skill levels. Variations in task discretion occurred on the basis of industry sector, gender and full- or part-time employment, and employees with short-term contracts generally had lower levels of task discretion. Increases or decreases in the overall level of task discretion were linked with the nature of the systemic employment regime, particularly the coincidence or absence of strongly institutionalised labour movements and quality of working life programmes. Green’s studies found that task discretion was usually greater in high-skill jobs, in contrast to Gallie, and that task discretion was increased by employees’ organisational commitment as well as employment practices of homeworking and flexitime. Teamworking had mixed results in Green’s analyses. However, neither Gallie nor Green linked their analyses with employees’ desire for influence.

The question of whether or not employees want influence has been debated from time to time in the participation literature. Hespe and Wall (1976) found across 14 studies in the UK that the desire for influence depended on the level at which it occurred in the organisation: employees wanted more influence in decisions affecting their day-to-day work, but did not want as much influence in decisions about the organisation’s direction and strategy. Employees also wanted different types of influence depending on the level of decision-making: they wanted to have influence themselves in decisions on day-to-day work, but preferred influence at more strategic levels to be via a representative, such as through a union (Hespe and Wall, 1976). Generally, Hespe and Wall (1976) found that employees preferred to be informed on issues rather than to take part in decision-making. However, one reason that employees did not want to be involved in ‘top-management’ decision-making was because they did not feel that they had the necessary skills to take part at that level.

Freeman and Rogers (2006) also found that the type of influence that employees wanted depended upon which issues were being considered. For example, employees were more likely to want increased collective representation on issues such as workplace health and safety and benefits. In contrast to Hespe and Wall’s (1976) findings, the majority of respondents to Freeman and Rogers’ 1996 survey wanted more influence at the strategic level of decision-making (Freeman and Rogers, 2006). In particular, many of the respondents felt that it was important to have influence over training and benefits offered to employees. These results followed changes to work in the 1980s that had emphasised more direct participation and teamwork (Freeman and Rogers, 2006). Overall, the employees responding to Freeman and Rogers’ survey had influence over how they organised their work.

Greasley et al.’s (2008) findings echoed some aspects of Hespe and Wall’s (1976) results, in that they found that employees’ desire for more influence was in part dependent on their own perceived ability, in terms of skills and knowledge, to participate. Their perception of whether influence was solely a managerial means of devolving management responsibility to employees who would not gain reward for additional responsibilities was also an important consideration. Greasley et al. (2008) looked at control over work, specifically ‘the degree of flexibility and more freedom to make decisions relating to work’ (Greasley et al., 2008: 40). Generally, employees wanted to have influence over their work organisation, but only to the extent of their current skill and experience. They would not accept greater influence without further development to build their competence and confidence in the task. That result is similar to a study of Danish employees, which found that employees who had some control over how they did their work wanted to be able to influence those particular issues more (Jeppesen et al., 2011). This finding was consistent for influence at multiple levels of the organisation. Furthermore, employees wanted colleagues with responsibilities in a particular issue to also have influence or control in that same area (Jeppesen et al., 2011).

The research into contextual variables that influence employees’ desired influence mostly concentrates on the effect of organisational-level processes and practices. For example, one study found that in organisations that had representative as well as direct participation, employees perceived greater influence over their work (Delbridge and Whitfield, 2001). A UK study of three organisations found that interviewees were less likely to want more influence when they had a high workload and ‘information overload’ (Danford et al., 2009). This suggests a connection between HRM practices that produce overall better work conditions and the desire for more influence. This observation is confirmed by Miller and Prichard’s (1992) findings that employees with high job satisfaction were more willing than those with lower job satisfaction to volunteer for participatory programmes if they were already satisfied with their job overall.

Wilkinson and Dundon (2010: 182) suggest that influence and participation will have the greatest effect, and employees will have better perceptions of it, when it is well ‘integrated with other organizational practices’. Furthermore, influence at more strategic levels of the organisation, beyond day-to-day work organisation, tends to occur only after ‘lower’ levels such as communication and information-sharing are implemented (Wilkinson and Dundon, 2010). This is consistent with considerable research in HRM that investigates the effect of multiple employment practices, particularly to support high performance. Generally, ‘bundles’ of HRM practices are considered to be more effective for both employee and organisational outcomes. These outcomes include trust in management, job satisfaction and higher commitment (Macky and Boxall, 2007). Boxall and Macky (2010) found that job satisfaction, for example, was greater in workplaces where employees felt more empowered, through influence over work organisation, while simultaneously receiving training and sufficient information from management. The complementarities and relationships between different HRM practices, including employee influence or discretion, are central to Appelbaum et al.’s (2000) original model of HPWPs.

Zatzick and Iverson (2011) use the incidence of HPWP practices as a proxy for the organisational context. They find that greater numbers of HPWP practices indicate stronger management commitment to employee participation and influence for employees. Conversely, where influence is limited to few forms and is unconnected with other HRM practices, employees may perceive that participation is not genuine and does not allow actual involvement in decision-making. They found that employees’ response to participatory practices was dependent on the overall organisational context. Macky and Boxall (2007), however, advise caution in this assumption because their findings indicated only weak connections between multiple HPWP practices. They suggested that simply increased numbers of individual HPWP practices were not sufficient. Furthermore, there is some evidence of a negative impact of work intensification from HPWP practices in some contexts. Of the practices that had stronger positive impacts, those that encouraged two-way communication and offered the opportunity to take part in decision-making were important for employee perceptions of the workplace overall.

Aside from organisational contexts, there is much less research that investigates the connection between individual characteristics and employee perceptions of influence and desire for more influence. Tentative connections between desire for influence and education, gender and age have been indicated. Education has been suggested to be important in employees’ perception of influence in the workplace. It has been found that employees with a tertiary qualification wanted more influence, but also perceived that they had significantly more influence than those with fewer or no formal qualifications (Kahnweiler and Thompson, 2000). Gender does not appear to affect how much influence employees want in their workplace (Freeman and Rogers, 2006; Kahnweiler and Thompson, 2000), although there is limited information on this variable.

Broadly speaking, research has indicated that age may impact on the desire for more influence in the workplace, although the results are mixed. Kahnweiler and Thompson (2000) found that age has a significant effect on whether or not employees want more influence. They found that employees in the age range of 37–48 wanted most influence on decisions involving themselves and involving the organisation, and those younger than 25 or older than 48 did not want as much influence as those aged between 25 and 48. This contrasts with Miller and Prichard (1992), who found that younger employees wanted more influence. Jeppesen et al. (2011), however, did not find any significant effect of age or seniority in job on employees’ desire for more influence. Green’s analysis of the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 indicated that the perception of discretion, or influence on the job, was greater for older workers (Green, 2008: 22). In contrast, Drago and Wooden (1991) found that older employees reported less formal participation, particularly on task-related issues and strategic issues. However, the same older employees reported less desire for influence.

There is clearly a need for further research into employees’ perceptions of, and desire for, more influence, and particularly the connections between them. There has not been significant research into the effect of individual characteristics as well as the broader organisational context. The existing research examines isolated aspects of individual employee characteristics or the organisational context and the results are mixed, or even contradictory. HPWP literature is based upon the concept that in terms of organisational performance, HRM practices are most effective in ‘bundles’. Groups of HRM practices that are integrated have more impact on employee perceptions and attitudes. At the same time, there is some evidence that employees’ interest in increased influence is restricted by their perceived skills and ability to participate in decision-making. There may, therefore, be important relationships between workplace contexts that offer the opportunity to learn new things in the job and information-sharing, and employees’ actual and desired level of influence. Consequently, this study examines the relationship between actual and desired influence in decision-making, and the impact on these dependent variables of independent variables that characterise aspects of the organisational context and HRM practices. We do not consider the different concept of employee expectations from participation (Kahnweiler and Thompson, 2000), as this has been considered in a range of studies of the effectiveness of participation for employees (see Busck et al., 2010; Cox et al., 2006; Gaffney, 2002; Macky and Boxall, 2008; Wood and Wall, 2007).

The remainder of this study starts to make inroads into the gap in the literature regarding the relationship between employee perceptions of their influence and the desire for more influence in the workplace. It draws from a survey of employees to identify whether the importance of employee-level factors vary depending on whether they perceive their working environment to be good. Although the number of respondents in the survey is not huge (N = 536), the key contributions of this article are to highlight this gap in the literature and to begin to populate a new path for research that is designed to investigate further employee perceptions of influence and desire for more.

Research design and method

This study is designed to consider individual employee characteristics as well as the organisational context in determining employee perceptions of influence in the workplace and their desire for more influence. The independent contextual variables investigated here for their potential impact on employees’ perceived or desired influence in decision-making may be grouped under three headings: demographic or individual characteristics; organisational context; and regulatory environment. The research questions are:

What is the relationship between employees’ perceived influence and desired level of influence in decision-making in the workplace?

What are the effects of employee characteristics and organisational context on employees’ perceived influence and desired level of influence in decision-making?

The study uses data gained from 536 responses to a survey across food manufacturing, health care, schools and hotels in both Denmark and New Zealand, as well as banks and an information technology (IT) organisation in Denmark alone. The survey was a complementary research instrument to case study work undertaken as part of a broader project examining the relationship between employee participation and employee well-being. The respondents were drawn from a total of 19 organisations: two organisations were recruited in each industry in each country, except for two banks and one IT organisation in Denmark alone. Organisations were required to have a minimum of 35 employees in New Zealand and 30 employees in Denmark, the respective thresholds at which organisations in each country are required to have formal employee participation in occupational health and safety.

Surveys were distributed via staffrooms in each of the 19 organisations. Completed surveys were returned directly to the researchers by post. The number of responses in each organisation varied from approximately 17 to 130, representing a response rate of between 15% and 100%. There was a higher number of responses from Danish organisations (320) compared to New Zealand organisations (216), and a higher number of female (304) than male (232) respondents.

We characterise our study as an exploratory analysis that points to new approaches and findings, being suggestive of areas for further research. While our study is exploratory, a strength of the data set is that it includes respondents from four different industries in two different countries, and we identified strong similarities across industries and countries. This aids generalisability, especially should future research corroborate our innovative findings.

The survey questionnaire included questions from ‘The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire’ developed by the Danish National Research Centre for the Working Environment (see: www.arbejdsmiljoforskning.dk; see also Kristensen et al., 2005), but also questions specifically constructed for the purposes of our own study with the aim of examining the relationship between employee participation and employee well-being, as mentioned earlier. This article only builds on two of the survey questions. As a spin-off from the main project, we have found it interesting to study how perceptions of influence at work are associated with the desire for more influence.

The survey asked for employees’ perception of their actual influence and employees’ desire for greater influence by asking them the extent to which they agreed (strongly agree/agree/neither agree nor disagree/disagree/strongly disagree) with the following two propositions:

I have significant influence on how my work is done.

I should have more influence at my place of work.

The following individual characteristics of respondent employees were sought:

gender;

age; and

length of time with the organisation.

In terms of organisational context, the industry in which respondents worked was known from the method of collection. Four responses to questions or propositions indicating the organisational context were also asked for using five-point Likert scales:

My work is appreciated by management (strongly agree/agree/neither agree nor disagree/disagree/strongly disagree).

I get information on important decisions, changes and future plans in due time (strongly agree/agree/neither agree nor disagree/disagree/strongly disagree).

How often have you felt really tired from work (always/often/now and then/rarely/never or almost never)?

Does your work put you in emotionally distressing situations (always/often/now and then/rarely/never or almost never)?

Do you have the possibility to learn new things in your job (always/often/now and then/rarely/never or almost never)?

The questions on influence were designed to refer principally to the opportunity for direct participation at the task-based level. The first question specifically referred to ‘how my work is done’. The second question was also intended to relate to direct participation. Although it referred to the desire for influence more generally, it directly followed the first question on influence at work and was located in a larger section of the questionnaire devoted to work and participation, while a separate section of the questionnaire examined representative forms of participation in detail.¹

Nevertheless, the comparison between Danish and New Zealand survey responses relating to influence offers some insights into the impact of representative participation institutions and the regulatory environment on perceptions of influence in the workplace. Denmark and New Zealand are similar in size of population and industry structure, but differ in terms of industrial relations traditions and representative participation. Union membership is higher for the workforce as a whole in Denmark, at 67% density compared with 22% for New Zealand. Danish union density is also far higher in most of the industry sectors examined in this study. Furthermore, Danish industry is characterised by an extensive and long-standing system of works councils, called cooperation committees, which are based on national agreement between employers and unions. Both countries have legislation mandating occupational health and safety committees, but Denmark generally has a greater range and depth of representative participation in workplaces than New Zealand. It was considered possible that this context might influence perceptions of influence on the part of employees, and their desire for more influence. In the subsequent analysis, therefore, Danish and New Zealand respondents are treated as separate and combined samples to test for this effect.

Descriptive results

The relationship between the responses for having influence and desiring more are shown in Table 1. The results are shown for the combined sample, as well as each of the separate New Zealand and Danish samples that make up the total. Overall, for the total sample, far more respondents reported that they have influence (60%) than want more influence (32%). However, fewer wanted more influence than perceived that they lacked influence (40%). These results support the literature which suggests that wanting more influence is not necessarily dependent on the amount of influence a worker already has.

Table 1.

Having influence and wanting more influence: Whole, New Zealand and Danish samples.

Do you want more influence?
Do you have influence?	No	Yes	Total
No	132 24.7% (NZ 30%; Dk 23%)	84 15.8% (NZ 28%; Dk 15%)	216 40.5% (NZ 57%; Dk 35%)
Yes	235 43.8% (NZ 25%; Dk 49%)	85 15.8% (NZ 17%; Dk 15%)	320 59.5% (NZ 43%; DK 65%)
Total	367 68.5% (NZ 55%; Dk 72%)	169 31.5% (NZ 45%; Dk 28%)	536 100%

The difference between the Danish and New Zealand samples, however, suggests the opposite effect. The Danes were far more likely to perceive that they had influence in the workplace than the New Zealanders, but less likely to desire more influence. This is consistent with an impact from the different regulatory environments and degrees of representative participation. Most importantly, the result indicates an association between the degree of influence an employee has and the amount they desire that is worthy of further investigation.

The contradictory implications of these results warrant further analysis of the data. In the first instance, our article tests through bivariate regression whether these issues are sequential, that is, whether wanting more influence is dependent on already having influence. This idea is expressed in Figure 1. The article also tests demographic and organisational variables against who perceives that they have influence in the workplace and who desires more influence. The econometric approach is presented in Appendix 1.

Figure 1.

A sequence of influence?

Results

The results of seemingly unrelated bivariate probit estimations are presented in Table 2 and represent the most parsimonious model. The results hold when we conduct stability tests to include the length of time the employee worked in the organisation. The econometric estimation also controlled for possible differences across industries through the application of a clustering algorithm to allow for greater similarity between workers in the same industry and greater differences between workers in different industries. Hence, the results we report hold across all industries.

Table 2.

Coefficient estimates of biprobit model.

(1) Have influence	(2) Want influence
Constant	−1.707 (0.454)**	0.488 (0.439)
Age under 30	0.215 (0.248)	−0.163 (0.158)
Age 31 to 50	0.011 (0.138)	−0.325 (0.134)*
Age over 50	Control variable	Control variable
Male	0.056 (0.136)	0.124 (0.158)
In organisation less than 3 months	Control variable	Control variable
In organisation less than 1 year	1.371 (0.649)*	−0.748 (0.503)
In organisation 1 to 2 years	1.242 (0.433)**	−0.495 (0.356)
In organisation more than 2 years	1.519 (0.466)**	−0.529 (0.369)
Appreciated strongly	0.832 (0.209)**	−0.759 (0.189)**
Appreciated	0.202 (0.119)	−0.499 (0.097)**
Neither appreciated nor not appreciated	Control variable	Control variable
Not appreciated	0.177 (0.214)	0.132 (0.379)
Not appreciated strongly	0.397 (0.252)	0.332 (0.372)
Information not timely	−0.335 (0.082)**	0.475 (0.147)**
Not worn out	0.675 (0.177)**	–
Never distressed	−0.227 (0.129)	–
Learning new things: always	–	−0.306 (0.110)**
Learning new things: often	–	−0.234 (0.181)
Learning new things: infrequently	–	Control variable
Learning new things: never	–	0.355 (0.171)*
N	536
Log pseudo likelihood	−617.58192
Rho	−0.001 (0.057)

Notes: ** and * represent statistical confidence at the 1% and 5% levels, respectively. Rho suggests no strong correlation between regressions (chi²(1) = 0.000589, p = 0.9806).

Table 2 presents two columns of results that correspond to the biprobit estimation. The first column corresponds to the dichotomous response (agreement versus non-agreement) to the statement: ‘I have significant influence on how my work is done.’ Interpreting the results that are statistically significant at least at the 95% confidence level leads to the following findings, which are all in line with a priori expectations and are in the main ingrained in the literature:

the longer that respondents have worked in the firm, the greater the probability that they report that they have influence;

those employees who report that they are appreciated are also more likely to report that they have influence;

those employees who report that they are never worn out suggest that they have influence; and

those employees who report that they do not get information on important decisions, changes and future plans in due time indicate that they do not have influence.

Column 2 reports the results for the regression seeking to identify what affects the desire to have more influence. These results highlight that:

employees who are aged 31–50 years are less likely to want to have more influence;

employees who are always learning new things do not want to have more influence;

employees who feel appreciated do not desire more influence; and

employees who report that they do not get information on important decisions, changes and future plans in due time indicate that they do want to have more influence.

Although there is nothing particularly new or surprising about these results, the important thing to note from Table 2 is that there is a lack of any strong correlation between these two sets of regressions results, as illustrated through the Rho coefficient and its respective statistical insignificance. Given the proposed sequential nature of these two issues, it is worth emphasising what these results imply. First, different variables are associated with the perception that an employee reports that they have influence and that an employee reports that they want to have more influence. Second, there is no significant covariance in the errors, signifying that the errors in the regression are not correlated between the regressions. It implies that a manager cannot identify whether an employee wants to have more influence simply by identifying whether they already have influence.

To illustrate this point further, Table 3 presents the marginal effect estimates of the explanatory variables on the probability of wanting more influence, given that the employee already has (Column 1) and has not (Column 2) already got influence. The results indicate that the magnitude and statistical significance of the explanatory variables do not differ between these two conditions, and therefore this selection process is ignorable (Rubin, 1976).

Table 3.

Marginal effects.

(1) Want influence given have influence = 1	(2) Want influence given don’t have influence = 0
Age under 30	−0.054	−0.054
Age 31 to 50	−0.114*	−0.114**
Male	0.043	0.043
In organisation less than 1 year	−0.207*	−0.207*
In organisation 1 to 2 years	−0.149	−0.150
In organisation more than 2 years	−0.192	−0.192
Appreciated strongly	−0.213**	−0.213**
Appreciated	−0.167**	−0.167**
Not appreciated	0.047	0.047
Not appreciated strongly	0.122	0.122
Information not timely	0.173**	0.173**
Learning new things: always	−0.099**	−0.099**
Learning new things: often	−0.079	−0.080
Learning new things: never	0.129*	0.129

Notes: ** and * represent statistical confidence at the 1% and 5% levels, respectively.

Discussion and conclusion

The general literature on employee participation has largely tended to assume that employees desire some influence in the workplace and that a lack of influence will be associated with a desire for more influence. The extent of research on what actually determines employee perceptions of their degree of influence and their desire for more influence in the workplace has been limited. The literature that does exist may be grouped in two main categories. First, there is a body of research that associates perceptions of influence and the desire for more influence with organisational characteristics associated particularly with bundles of HRM practices. This research is located to a significant degree within the HPWP paradigm. The second, much smaller, body of research has examined the association of demographic or individual employee characteristics with perceptions of influence and the desire for more influence; this is relatively inconclusive and sometimes even contradictory.

Our study had two main aims. First, it tested the relationship between degree of perceived influence and the desire for more influence. It concludes in this regard that whether workers wanted more influence was not dependent on how much influence they considered that they already had. This is a highly significant result, given some of the assumptions in the participation literature.

Second, our study tested the relationship between both demographic and organisational characteristics on one hand, and the degree of perceived influence and the desire for more influence on the other hand. In addition, by comparing responses between Danish and New Zealand employees, we took account of the impact of different regulatory environments, especially relating to the depth and range of representative employee participation, on these issues.

Demographic variables as a whole had a limited impact on the results. However, age was significant. Those who were neither very young nor old, 31–50 year olds, were less likely than others to desire more influence. Broadly, this confirms Kahnweiler and Thompson’s (2000) findings, but contrasts with Miller and Prichard’s (1992) findings that younger employees wanted more influence and with Jeppesen et al.’s (2011) findings that age lacked any significant impact. Age is clearly worth examining as a variable in further studies to clarify its impact further.

The only other significant individual employee characteristic was length of service, which we found impacted on perceptions of having influence. Very little of the existing literature directly addresses this variable, but length of service may be associated with employee confidence in their skills and knowledge base, which some studies suggest is necessary for employees to desire greater influence (Greasley et al., 2008; Hespe and Wall, 1976; Jeppesen et al., 2011). These connections also warrant further investigation in subsequent studies, particularly as they may relate to the level of skills that may further impact organisational outcomes.

Organisational characteristics had a much greater impact as a whole than demographic variables, on both the degree of perceived influence and the desire for more influence. Employees who felt appreciated by management were more likely to believe that they had influence and less likely to want more. Those who considered that they did not receive sufficient information from management were more likely to consider that they lacked influence and more likely to desire more influence. Employees not learning new things in the workplace were also more likely to desire more influence. All of these variables have been significant components of the bundles of HRM practices associated with HPWP literature (Boxall and Macky, 2010; Wilkinson and Dundon, 2010; Zatzick and Iverson, 2011). Our study offers strong confirmation for this literature and is highly suggestive of the key components of the bundles of HRM practices.

The contrasting regulatory environment, particularly the greater degree of representative participation in Denmark than New Zealand, does appear to have had an impact on overall results in the two groups of respondents that made up the sample. This variable is likely to explain the significantly higher proportion of Danes who considered that they had influence in the workplace, and the lower proportion of Danes who desired more influence. However, all of the identified relationships – between perceived influence and the desire for more influence, as well as between each of these and the independent variables relating to individual employee characteristics and organisational context – held whether we pooled all of the respondents into one data set or separated them by nationality. That is, the marginal effects of explanatory variables were not significantly different between the three samples. The overarching conclusion is the primary importance of organisational characteristics in determining both employee perceptions of their influence and desire for more influence in the workplace.

Footnotes

Funding

The Danish data for this article are derived from the Medarbejderdeltagelse i arbejdsmiljøet (MEDEA) project, which conducted a series of case studies on the relationship between employee participation and the quality of the work environment. The MEDEA project was primarily financed by the Research Foundation of the Danish Work Environment Authority. The New Zealand case studies were funded by the Industrial Relations Foundation of the Department of Labour and the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Note

Biographical notes

Raymond Markey is Professor of Employment Relations and Director of the Centre for Workforce Futures in the Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University which he joined at the end of 2011. He was foundation Director of the New Zealand Work & Labour Market Institute and Foundation Chair of the New Zealand Employment Relations Society. He has published 20 books and 60 journal articles, specialising in employee participation and labour history. He is currently leading a project on Climate Change, Work and Employment.

Katherine Ravenswood is a senior lecturer in the Department of Management at AUT University. Katherine teaches management, employment relations, HRM and organisational behaviour. Her current research interests include employee voice and wellbeing in aged care; family friendly policy and parental leave; and women and diversity at work.

Don Webber is Professor of Applied Economics at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He undertakes policy-relevant, applied, social science research. His recent publications include ‘Mental and physical health: reassessing the relationship with employment propensity' Work, Employment and Society (2013, forthcoming) (with Pacheco, N. and Page, D.); ‘Culture, participative decision making and job satisfaction' International Journal of Human Resource Management 23(13): 2661–2679 (2012) (with Van der Westhuizen, D. and Pacheco, G.) and ‘Economic performance in rural England' Regional Studies 46(3), 279–293 (2012) (with Curry, N.).

Herman Knudsen is professor at the Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University. His research areas are labour relations and the sociology of work with the main focus on employee participation. He has published many articles within this field or on related issues such as employee influence, works councils and European Works Councils. He is the author of the book Employee Participation in Europe (Sage 1995). Among more recent publications Towards a European Labour Identity. The Case of the European Works Council (Routledge 2007, co-edited with Michael Whittal and Fred Huijgen) should be mentioned.

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