Organizational participation in post-covid society–its contributions and enabling conditions

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified the economic and social problems that societies face today. At the same time, the public response to the crisis points to a constructive way forward. It has brought people together and unleashed a desire to contribute in many ways, some small and others spectacular. It has demonstrated how opportunities for people to participate in collective activities both psychologically and behaviorally can achieve remarkable results, especially when addressing a common danger. This paper argues that it is timely to widen participation in organizational decision-making as an approach to addressing many of the problems which will continue to be with us post-Covid, and which indeed the pandemic has exacerbated. In order to arrive at practical policy options, it proceeds through the following stages. The first is to establish a working definition of organizational participation and to develop a framework for classifying its principal forms. This framework serves to identify the more advanced and consequential forms of participation, and is then used to structure an evidence-based review of how they can constructively contribute to economic and social improvement. The final part of the paper reviews conditions bearing on the practical implementation of participation and which serve to clarify practical policy implications.