Evaluación mediante encuestas de satisfacción

According to Dachler and Wilpert (1978) who studied conceptual dimensions and boundaries of participation in organizations, theoretical approaches on participation include the democratic approach where participation as a member of an organization enhances democracy; the social approach where workers can be economically-liberated through active participation in the production process; the human resource development approach where the autonomous, independent and self-control attributes of workers can be developed through participation; and the productivity approach where inefficiency caused by alienation and dissatisfaction in the workplace can be overcome through participation. Until the 1970s, researches mainly adopted democratic and social approaches to promote industrial democracy and complement limitations

1 _{This is a fundamental restraint on understanding the quality of work through worker participation and it}

is considered that this needs to be additionally researched on the basis of qualitative analysis such as case study rather than quantitative analysis, which this study adopts. For this reason, this paper does not focus on this part and is only limited to use a few cases when interpreting analysis results in the conclusion part.

of the existing framework of labor-management negotiations. With the economic downturn caused by the 1970s’ oil crisis as a turning point, however, there was an awareness that worker participation is a major means to “secure competitiveness of businesses” through management innovation, and more studies were based on human resource development and productivity approaches.

Although there are diverse classifications and definitions of participation depending on various approaches, participation can be largely divided into participation in companies’ outcome distribution processes and participation in decision-making processes, depending on the domain of participation (Lee Won-deok, Yoo Gyu-chang 1997). Also, categories of participation can be divided into participation in a broad sense, which includes both the former and latter, and participation in a narrow sense, which includes only the latter (Kim Dong-bae, Lee Gyeong-muk 2003). In consideration of the perspective of this research, namely the effect of ICT on decent work, the domain of participation which requires more attention is participation in the work process, rather than participation in the outcome distribution process. Thus, the scope of this research will be limited to participation in a narrow sense. Theoretically, besides participation of individual workers, the issue of participation includes collective participation of parties including labor unions and labor-management consultation bodies. However, this study focuses only on participation of individual workers.2

Worker participation in the decision-making process can be classified on the basis of various criteria such as types, degree, level, content and range of participation. Yet this study adopts the criteria of access to participation in decision-making which was proposed by Dachler and Wilpert (1978). The reason for this approach is that the premise of Dachler and Wilpert that participation in decision-making is a point on the continuity from non-participation to participation, not a dichotomous division of participation and non-participation, is deemed to be a more realistic assumption in studying worker participation in businesses. Access to participation in decision-making is determined by the quantity and quality of information possessed by employees, and when participation is classified on the basis of this criteria, there are six phases—a state where advance information on decision-making is not provided (phase 1); a state where advance information on decision-making is provided (phase 2); a phase where employees’ present their opinions on decisions (phase 3); a phase where employees’ opinions are reflected in the decision-making process (phase 4); a state where rights to veto or agree in advance to decisions are offered (phase 5); and a state where it is possible for any member of an organization, without separating employees and management, to make decisions (phase 6). There are several ways to classify participation which are similar to the classification approach adopted here. Levine and Tyson (1990) classified participation into consultative participation and substantive participation depending on the degree of worker influence. Consultative participation means that workers are allowed to express their opinions, yet final decisions are made by management and workers’ opinions do not directly influence decision-making. This

2 _{We believe that in the actual workplace, individual and collective participation are not separate. Rather,}

kind of participation corresponds to phase 1 to phase 4 out of the above-mentioned 6-phase access to participation. On the other hand, substantive participation means that workers make decisions based on their discretion and directly influence decision-making and corresponds to phases 5 and 6.

In consideration of the classifications of the degree of participation mentioned above, this paper classifies the degree of worker participation into the following three types. The first type is information-sharing, where basic information on workplace, management and market conditions is shared with workers to enhance worker participation. The second type is consultations where workers express their ideas on production and management and management reflects them in decision-making. The third type is autonomous decision-making where workers directly participate in decision-making based on their responsibility.

Such categorization dictates the types of participation in a phased manner from information- sharing to autonomous decision-making, yet it cannot be presumed that types of participation in actual business settings evolve in such a phased manner. Moreover, it is not deemed always desirable to take this phased course. From a long-term perspective, however, if workers participate in decision-making in a situation where necessary information-sharing and consultations are not in place, a question may be raised on the effectiveness of the worker participation. For example, when it comes to autonomous worker participation on work methods in a workplace, there are cases where information-sharing and consultations are already sufficiently made or where autonomous decision-making does not greatly require information- sharing and consultations. From a long-term perspective, however, in an environment where much of the businesses information is rapidly changing, if decisions are not made based on shared information and subsequent consultations, a question may be raised on the effectiveness of workers’ decision-making and it would be difficult to maintain autonomous decision-making on a sustained basis.

Meanwhile, according to research results of Kim Dong-bae and Lee Gyeong-muk (2003), major factors affecting participation in decision-making include size of businesses, labor unions, management values, export-oriented companies, the degree of skills, competition environment, competition strategies and the introduction of new technologies. The introduction of ICT does not merely mean an increase in capital stock by introducing computers and communication equipment, but is a process of reengineering an organization following the introduction of technology3 and transforming methods of producing goods and services (Bresnahan et al, 2002). Moreover, ICT introduction is achieved on a strategic level, making ICT a strategic means, and ICT may play various roles ranging from merely facilitating transformation to inducing innovation more actively and serving as a mechanism for concrete restructuring, depending on the degree to which it is used (Vendramin & Valenduc, 2002). The strategic introduction of ICT by businesses is well manifested in “knowledge management,” which has been vigorously introduced and discussed in recent years. Knowledge management is “a method to simplify and

3 _{Research studies on organization transformation following the introduction of information technology}

(IT) started to be promoted by Hammer and Davenport who influenced the concept of the so -called business process re-engineering in the early 1990s (Vendramin & Valendue, 2002). Davenport and Short (1990) predicted that IT is a potent means to transform an organization and that an organization achieving organization re -engineering utilizing IT would be poised to succeed in a new era.

improve the process of sharing, distributing, creating, capturing, and understanding of knowledge in the company”(Khandelwal & Gottschalk 2003, Davenport 1998), while ICT plays a vital role in successful knowledge management by promoting communication and cooperation, assisting research and enabling cooperative learning (Khandelwal & Gottschalk, 2003).

In this context, the introduction of ICT accompanies organizational transformation to implement business strategies, bringing changes to factors that may affect worker participation such as production methods and decision-making structures. Hence, it is presumed that the ultimate effect of ICT on participation takes place through such organizational transformation and in this sense ICT can be seen as a factor yielding considerable influence on organizational changes related to ICT and worker participation.

In order to analyze the effect of ICT on participation, this paper employs factors affecting worker participation other than ICT as control variables. Control variables include the firm size (large or small and medium-sized businesses); characteristics of industries (whether the industry is manufacturing, service or ICT industry); labor unions (whether a labor union is established or not); whether going public regulating management values is offered or not; competition environment and competition strategies (market share and the degree of response to demand changes in the market); and organizational change (whether organizational change takes place or not before and after ICT introduction).