Workers’ Participation in Decision-making and Workplace Management in Emerging Economies: A Case of Nigeria

The study sought to investigate the form, status and level of participation of workers in management decision-making and workplace governance in a purposively selected public sector organization. A survey design was adopted for the study. Participants were 800 Abuja based Nigerian employees selected through the use of stratified random sampling technique. The basic criteria for inclusion in the sample were organisational tenure of five (5) years and above and job-rank. Data were obtained using an EPMD questionnaire which has a modified 5-point rating scale with reliability co-efficient of 0.86. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the analysis of data collected from respondents. The main hypothesis which guided the study was tested using t – test statistical method at 0.05 level of significance. The study established a significant difference in the perception of managerial and non-managerial employees towards workers’ participation in decision-making and workplace management. The study also revealed that a combination of pseudo and indirect form of workers’ participation which was mutually unsupportive of organisational productivity was practiced. Furthermore, the result indicated a near total absence of full participation, but respondents had a perceived feelings of moderate involvement in managerial decision-making activities. The study concluded that the method of workers’ participation in existence was deficient and lacked the status of total sharing of managerial decision-making activities in public sector organisations.