Employee participation and work environment in hotels. A comparison of patterns of participation in Denmark and New Zealand

It is well described and analysed that employee participation is closely related to the quality of work environment. Employee participation, however, is a concept that covers many forms of influence and participation dependent on the configuration of modes of labour market regulation in different countries and industries. Such differences may affect the relationship between participation and work environment. In two studies made in Denmark and New Zealand we distinguish between three forms of employee participation, namely direct individual or team-based participation, direct collective participation and indirect or representative participation. The application and importance of these forms of participation differ between New Zealand and Denmark but it is possible to characterise work places into three different ideal types of participation which are embedded in the organisational context and linked to the wider employee relations structures, namely a bipartite model (IR model) that mainly consists of the formal structures that are the result of collective bargaining and agreements, a HRM model where participation mainly takes place in a direct way between the individual employee and management, and a democratic model where employees individually or collectively decides together with management.
The article will analyse results from the two research projects and focus on patterns of participation in the hotel industry and discuss reasons for similarities and differences between New Zealand and Denmark. A main interest is to establish whether various forms of participation impacts positively on the work environment.