The Transformation of Employee Participation: Consequences for the Work Environment

This article reviews the research literature on the relationship between employee participation, influence and the work environment. The main part of the literature points to a positive connection in line with how it has been almost institutionalised in Karasek and Theorell´s demand control-model. However, more recent research into psychosocial work environment problems questions the model’s assumption of high job control compensating for high job demands. Taking its point of departure in a `deconstruction´ of the concept of participation based on research on employee participation from the past few decades, the article discuss what factors and changes have resulted in that increased employee participation does not seem to result in a healthy work environment. The article concludes on the limitations of the demand control-model in modern working life given contextual changes in the employer-employee relationship which may be conceived as a transformation of the significance of participation.