PARTICIPATING AS PARTICIPATION - A NETWORK APPROACH

This paper adopts a network approach to the study of worker participat ion in an attempt to capture the inherent communicative nature of part icipating within an organization. Although complex, dynamic, interacti ve processes are the very essence of participation, it has most often been conceptualized as a unidimensional, static variable, typically as sessed at the individual level. The network study focuses attention up on the communicative activities and patterns that emerge as 148 line w orkers participate within a large sociotechnical system. The data indi cate that the degree to which workers become involved and empowered in the communication system are differentially related to levels of work ers' satisfaction and managerial assessments of worker performance.