SummaryThis study investigates the effects of workers' perceived participation in democratic decision-making on their prosocial behavioral orientations, democratic values, commitment to the firm, and perceptions of socio-moral climate. The sample consists of 325 Germanspeaking employees from 22 companies in Austria, North Italy, and Southern Germany that vary in their level of organizational democracy (social partnership enterprises, workers' cooperatives, democratic reform enterprises, and employee-owned self-governed firms). The findings suggest that the extent employees participate in democratic forms of organizational decision-making is positively related to the firm's socio-moral climate as well as to their own organizational commitment and prosocial and community-related behavioral orientations. The results also indicate that socio-moral climate is positively related to employees' organizational commitment. The effect of participation in decision-making on organizational commitment is partially mediated by socio-moral climate. Implications for promoting societal and organizational civic virtues among individuals are described.

This article has three objectives. Firstly, we seek to demonstrate the relevance of voice and silence-that is, whether employees contribute or withhold information, ideas, views and/or concerns at work-for the sustainable development of individuals, organizations and societies. Our second objective is to identify emerging (and enduring) issues-conceptual, theoretical and methodological-that have not yet been adequately addressed in voice and silence research. These issues include the relationship between voice and silence, how they may manifest in organizations, their manifold antecedents inside and beyond organizational boundaries, their potentially positive and negative effects for internal and external stakeholders, and methodological questions. The third objective is to propose opportunities for addressing these issues with the ultimate aim

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate an instrument that can measure distributed leadership (DL) as employees' active participation in DL tasks. The authors designate this as the distributed leadership agency (DLA). Design/methodology/approach Data were collected throughout all departments and occupational groups at a merged centralized hospital setting in Denmark. A total of 1,774 employees from 24 hospital departments and 16 occupational groups completed our survey. Structural equation model and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to identify appropriate items and a test for measurement invariance, predictive, discriminant and convergent validity, and ANOVAs were applied to analyse group differences in DLA. Findings The identified unidimensional questionnaire consists of seven items, as it is different from, but associated with, empowering leadership, organizational influence, attitude to participation and trust in management. As theoretically predicted, DLA is positively related to self-efficacy, job satisfaction and innovative behaviour. Chief physicians, permanent employees and employee representatives scored higher on the scale than the rest of their respective counterparts. Practical implications The survey offers a method to assess a distribution of leadership agency in hospital organizations. Such assessment may provide a basis for organizational and leadership development. Originality/value The present study provides a reliable and valid quantitative instrument that measures how much employees at all hierarchical levels are involved in concrete leadership activities in the hospital context. Taking a normative perspective the authors could show that DL - measured with the DLA-questionnaire - has positive effects on employees' behaviour.

Our meta‐analytic review investigates how employee participation in democratic enterprises is related to psychological outcomes. We gathered 60 studies through a systematic literature search of quantitative field studies (published between January 1970 and May 2017) and extracted 138 effect sizes related to three indicators of organisational democracy (OD) and 15 psychological outcomes. The overall findings suggest that employees’ individually perceived participation in organisational decision making (IPD) had a stronger relation to job satisfaction (ρ = .25), job involvement/work motivation (ρ = .36), prosocial work behaviours (ρ = .24), civic and democratic behaviours (ρ = .21) and perceived supportive climate (ρ = .44) than the other two OD indicators: structurally anchored employee participation (SAEP) and employee participation in collective ownership (EO). This was not the case for value‐based commitment: the relations of SAEP (ρ = .40), EO (ρ = .34), and IPD (ρ = .46) with commitment were nearly equal. Mediation analyses indicated that IPD partially mediated most of the effects of SAEP and EO on the outcomes mentioned. The cross‐sectional database and a small number of studies for some of the outcomes are the main limitations of this study.

This study examines effects of structurally anchored organisational democracy on perceived sociomoral atmosphere and on employees' prosocial, democratic behavioural orientations. Data result from the ODEM research project. Beside a description of the concept of sociomoral atmosphere, within this project, 30 small and medium sized enterprises from Austria, North Italy, South Germany, and Liechtenstein (542 participants) were surveyed with questionnaires, interviews, and document analyses. Based on organisational science criteria, several types of enterprises were derived and pooled into three groups of structurally anchored organisational democracy (no, medium, and high democracy). Multivariate group analyses show significant differences between those groups in parts of their prosocial and democratic behavioural orientations and in their sociomoral atmosphere. Soziomoralische Atmosphäre und prosoziale, demokratieförderliche Handlungsbereitschaften in Betrieben mit unterschiedlichen Demokratiegraden Die vorliegende Arbeit fokussiert die Effekte strukturell verankerter organisationaler Demokratie auf die wahrgenommene soziomoralische Atmosphäre der Beschäftigten und auf deren soziale und demokratieförderliche Handlungsbereitschaften. Vorgestellt werden neben einem Konzeptvorschlag zur soziomoralischen Atmosphäre empirische Ergebnisse aus dem Forschungsprojekt ODEM, in welchem 30 KMUs aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum (542 Probanden) mittels standardisiertem Fragebogen, Experteninterviews und Dokumentenanalysen untersucht wurden. Zur Auswertung wurden-nach organisationswissenschaftlichen Kriterien gebildete-Unternehmenstypen theoriegeleitet zu drei Gruppen struktureller organisationaler Demokratie (keine, mittlere und hohe Demokratieausprägung) zusammengefasst. Multivariate Gruppenvergleiche zeigen signifikante Unterschiede zwischen diesen Gruppen hinsichtlich der soziomoralischen Atmosphäre sowie in Teilen der prosozialen und demokratischen Handlungsbereitschaften.