Participative Management in Modern Organizations: A critical review

Participation as a social system is a complex and dynamic product of human action. Despite certain limitations, it has great poten-tial in addressing many debilitating issues confronting organizations. Regardless of whether it is intentionally and rationally created or whether it emerges as consequence of many and sometimes fortuitous factors, participation serves a variety of values and goals and takes on different structural and operational properties in various configurations resulting in a variety of desirable outcomes. However, much depends on the prevalent culture in an organization. The study in question attempts to dig out theoretical underpinnings of participative management and its relevance for contemporary organizations by critically reviewing the existing literature.