PARTICIPATIVE DECISION MAKING AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN DIFFERENT CULTURES: THE MODERATING EFFECTS OF ALLOCENTRISM/IDIOCENTRISM AND EFFICACY.

Abstract

The relationship between perceived participative decision making and employee performance was examined in matched samples of employees from the Hong Kong and U.S. branches of one organization. Self-efficacy in regard to participating in decisions and idiocentrism moderated the relationship between perceived participative decision-making opportunity and individual performance. Perceptions of the participation efficacy of a work unit and allocentrism moderated the relationship between participative decision-making opportunity cuid group performance. Idiocentrism and allocentrism appeared to explain regional differences in how participative decision making and efficacy perceptions interacted to predict performance. Participative decision making, defined as joint decision making (Locke & Schweiger, 1979) or influence sharing between hierarchical superiors and their subordinates (Mitchell, 1973), has been a focus of organizational research for nearly 50 years. Whereas many researchers have examined relationships between participative decision making and employee outcomes such as task performance, job satisfaction, and turnover, only equivocal conclusions can be drawn from existing research on the relationship between participative decision making and job performance. Some quantitative reviews have reported moderately positive relationships between these variables (e.g.. Cotton, VoUrath, Froggatt, Lengnick-Hall, & Jennings, 1988; Miller & Monge, 1986). Other quantitative reviews have not found these positive effects (e.g., Wagner, 1994; Wagner & Gooding, 1987a, 1987b). Wagner and Gooding (1987a) inspected the studies cited by Miller and Monge (1986) and found that 90 percent involved percept-percept data collection techniques (that is, data collected from the same respondents using the same questionnaire at the same time). Wagner (1994) reanalyzed Cotton and his coauthors ' (1988) data using meta-analysis and