The role that participative management can play towards telkom sa vision 2000

Abstract

Participative management has now taken a turnaround approach to seek viable solutions for survival of business in ever changing environments. Participative management focuses on those taken for granted trivial aspects that promote synergy and economic prosperity in organisations. Management has now come to realise the prominent role that an employee can play in this regard. The buzzword now is knowledge of the knowledge of business in global village. What does this concept mean? Management must know the workers inasmuch as they should know their customers and business they are operating in. Research studies have revealed that attitudes, behaviour and performance are integral elements of participative management. Participative management is a term that is often mentioned and even praised but not very well defined for most of the organisations. To some people, it just means having an open- door policy. To others, it means setting up an elaborate decision-making web in a company in which everyone shares in the decisions made about everything affecting them. Furthermore participative management is admittedly a synthesis of several management theories, none of which is superior over the other but is dependent on companies' policies and local environmental factors. Combining the best of these several theories with a variety of state-of-the-art ideas may result in a unique leadership style that suits both the management and the employees at large, in pursuance of business goals. The basic principle is to actively involve all employees and managers alike in a common goal as contained in the mission statement and strategic business objectives. Overall goals should be clearly defined and understood by everyone in an organisation. In most cases, face to face communication among all employees and all managers is one of the critical success factors. It is on this premise that participation of employees in organisational management will be studied