Russian Employee's participation in the process of decision making at domestic- and foreign-owned companies

<p>The paper deals with Russian employees&rsquo; participative decision-making (PDM) process at domestic and foreign companies. From employer&rsquo;s point of view PDM allows to increase number of innovative ideas and suggestions, improve decisions&rsquo; quality and create general dedication to implementation of decisions. As for employee, PDM is a mean of experience and knowledge application, opportunity to feel oneself not just a cog in the machine, but a business partner. Sociocultural attributes of society influence significantly the degree of employees&rsquo; involvement in PDM. This paper focuses on influence which is caused by type of the capital source (domestic or foreign) on involvement in PDM at different company levels, on differences in motivation, willingness to participate and qualities which are required for to be involved in PDM. Paper also presents general patterns for domestic and foreign companies, such as level of commitment and loyalty in relation to level of participation of employees&rsquo; in PDM on different layers of a company.</p><p>2012 year study conducted by HSE Centre of firm&rsquo;s social setup under A.G. Efendiev supervision is <strong>empirical base </strong>for this paper. 17 companies (8 domestic and 9 foreign) selected using orthogonal sampling plan were studied. <strong>Goal of this paper </strong>is to find and compare the degree of employees&rsquo; involvement in PDM on different levels of organization at domestic and foreign companies. In order to reach this goal following <strong>research objectives </strong>were completed:&nbsp;</p><ol><li>Level of commitment and loyalty to organization in relation to degree of involvement in PDM was determined.</li><li>Influence of the most typical decision-making process in the company on involvement practice in PDM was analyzed.</li><li>Differences in degree of employees&rsquo; involvement in PDM at domestic and foreign companies were described.</li><li>Differences in employees&rsquo; involvement motivation, views on business-decisions development and implementation, qualities required to be involved in PDM and readiness for such participation were identified.</li></ol><p>In the course of empirical analysis, significant <u>difference in degree of involvement at domestic and foreign companies </u>was identified. At the same time level of democratic views and readiness to involve are the same for both type of companies. However, authoritarianism at domestic companies is causing low level of initiative among employees who are waiting for invitation from management to be involved. Moreover, level of authoritarian views on business-decisions development and implementation at domestic companies significantly higher than at foreign companies.</p>