Democratic Innovations at the Workplace – Getting Closer to the Utopia?

Ever since the early experiments, participatory practices, such as teamwork, have become a norm in the workplace. Nowadays, we see a variety of innovative practices, such as polling, online surveys, online discussion boards, self-managed and autonomous teams, and deliberative forums that provide workers with a means of taking part directly in the decision-making in the workplace. In this paper, we study these innovative participatory practices by conducting a literature review on empirical case studies. The goal of the paper is to promote knowledge and understanding about the driving forces behind these practices and their outcomes. We also map the potential factors associated with project success and highlight future areas of research. This paper contributes to the recent debate about workplace democracy. Even though there has been much discussion about the arguments in favour of and against workplace democracy (see e.g. González-Ricoy 2014; Landemore & Ferreras 2016), the empirical research on participatory practices at the workplaces is still lacking. This paper aims to fill this research gap by conducting a literature review on the recent contributions from a wide range of disciplines, such as organizational studies, leadership studies, and human relations. In order to set the inclusion and assessment criteria for the literature review, this paper draws on recent conceptualizations made in the field of political theory. Following the definition made by Brigitte Geißel (2012, p. 164) we define democratic innovations as “new practices consciously and purposefully introduced in order to improve the quality of democratic governance”. Additionally, we categorize the innovations using the framework introduced by Archon Fung (2006). According to this framework, participatory practices can be located along three dimensions: participation selection, influence and model of decision-making.