Who is in control ? The effect of employee participation on the quality of the work environment

Introduction This paper reports on recent Danish research into how employee participation affects the quality of the work environment. The research took its point of departure in the dual expectation that employee participation in general has positive effects on the quality of the work environment (QWE) but that the positive effects in certain organisational contexts may be usurped and even turned into negative effects on the psychosocial work environment. Before presenting the details of the research, the two key concepts of the study, work environment and employee participation are briefly presented.