Participatory management

Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making.^[1] It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.^[2]

This practice grew out of the human relations movement in the 1920s, and is based on some of the principles discovered by scholars doing research in management and organization studies, most notably the Hawthorne Experiments that led to the Hawthorne effect.

While group leaders still retain final decision-making authority when participatory management is practiced, participants are encouraged to voice their opinions about their current environment. In the workplace, this concept is sometimes considered industrial democracy.

In the 1990s, participatory management was revived in a different form through advocacy of organizational learning practices, particularly by clients and students of Peter Senge.^{[citation needed]}