A research on participative decision making's effect on role stress sources in white collar employees

It has been thought that empowered enterprises can gain competitive advantage by the inclusion of employees into the decision processes. In this way it is also possible to state that the notion of participation to decisions has a significant role for the enterprise's future. On the other hand, another substantial problematic factor for enterprises is role stress. With a general approach, role ambiguity and role conflict being the primary sources of role stress are due to the workers' living of discrepancy, lack of knowledge, disagreement or conflict in an enterprise. Persons cannot fulfill their assigned roles due to these problems. The notion of participation in decision making is seen as one of the significant determinants in diminishing role ambiguity and role conflict rooted role stress. Basic goal of this study is to examine the effect of white collar workers' participation in decision making on role stress sources. In this framework, an interview has been conducted with 203 white collar workers of a construction enterprise which has a head office and production plant in Ankara province, operating internationally with offices, branches and building sites in various countries. Research includes white collar employees and managers. In the research; the effect of participation atmosphere and attitude towards participation being the sub-dimensions of white-collar participation in decisions on role stress sources which sub dimensions are role ambiguity and role conflict were investigated. According to the research results; it has been deduced that the participation atmosphere which is one of the sub-dimensions of participation in decisions, negatively affects both role ambiguity and role conflict with a significant relationship between participation atmosphere and role ambiguity-conflict. It was also found that attitude towards participation, which is one of the sub-dimensions of participation in decisions, negatively affects role ambiguity but there is no significant relationship between role attitude towards participation and role conflict. Finally, it has also been deduced that participation in decisions partially negatively affect role stress sources. In line with the obtained results, suggestions for the purpose of the research are given in the last section. Keywords: Participation in decision, Role stress sources, Role conflict, Role ambiguity, White-collar employees