Participative Decision Making: An Experimental Study in a Hospital.

Participative decision making was introduced into a hospital subsystem where several situational factors favored the success of such a program. Over the 18-month period of the study, attitudes improved, absence rates declined, and productivity increased. Absence and productivity rates in the comparison groups did not change during the study period. Performance differences between the experimental and comparison groups were significant practically as well as statistically. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]