노조조직율의 하락과 함께 무노조사업장 고용관계의 중요성이 증대하고 있는 상황이지만 무노조사업장에서의 근로자참여를 실증적으로 분석한 연구는 많지 않다. 본고에서는 무노조사업장 근로자참여를노사협의회를 중심으로 한 간접참여와 인적자원관리 제도를 통한 직접참여로 나누어서 각각의 참여수준이조직성과에 미치는 영향을 한국노동연구원의 사업체패널조사(2007)를 활용하여 분석하였다. 연구결과를 요약하면 다음과 같다. 첫째, 무노조사업장에서의 직접참여와 간접참여 모두 자발적 이직률, 노사관계, 품질개선, 혁신활동과 정(+)의 관련성을 갖는 것으로 나타났다. 특히 대표성이 있는 패널자료를 통해 노사협의회를통한 간접참여와 기업성과간의 긍정적인 관련성이 검증된 것은 노사협의회의 효과성을 실증적으로 보여준것으로 의미가 있다. 둘째, 직접참여와 간접참여는 기업성과에 대하여 선형적인 상호작용효과는 검증되지 않았다. 그러나 추가분석 결과를 보면 직접참여와 간접참여의 도입정도가 모두 높은 유형이 다른 유형들에 비해서 우수한 기업성과를 보여주고 있다. 따라서 직접참여와 간접참여를 효과적으로 활용하여 기업성과를 향상시키기 위해서는 근로자참여제도의 도입과 활용에 있어서 두 가지 형태의 참여기제를 더욱 유기적이고 상호보완적으로 설계 및 운영해야 할 필요가 있음을 시사해주고 있다
This paper analyses the impact of employee participation on human resource management performance,industrial relations performance, and organizational performance after sorting employee participation at non-unionized workplace into direct employee participation and indirect employee participation through a joint labor-management conference(work council) by using WPS (Workplace Panel Survey) of Korea Labor Institute. According to the HPWS (high performance work system) theory, active participation of employees in managerial decision-making system is one of the major components of HPWS. So it is indispensible for companies to construct relevant employee participation polices and practices. Thus it is necessary to examine the effectiveness of employee participation based on various contextual background.
This research is meaningful in the point that there are only a few empirical studies on the effectiveness of the adoption of employee participation at non-unionized workplace though the importance of employment relations at non-unionized workplace has been increased along with worldwide decrease of union density including South Korea. This research also deducts the effectiveness of a joint labor-management conference by showing the significant positive relationship between indirect employee participation and organizational performance using credible panel data.
The findings and implications of our research are summarized as follows.
First, direct and indirect employee participation at non-unionized workplace have both significant positive relationship with volunteer turnover rate, industrial relations, quality improvement, innovative activity.
This results empirically show that the adoption of direct employee participation through human resource management policies and practices is valuable for the improvement of firm performance at non-unionized workplace. In addition, the result that indirect employee participation through a joint labor-management conference has positive relationship with firm performance suggests that firms need to more activate a joint labor-management conference at non-unionized workplace. While there exist labor unions representing the interests of employees at unionized workplace, companies can not fully attend to the interests of employees if there do not exist effective representative mechanisms at non-unionized workplace. But,empirical results in this study show that direct and indirect employee participation at non-unionized work-place have both significant positive relationship with organizational performance. So, employee participation at non-unionized workplace is necessary to meet employee’s growth desire and industrial democracy as well as improvement of firm performance. Considering the contextual background of South Korea where work council is legal obligation of most companies, firms are inclined to passive role in installation and operation of work council. But positive relationship between indirect employee participation and organizational performance propose more active approach at the use of a joint labor-management conference.
Second, direct and indirect employee participations have no linear interaction effects on human resource management performance, industrial relations performance, organizational performance. But, in additional analysis, we can find that the type with both higher direct employee participation and indirect employee participation levels has superior performance than other types in volunteer turnover rate, industrial relations,quality improvement, innovative activity. Thus, to improve human resource management performance,industrial relations performance, and organizational performance effectively by using direct and indirect employee participations, firms should design and operate direct and indirect employee participations mutually complementary.
This research is differentiated from prior research in the points that our research model integrates direct and indirect form of employee participation at non-unionized workplace and analyzes the interaction effects of direct and indirect employee participation, while most prior studies have focused on the individual effects of each form of employee participation. By integrated approach on employee participation, we can find out the implications of the adoption of dual forms of employee participation in the perspective of labor-management cooperation at non-unionized workplace. The result that indirect employee participation through a joint labor-management conference at non-unionized workplace has significant positive relationship with organizational performance suggests the implication that it is important for achievement of superior performance to motivate representative organization for employees.
Especially, the result of hypothesis 3 suggests that preposition concerning interaction effects of direct and indirect form of employee participation polices and practices which has been usually discussed as a conceptual argument should be more examined empirically in depth by using various research models and variables at non-unionized workplace in South Korea.
In future studies, it is necessary to conduct additional research on the accurate process that direct and indirect form of employee participations affect firm performance and the specific conditions which could produce positive interaction effects on organizational performance. In addition, it is also necessary to analyse and compare the effectiveness of direct and indirect employee participation polices and practices at non-unionized workplace based on more elaborate theoretical background and various research methods.