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Participatory HRM practices and job

quality of vulnerable workers
a b b c
Agnieszka Piasna , Mark Smith , Janna Rose , Jill Rubery ,
d c
Brendan Burchell & Anthony Rafferty
a
European Trade Union Institute, Brussels, Belgium
b
Grenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble, France
c
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester,
Manchester, UK
d
Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
UK
Published online: 30 Oct 2013.

To cite this article: Agnieszka Piasna, Mark Smith, Janna Rose, Jill Rubery, Brendan Burchell
& Anthony Rafferty (2013) Participatory HRM practices and job quality of vulnerable
workers, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24:22, 4094-4115, DOI:
10.1080/09585192.2013.845423

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 The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2013
Vol. 24, No. 22, 4094–4115, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2013.845423

Participatory HRM practices and job quality of vulnerable workers

Agnieszka Piasnaa*, Mark Smithb, Janna Roseb, Jill Ruberyc, Brendan Burchelld and
Anthony Raffertyc
a
European Trade Union Institute, Brussels, Belgium; bGrenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble,

France; cManchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; dDepartment of

Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Vulnerable workers can be expected to be more subject to direct managerial control

over the work process and have little opportunity for participation in shaping their work
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environment. Opportunities for participation not only are in themselves desirable, but
also may have beneficial effects on job quality. However, there has been little
exploration of either the extent to which vulnerable workers have access to employee
participation or whether such access is equally associated with improved job quality for
both vulnerable and non-vulnerable groups. These issues are explored using the fifth
wave of the European Working Conditions Survey. We define vulnerable workers by
the labour supply characteristics of low education and being female. Consistent with
our predictions, regression analyses reveal that, although vulnerable workers have
considerably less access to participatory human resource management practices, for
those that do have access, similar improvements are found when compared to non-
vulnerable groups on all four dimensions of job quality included in the analysis. Some
variations were found depending on gender and level of education, but overall, our
analysis suggests that increasing access to employee participation practices could
provide an important means of improving job quality for vulnerable workers.
Keywords: discrimination; employee participation; gender differences; job quality;
vulnerable workers

Introduction
This article explores the relationship between employee participation practices and
improved job quality for vulnerable workers. According to Tregaskis and Brewster (2006),
less educated or marginal workers face greater risks of having to accept working
conditions that favour the employer rather than the employee; a key example is the
practice of employing the more vulnerable on temporary contracts (Felstead and Gallie
2004; Polavieja 2006; Gebel and Giesecke 2009). Without mechanisms to modify
employer behaviour, employers’ human resource management (HRM) practices are likely
to reinforce vulnerability and poor job quality for these groups (Gesthuizen, Solga and
Künster 2011; Abrassart 2012). Employee participation may provide a particularly
important modifying mechanism. Not only are these opportunities desirable in themselves
but they may also reduce the incidence of poor job quality.
To date, interest in the effects of employee participation has focused on organisational
performance. In parallel, several authors have argued for more attention to be given to the
effects on employees (e.g. Clark, Mabey and Skinner 1998; Guest 1999). Studies
exploring the impact of HRM practices that offer opportunities for employees to raise
work-related issues with supervisors or managers, or to voice opinions and be involved in
decision-making processes in the workplace, have found them to be linked to enhanced

*Corresponding author. Email: apiasna@etui.org

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 4095

trust, job satisfaction and commitment among employees (Batt 2002; Mohr and Zoghi
2008; Cox, Marchington and Suter 2009; Holland, Cooper, Pyman and Teicher 2012;
Gallie 2013). Some association, mostly based on theoretical assumptions, between these
practices and improved working conditions has also been claimed. So far, these
associations have not been fully empirically verified, and they also raise issues of
causality: employee participation opportunities can be expected to be higher for more
advantaged workers who, in turn, can be expected to have better job quality. If less
advantaged or vulnerable workers with access to employee participation also benefit from
improved job quality, relative to similar workers without these opportunities, then some
independent effect from employee participation on job quality may be inferred. This
would also suggest that measures to encourage extending these mechanisms to workplaces
and jobs where more vulnerable workers are employed might be an important tool for
improving job quality for the more vulnerable.
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Consequently, this article contributes to the debate on vulnerable workers and

participation with empirical evidence on the association between employee participation
and four specific dimensions of job quality: (1) the quality of the physical environment,
(2) the absence of work pressures, (3) working time quality and (4) job prospects, for
all employees and for those we categorise as vulnerable. These investigations further
develop the employee perspective by considering both whether vulnerable workers have
the same or different opportunities for participation and decision-making at the workplace
and whether they similarly benefit from access to such practices.
The article is structured as follows. First, we explore definitions of employee
participation and the scope of related HRM schemes in order to provide context to our
narrower focus on selected HRM practices. Second, we review the literature to establish
the mechanisms through which employee participation may improve the quality of jobs,
with a particular focus on vulnerable workers. Following a description of the methodology
used, we present and discuss the empirical analyses. The final section discusses the main
results and outlines directions for further research.

Employee participation through HRM practices

In the 1980s and 1990s, interest in employee participation opportunities was stimulated by
the inclusion of these practices among a bundle of high-performance HRM measures (Cox
et al. 2009) that were expected to improve firm-level performance (Patterson, West,
Lawthorn and Nickell 1997; Wood and de Menezes 1998a). Participation is expected to
improve performance because employees possess information that is useful for
management when seeking organisational improvements. Compared with Fordist
approaches, this signalled a shift in the role of employees in the production system to
being potential problem-solvers. Employees were expected to enjoy greater autonomy, but
to ensure that this autonomy was used in the interest of the organisation, management
needed to introduce practices, including employee participation opportunities, which
encouraged employees’ engagement and commitment to organisational goals (Boselie
2010). Authors such as Boxall and Macky (2009) stress the importance of distinguishing
HRM practices that engage employees’ commitment to improving performance from
those that lead to greater managerial control over employees.
Boxall and Purcell (2003) provide a definition of employee participation that captures
its broad and flexible scope. They describe it as including several tools that ‘enable, and at
times empower employees, directly or indirectly, to contribute to decision-making in the
firm’ (p. 162). Thus, employee participation ranges from very formal and indirect trade
 4096 A. Piasna et al.

union representation, through more localised works councils, to direct and often informal
day-to-day forms of communication determined and initiated by managers and supervisors
(Marchington and Suter 2013). In this study, we focus on the latter forms, also referred to
as ‘employee involvement and participation’ (EIP), as they offer individual workers
opportunities to influence workplace decision-making and thus are particularly relevant
for analysing job quality outcomes at the individual level. This more individualised
approach may also have more relevance for vulnerable workers who are less likely to be
employed in organisations with formal and/or collective forms of participation.
Organisations employ a diverse set of tools, often more than one at a time, in order to
enhance employee participation and involvement. Marchington and Wilkinson (2005a)
differentiate employee participation into four types: direct communication (emails, letters
or meetings), upward problem-solving (employee suggestions or employee problem-
solving focus groups), representative participation (trade unions, collective bargaining or
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joint consultation committees) and financial participation (employee shares or profit

sharing). Dundon and Wilkinson (2012) include two additional categories of employee
participation – task participation (job-focused skill development or inter-organisational
task sharing) and teamwork (working in teams and organising the leadership of teams).
Most studies focus on the organisational perspective but the employee perspective is also
important as employees may experience quite different outcomes to the official
organisational policy. Case-study evidence based on employee views of participation
suggests there may be an implementation gap (Marchington, Wilkinson, Ackers and
Goodman 1994). Similarly, surveys of employees point to more limited levels of
participation than managerial rhetoric might suggest (Lorenz and Valeyre 2005). For this
analysis, we used questions that targeted employees’ reporting of participative schemes in
their workplaces. We were able to capture, in general terms, direct communications
(decision latitude in improving processes at work, consultation during meetings,
encouragement by supervisors to participate in important decisions) and task-based
participation (decision latitude in setting work targets).
Differences among European Union (EU) countries in the extent and form of employee
participation opportunities can also be expected. Despite European-level initiatives to
promote employee participation, not only statutory arrangements across Europe (Cressey
2009) vary markedly but also implementation across sectors, firms and even workforce
groups has been found to be very uneven (Lecher, Platzer, Rub and Weiner 2002;
Marginson and Sisson 2006; Waddington 2011; Eurofound 2013). All these factors
influence employees’ basic rights to participate in organisational life and indicate a need to
investigate individual opportunities for participation.

Employee participation and job quality

While employee participation practices are diverse, the focus on performance impacts has
meant that their potential for improving job quality has been under-researched. HRM
practices that enhance EIP can be a valued feature in itself, allowing more discretion and
autonomy as well as generating feelings of involvement in the work process. There is a
broad consensus in research that workers’ control over their own work responsibilities has
positive impacts on health and well-being (Karasek and Theorell 1990; Dhondt 1998;
Marmot 2004). These mostly psychological or occupational health studies have focused on
how individual task discretion, including skill use (i.e. variety of tasks, opportunities for
learning and the ability to conduct non-repetitive, creative activities), and discretion in
planning and organising one’s own work influence employee welfare. There has been less
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 4097

exploration of how direct communication, involvement in the organisational level

decision-making and task-based participation may affect either well-being or the quality of
jobs. However, the overall positive assessment of involvement in the work process and
work organisation suggests that a positive effect on the quality of jobs can also be expected.
Some recent research on the quality of work has classified jobs that grant employees
high discretion to cope with demands as high- quality jobs (Beckers et al. 2004; Holman
2013). Moreover, participation can be expected to be used by employees to improve
working conditions by allowing workers to ‘voice’ their dissatisfaction and request
improvements in problematic areas. Some support for this proposition is found in studies
that identify positive effects from direct employee participation, although the outcomes do
not tap into the quality of jobs as such. For instance, Bryson and Freeman’s (2006)
exploration of worker participation suggests that the direct involvement of workers,
through non-union channels of ‘voice’, reduces workplace problems as well as helps
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satisfy workers’ reported need for representation and participation. Gallie (2013) provides
empirical evidence on the positive impact of both individual task discretion and
consultative participation on the quality of work, defined in terms of job satisfaction, skill
use and psychological well-being (different dimensions to those explored here).
Furthermore, Marchington and Wilkinson (2005b) see the potential for participation
mechanisms to increase perceptions of fairness at work, although they stress indirect and
collective representation rather than direct and individual mechanisms.
Nonetheless, the impact of EIP practices might not always be positive for job quality as
conventionally measured. For example, employee participation may enhance employee
commitment (Cotton 1993; Cox et al. 2009), which, in turn, may increase their overall
willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation (Farndale, van Ruiten, Kelliher and
Hope-Hailey 2011). Indeed, a substantial stream of research suggests that individuals with
high levels of organisational commitment are more willing to ‘go an extra mile’ at work,
much in line with claims relating to the role of HRM as a route to high performance,
effectiveness and productivity (Arthur 1994; Wood and de Menezes 1998b; Appelbaum,
Bailey, Berg and Kalleberg 2000). As a consequence, work intensity, one measure of poor
job quality, might increase with EIP. Similar, apparently perverse, effects may also apply
in relation to the quality of working time, particularly if the additional effort exerted by
highly motivated and committed workers takes the form of overtime or extra hours, which
are also more likely to be unsocial working times (Beckers et al. 2004). Therefore, the
relationship between participative HRM practices and the quality of working time and
work pressures might be more complex than those of other job quality dimensions.
On the other hand, more committed employees have been found to report higher
satisfaction with a number of job features (Mathieu and Zajac 1990; Marchington and
Suter 2013). This in turn can result in a more positive evaluation of work characteristics
and inflate the overall measure of job quality. While these factors might involve bias in the
assessment of their working conditions by employees, this article to some extent avoids
such risks by mostly using employee measures of objective job characteristics and, where
feasible, avoids the use of subjective evaluations and reports of satisfaction levels.
The opportunities to improve working conditions through participatory HRM schemes
might also depend on the ‘intensity’ or ‘embeddedness’ of EIP opportunities (Cox,
Zagelmeyer and Marchington 2006), which may reflect managerial engagement in such
practices. One measure of intensity could be the number of different participation channels
offered to employees, as well as the frequency of engagement with employees through
such channels. Cox et al.’s (2006) empirical results support propositions that positive
impacts on employees increase with the breadth and depth of EIP practices. Thus, they
 4098 A. Piasna et al.

suggest that analyses of the impact of employee participation should try to capture the
breadth and depth of managerial practices (see also Marchington and Wilkinson 2005a;
Cox et al. 2009), although this may be difficult to achieve in any one study. For example,
Marchington and Wilkinson (2005b) suggest a framework along four dimensions for
capturing differences in employee participation schemes: (1) depth (of influence), (2) level
(at which participation takes place), (3) scope (of topics covered) and (4) form (direct,
indirect, financial, problem-solving). Furthermore, these studies of embeddedness have
focused primarily on the impact of employee involvement on employees’ perceptions of
the organisation, their levels of organisational commitment and job satisfaction.
Nevertheless, it may be reasonable to expect that the impact of EIPs on job quality might
also increase in line with the number of practices available to employees.
In summary, given the available evidence, we expect a positive effect to result from
employee participation and involvement on a number of job quality dimensions although
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with possible non-linear effects on working time and work pressures. Stronger positive
effects can be expected with increasing numbers of reported practices.

Vulnerable workers and employee participation

The twin policy objectives of reducing the vulnerability of particular labour supply groups
to poor employment conditions and improving job quality in precarious jobs are often
confounded. Vulnerability is sometimes even defined by the experience of poor working
conditions and poor quality jobs, thus rendering the separation of the two concepts difficult.
For instance, the type of employment contract, access to training, representation, level of
pay or safety of a workplace are used in definitions of vulnerable workers (e.g. Pollert and
Charlwood 2009), as well as in the measurement of job quality (e.g. Muñoz de Bustillo,
Fernández-Macı́as, Antón and Esteve 2011; Eurofound 2012; Leschke and Watt 2013).
To overcome this, we conceptually separate the notion of vulnerable workers as a supply-
side phenomenon, defined by their individual-level characteristics such as gender (and/or
motherhood), education, health status or race, from a demand-side phenomenon of jobs of
poor quality. To what extent specific groups face higher risks in the labour market depends
both on the social construction of disadvantage in a specific country along class, gender,
family position and racial lines as well as on the share of poor quality jobs in the labour
market. Here, however, we take two dimensions of vulnerability that have widespread
applicability, that is the level of education and gender. Employee participation is treated as
an attribute of the job, although job characteristics may, of course, reflect the characteristics
of the employees involved. Of particular interest here is part-time work which is primarily
undertaken by women and is often concentrated in particular labour market segments,
rather than being available throughout the job structure (O’Reilly and Fagan 1998).
Women, particularly those in part-time jobs, may have limited access to representation and
decision-making processes in the labour market. Despite the feminisation of the labour
force, women’s participation and representation through the trade union membership and
coverage by collective bargaining remains limited (ETUC 2007), driven, in part, by their
greater involvement in non-standard forms of employment, including part-time work.
However, although trade union representation is traditionally concentrated in male-
dominated secondary sectors, in some countries trade union organisation in the public
sector is also relatively strong and involves more women (Smith 2012).
Little is known about the impact of differences in access to employee participation
practices among the lower skilled or lower educated. Lorenz and Valeyre (2005) point to
the quite different levels of autonomy and opportunities for learning available to
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 4099

employees at the lower end of the hierarchy compared to those in managerial, professional
or technical occupations. Jones, Kalmi and Kauhanen (2006) suggest that there can be
organisational advantages from participation practices even where employees are engaged
in ‘simple tasks and [ . . . ] are relatively low-skilled’ (p. 29).
As vulnerable groups are at greater risk of being employed in lower quality jobs, they can
also be expected to have limited access to employee participation practices within
organisations. Their opportunities for collective participation may be shaped by the extent to
which collective representation in a country or sector is relatively inclusive or exclusive (Gold,
Kluge and Conchon 2010; Bryson, Willman, Gomez and Kretschmer 2013). Access to direct
participation tends to depend on employer HRM practices and employers may be less likely to
adopt employee participation practices where their employees have limited labour market
power. Managers may also include some workers and exclude others from participation
opportunities depending on trust relations (Marchington and Suter 2013). These processes of
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exclusion may affect, for example, women or less educated employees. Moreover, the
informality of certain employee involvement practices might tend to exclude those that are not
continuously present in the workplace, for instance, those in part-time work, thus making
women particularly at risk. Nevertheless, employers may still vary in the extent to which they
provide participation opportunities, even in lower skilled jobs and/or for vulnerable and
disadvantaged employees. It is the impact of different participation opportunities on the job
quality of vulnerable workers that we aim to investigate in this research.
Furthermore, we may also expect the relationship between job quality and
participatory HRM practices to vary between vulnerable and non-vulnerable workers,
although potentially in contradictory directions. On the one hand, opportunities for
participation might reduce the incidence of poor quality jobs in the macroeconomy, and at
the same time offer channels at the microlevel for workers at risk of precarious and low-
quality job outcomes to raise concerns about their situation and seek some redress. Both
mechanisms could benefit vulnerable workers. On the other hand, vulnerable workers may
be less able to make use of employee participation opportunities as they lack bargaining
power and may be marginalised within organisations.
Figure 1 outlines the mechanisms by which participation practices might be expected
to impact upon the job quality of vulnerable workers. We underline the concept of

Regulatory and Welfare Regime Context

HRM Practices Job Quality

Vulnerable Workers
Employee Physical Environment
Low education
participation Work Pressure
Gender
Working Time Quality
Job Prospects

Supply Demand

Controlling for sector, occupation, country, demographics (age, child

<5years, partner)

Figure 1. Framework for the analysis: the effect of participatory HRM practices on job quality of
vulnerable workers.
 4100 A. Piasna et al.

vulnerability as a supply-side characteristic of individual employees that puts them at risk

of precarious and low-quality job outcomes. Our focus on participatory HRM measures as
a mediator of the relationship between vulnerability and job quality avoids demand-side
job quality outcomes such as poor prospects or precarious contracts being conflated with
organisational HRM practices.
In this article, we seek to answer three research questions. We first explore the extent to
which vulnerable workers have access to participatory HRM practices relative to non-
vulnerable workers, second the impact of participatory HRM practices on job quality in
relation to four dimensions and third the extent to which vulnerable workers who have
access to participatory HRM practices benefit from improved job quality. The next section
provides full details of how these concepts were operationalised.
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Methodology
Data
The analyses use data drawn from the most recent fifth wave of the European Working
Conditions Survey (EWCS) conducted in 2010. Since 1990, the Eurofound has conducted
the EWCS every five years based upon a sample representative of persons in employment,
both employees and self-employed, working for at least one hour a week, who are aged 15
years and above (16 and above in Spain and the UK). The sampling procedure in each
country uses a multi-stage, stratified and clustered design with a random walk procedure
for the selection of respondents (see Eurofound 2007; Gallup Europe 2010). The EWCS
has been widely used in the study of working conditions and managerial practices (e.g.
Lorenz and Valeyre 2005; Holman 2013; Leschke and Watt 2013). Here, we focus on
employees from the 27 countries that were members of the EU in 2010. The final sample
consists of 29,296 respondents.

Variables used in the analyses

The analyses required the measurement of participatory HRM practices, the vulnerability
of workers and job quality. We also included a series of control variables. The
measurement of each of these variables is discussed in turn.

Independent variables: employee involvement and participation

For our purposes, there is a range of questions about the job and organisational
characteristics of employees’ workplaces and their supervisors’ management practices.
The following four items were selected to represent HRM practices that enhance employee
participation: (1) decision latitude – setting targets, (2) decision latitude – improving
processes, (3) consultation during meetings and (4) supervisor encourages participation.
The exact wording of the questions, the response categories and their recoding are
presented in Table 1. These four employee participation measures are highly correlated
and, thus, to avoid the problem of multi-collinearity in the following regression analyses,
they were combined in one measure of employee participation, distinguishing between
‘none of the practices reported’ and used as a reference category, ‘some practices reported’
when a respondent indicated between one and three practices, and ‘all four practices
reported’. In that way, we are able to capture not only presence of the HRM practices, but
also their breadth (Cox et al. 2009).
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 4101

Table 1. Measures of employee involvement and participation.

HRM practice Question in the EWCS Responses

Decision latitude – You are consulted before targets for 1 ¼ ‘Always’, ‘Most of the
setting targets your work are set (Q51C) time’, ‘Sometimes’
0 ¼ ‘Rarely’, ‘Never’
Decision latitude – You are involved in improving the 1 ¼ ‘Always’, ‘Most of the
improving processes work organisation or work time’, ‘Sometimes’
processes of your department or 0 ¼ ‘Rarely’, ‘Never’
organisation (Q51D)
Consultation during At your workplace, does management 1 ¼ ‘Yes’
meetings hold meetings in which you can 0 ¼ ‘No’
express your views about what is
happening in the organisation (Q64)
Supervisor encourages Your immediate manager/supervisor 1 ¼ ‘Yes’
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participation encourages you to participate in 0 ¼ ‘No’

important decisions (Q58E)

Independent variables: vulnerable workers and control variables

The EWCS provides measures of a number of workers’ characteristics that correspond to
their vulnerability as defined in this article. In particular, we explore the effects of gender
and low education (up to lower secondary or basic education) as indicators of
vulnerability. Moreover, we include information about part-time working hours (34 or less
hours per week), the presence of young children in the household (below age five) and
whether they live with a partner. The aim here is to explore the cumulative disadvantage of
those workers who might be less attached to the labour market due to their life stage.
Unfortunately, the EWCS does not allow us to measure other accepted dimensions of
vulnerability including health, sexual orientation, race or ethnic group, and nationality.
As discussed above, the definition of vulnerable work groups may vary by country, and
job quality dimensions will also be affected both by country-related factors and by
industry and occupation. Thus, we include as control variables the sector of activity
(NACE Rev. 2 in 10 categories) and occupational category (ISCO-08 1-digit), as well as
country. However, any cross-national differences in job quality as well as reported access
to employee participation practices need to be treated with great caution. Despite efforts to
harmonise the data collection across countries and ensure equivalency of translations,
many items used to measure work organisation and working conditions are culture and
language specific. The assessment of the frequency or magnitude, and even the presence of
certain work features, is calibrated by respondents, even if unconsciously, against a social
or cultural norm (see Green and McIntosh 2001). Therefore, in the analyses, we control for
occupational structure and country in order to determine the importance of compositional
factors for the relationship between HRM practices and job quality, but we do not focus on
the interpretation of cross-national differences in job quality outcomes.

Dependent variables: four dimensions of job quality

Job quality is measured on four broad dimensions: good physical environment, absence of
work pressures, working time quality and job prospects. This classification draws largely
on the conceptual framework of job quality proposed by Green and Mostafa (see
Eurofound 2012). Good physical environment is the opposite of environmental risk and
corresponds to the extent to which the work environment is free from potential sources of
 4102 A. Piasna et al.

Table 2. Measures of job quality.

Job quality dimension Questions in the EWCS

Good physical environment Exposure at work to hazards such as: vibrations, noise, high
temperatures, low temperatures, breathing in smoke,
vapours, handling chemical products, tobacco smoke,
handling infectious materials (Q23A – I)
Ergonomic issues: tiring or painful positions, lifting or
moving people, or heavy loads, standing, repetitive
movements (Q24A – E)
Absence of work pressures Pace of work: high speed, tight deadlines (Q45A – B)
Handling angry clients (Q24G)
Enough time to get the job done (Q51G)
Emotional aspects: tasks that are in conflict with personal
values, job requires hiding feelings (Q51L, P)
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Pace constraints: colleagues, customer demands, production

or performance targets, machine speed, boss (Q46A – E)
Working time quality Unsocial hours: work at night, in the evening, on Sundays and
Saturdays (Q32 –35)
Changes in work schedules: initiative in setting working time
arrangements, notice given when changes occur (Q39– 40)
Prospects Might lose job in the next six months (Q77A)
Job offers good prospects for career advancement (Q77C)
Type of employment contract (Q7)

harm to health and well-being. Work pressures refer to the intensity of work effort during
work time, and incorporate both physical and mental aspects. Good quality of working
time is measured as not having to work during unsocial hours, including night, evening and
weekends, as well as by employees’ reported degree of control over their work schedules
(together with additional information about unpredictable changes introduced by the
employer). Finally, job prospects include information about the type of contract, perceived
job security and chances for career progression. Items used in constructing the job quality
measures are summarised in Table 2 (for details about the construction of the scales, see
Eurofound 2012). All four outcome measures of job quality are coded on the scale 0– 100
with higher scores representing better quality of work.

Results
Vulnerable workers and job quality
This section begins by considering the quality of jobs performed by vulnerable workers.
This analysis serves to establish a link between vulnerability as a supply-side
characteristic, defined by low education and gender, and a stock of poor quality jobs.
Among employees in the EU27, low education is linked to worse job quality on every
dimension included in our analysis (Table 3). The most pronounced disadvantage is
observed in terms of physical working conditions and job prospects. While the former are
particularly unfavourable for low-educated men, the link between low education and poor
prospects is similar for both genders. We find less difference in working time and work
pressures between low-educated and other workers, and the negative effect of low
education is more visible for men.
The relationship between gender and job quality is more nuanced. For instance,
women typically work fewer unsocial hours or work in sectors and occupations with less
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Table 3. Differences in job quality, by gender and education level.

Low education gap
Low education Upper secondary education or higher (upper– low)
Gender Gender gap
Female Male gap (M– F) Female Male (M– F) Female Male
Good physical environment 76.3 68.0 28.3 78.9 74.7 24.2 2.6 6.7
Absence of work pressures 65.0 61.7 23.3 65.2 63.0 22.2 0.2 1.3
Working time quality 59.2 55.1 24.1 59.8 59.2 20.6 0.6 4.1
Prospects 63.5 65.6 2.1 67.4 69.4 2.0 3.9 3.8
Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
4103
 4104 A. Piasna et al.

arduous physical conditions. However, as detailed in previous empirical investigations

(see e.g. Eurofound in press), this comes at a cost of lower income, less discretion at work
or diminished prospects for career advancement. The results presented in Table 3 largely
confirm this pattern. On average, women work in better physical environments, in less
pressured jobs and with better quality of working hours than do men. The stronger positive
relationship between education and the quality of working hours, as well as decreased
pressures at work that is found for men, results in a substantial narrowing of the gender gap
on these dimensions among better educated workers. Also, in terms of the quality of the
physical environment, the benefit associated with education is much stronger for men, but
physical working conditions are still by far the best for better educated women. On the
other hand, women invariably report lower job prospects than men, and the gender gap
does not differ between education levels.
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Vulnerability and access to employee participation

Table 4 reveals support for our proposition that vulnerable workers have the least
opportunity for participation in decisions that shape their work environments. Low-
educated employees are much less likely to have access to all four HRM practices (19.7%)
compared to the better educated (31.2%) and are also almost twice as likely to be entirely
excluded from access to such practices (15.6% compared to 8%). Gender differences are
less pronounced, with men only slightly more likely to have access to all four practices.
Furthermore, while women with low education are less likely to have access to all four
employee participation practices than men, men with lower education are somewhat more
likely to report no access to participation. Moreover, it should be noted that, although
female part-time workers are somewhat less likely than full-timers to have access to all
four participatory measures (24.5% compared to 27.2%), the shares of part-timers and full-
timers with no access are very similar.

Benefits of employee participation

Finally, we explore how effective employee participation is at raising job quality. Table 5
shows that employee participation is positively related to all measures of job quality.
In almost all cases, access to all practices is associated with better job quality outcomes
than access to only some of the practices and, for all job quality dimensions, access to

Table 4. Differences in access to HRM practices promoting employee participation, by level of

education and gender.

None of the four

participation One to three All four participation
practices (%) practices (%) practices (%)
Low education 15.6 64.7 19.7
Upper secondary education or higher 8.0 60.7 31.2
Female 10.0 63.9 26.1
Female full-timers 9.6 63.2 27.2
Female part-timers 10.5 65.0 24.5
Male 10.8 60.3 28.9
Females with low education 14.2 68.0 17.8
Males with low education 16.8 61.9 21.3
Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.
 Downloaded by [Brunel University London] at 10:26 25 February 2015

Table 5. Employee participation and selected job quality outcomes, by level of education.

Education level Low education Upper secondary education or higher

None of the four All four None of the four All four
participation One to three participation participation One to three participation
Employee participation practices practices practices practices practices practices
Good physical environment 68.7 72.2 72.7 71.5 75.9 79.8
Gain compared to no participation þ3.5 þ4.0 þ4.4 þ8.3
Absence of work pressures 59.4 64.6 61.9 62.1 64.5 63.8
Gain compared to no participation þ5.2 þ2.5 þ2.4 þ1.7
Working time quality 53.0 57.4 58.7 53.0 58.2 63.7
Gain compared to no participation þ4.4 þ5.7 þ5.3 þ10.7
Prospects 53.5 64.4 74.4 55.1 66.5 75.6
Gain compared to no participation þ11.0 þ20.9 þ11.4 þ20.4
Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
4105
 4106 A. Piasna et al.

some employee participation practices is better than no access. The exceptions are that
work pressure is the lowest for respondents reporting access to some, but not all,
participation practices, while a weaker, but still positive effect, is found for having access
to all four practices. This result might reflect the impact of high-performance work
systems, which tend to provide for more developed employee participation but are
accompanied by high work intensity (Farndale et al. 2011).
No systematic difference was found between low-educated and better educated
employees in the relationship between access to participatory HRM and job quality.
However, employee participation appeared to reduce work pressure more for the lower
educated, while improving physical environment and working time more for the better
educated.
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Multivariate analysis
The descriptive analysis conducted indicated that vulnerability, defined as a characteristic
of workers, through their education level and gender, is closely linked to inferior job
quality. Moreover, those workers, whether in the vulnerable or non-vulnerable categories,
who have access to employee participation practices experience better job quality along
various dimensions. Here, we test whether these effects continue to exist after accounting
for compositional factors and other worker characteristics.
In a series of regression analyses summarised in Table 6, we test what factors predict
the good quality of jobs considering each of the four dimensions in turn. In the first step,
the ‘pure’ effect of low education and gender on job quality is assessed by holding constant
other worker characteristics (age, having young children and living with a partner) and
structural factors (occupational class, sector and country). In the second step, we assess
whether the strong positive effect of employee participation on job quality described in the
previous section can be explained by the greater availability of such practices in certain
occupations or sectors characterised by a concentration of better quality jobs. In the third
step, we combine the information about workers’ vulnerability and the availability of
HRM practices to explore the extent to which the exclusion of vulnerable workers from
such practices can account for their lower job quality. This is performed by first including
additional information about part-time work, and then adding all control variables used in
the first model. Part-time work is included with the aim of investigating to what extent the
gender effect is a function of part-time work, given its predominance among women (39%
of women in our sample worked less than 34 hours per week, compared to 11% of men).
The results show that low education is indeed associated with significantly lower job
quality in terms of physical environment, working time quality and job prospects (Table 6,
Models 1, 4, 7 and 10). Interestingly, low education as such is not linked to higher pressure
jobs, and lower job quality on this dimension reported by low-educated workers can be
explained by their concentration in sectors and occupations with greater exposure to
pressure sources and greater demands. The opposite is found for women, who on average
reported less pressure at work (Table 5). Thus, women are more likely to work in sectors
with a slower speed of work and fewer factors tending to increase pace of work (e.g. in
education) and are rarely found in effort-intensive male-dominated occupations (e.g. craft
and related trade workers or operators and assemblers).1 However, once these
compositional differences are accounted for, women in similar positions report more
pressure at work than men.
Employee participation is positively related to all job quality outcomes and this
positive effect remains statistically significant after the compositional effects as well as the
 Downloaded by [Brunel University London] at 10:26 25 February 2015

Table 6. Predictors of good job quality.

Model
Dependent variable Independent variables 1 2 3a 3b
Good Physical Environment (Constant) 71.209*** 69.785*** 69.132*** 69.684***
Low education 2 2.231*** 25.138*** 22.192***
Female 2.014*** 4.726*** 1.810***
Part-time 2.021*** 1.410***
Participation: some 0.945*** 3.038*** 0.896***
Participation: all 1.942*** 6.749*** 2.017***
Control variablesa Yes Yes No Yes
R2 0.307 0.301 0.085 0.312
4 5 6a 6b
Absence of work pressures (Constant) 64.318*** 62.848*** 60.497*** 60.469***
Low education 1.082*** 0.166 1.018***
Female 2 0.616* 0.978*** 21.438***
Part-time 5.429*** 4.665***
Participation: some 2.412*** 2.527*** 2.436***
Participation: all 1.499*** 1.657*** 1.782***
Control variablesa Yes Yes No Yes
R2 0.095 0.096 0.018 0.105

7 8 9a 9b
Working time quality (Constant) 58.774*** 56.925*** 53.174*** 54.370***
Low education 2 0.777** 22.712*** 20.660*
Female 2.132*** 0.671** 1.695***
Part-time 3.749*** 3.691***
The International Journal of Human Resource Management

Participation: some 2.827*** 4.121*** 2.789***

Participation: all 4.369*** 8.509*** 4.551***
Control variablesa Yes Yes No Yes
R2 0.171 0.172 0.032 0.183
10 11 12a 12b
4107

(Continued)
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Table 6 – continued
4108

Model
Dependent variable Independent variables 1 2 3a 3b
Prospects (Constant) 60.991*** 49.518*** 55.622*** 54.619***
Low education 2 2.042*** 23.525*** 21.234***
Female 2 2.343*** 20.550* 20.949***
Part-time 24.652*** 25.801***
Participation: some 8.941*** 10.577*** 8.788***
Participation: all 15.761*** 19.399*** 15.143***
Control variablesa Yes Yes No Yes
R2 0.168 0.205 0.101 0.217
Notes: ***p # 0.001, **p # 0.01, *p # 0.05.
Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.
a
Control variables: sector, occupation, age, child(ren) below five in household, living with partner/spouse, country.
A. Piasna et al.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 4109

individual characteristics of workers are taken into account (Table 6, Models 2, 5, 8 and
11). Lower job quality associated with vulnerability is partly explained by the exclusion of
lower educated employees, and to a lesser extent also women, from participatory HRM
practices. This is particularly noticeable for job prospects: the disadvantaged position of
the low-educated and women (as well as part-timers, where results are not shown)
deteriorates further after including information on employee participation. Similar, but
somewhat weaker, effects are observed for the lower educated in terms of a good physical
environment and the quality of working time.
Moreover, much of the gender gap in job quality can be explained by the high rate of
women holding part-time jobs, which are characterised overall by a better quality of
physical working conditions, working hours and less pressure at work. This is particularly
pronounced in the case of female advantage in terms of absence of work pressure and
working time quality, and denoted by a sharp drop of the regression coefficient after
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inclusion of information about part-time work (results not shown). Similarly, worse job
prospects for women are partly accounted for by their part-time status. However, part-time
work does not affect job quality outcomes for low-educated employees, which can
probably be explained by a relatively balanced distribution of part-time work across lower
and higher educational levels.
Last, the positive effect of employee participation on job quality, for both vulnerable
and non-vulnerable groups, is partly adjusted by the compositional factors. This is mainly
visible in the case of the quality of the physical environment, working time and job
prospects. When we compare results with and without the contextual information taken
into account (Table 6, Models 3a, 6a, 9a and 12a compared with Models 3b, 6b, 9b and
12b), we find unequal access to participatory HRM practices alongside a huge variation in
job quality across different economic sectors and occupational classes. Cross-national
variation in access to employee participation is also likely to impact the results. More
precisely, countries that have consistently been found to have higher levels of employee
participation, involvement and discretion are also the ones achieving higher scores on a
variety of job quality dimensions (Eurofound 2013; Holman 2013; Leschke and Watt
2013). For instance, for the quality of working time, a distinct position of Scandinavian
countries and the Netherlands can be noted, where the greater availability of participative
HRM practices is accompanied by substantively and significantly higher levels of job
quality than in other countries (detailed results available on request). Thus, the reduction
in the positive effect of HRM practices, after the effect of structural factors is accounted
for, can partly be explained by their greater availability in countries with better quality of
working hours.
In the final step of the analysis, we have also considered whether the negative effect of
low education might be different for men and women, as well as whether participatory
HRM practices work equally well for men and women, depending on their level of
education.
How does the labour market treat low-educated women when compared to men?
In terms of job prospects, there is no significant interaction between gender and low
education: the low-educated score lower on job prospects compared to the better educated,
and women score lower than men across both educational groups. For other job quality
measures, the effect of low education varies significantly by gender. However, perhaps
contrary to expectations, low education is less of a disadvantage for women than men.
Only in the case of work pressures does this gendered effect of low education disappear
after structural factors and other personal characteristics are accounted for, while it persists
for the quality of working time and the physical environment.
 4110 A. Piasna et al.

Moreover, to test whether employee participation has similarly positive effects on job
quality for various groups of workers interaction terms were included in the regression
analysis: two-way interactions were tested first, between employee participation and each
of the vulnerability characteristics. The significant results are presented in Figures 2 – 4.
The participatory HRM practices have varying effects on work pressure and working
time quality depending on the level of education (Figures 2 and 3), but do not vary by
gender. For the low-educated, access to some of the HRM practices is associated with a
stronger positive effect in reducing the work pressure than access to all four practices.
However, for the better educated, access to all employee participation practices is not
related to further increases in job quality. This contrasts with the importance of the breadth

68
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Low education
Absence of work pressures

Upper secondary education or

66 higher

64

62

60
None of the 1-3 All four
four practices practices
practices

Figure 2. Differences in the effects of employee participation on work pressure, by level of

education. Note: Results of the regression analysis. Full model with all control variables (sector,

occupation, part-time status, age, child(ren) below five in household, living with partner/spouse,

country). The effect of HRM practices allowed to vary by education level (two-way interaction

term).

Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.

60
Low education
Working time quality

Upper secondary education

58 or higher

56

54

52
None of the 1-3 All four
four practices practices
practices

Figure 3. Differences in the effects of employee participation on working time quality, by level of

education. Note: Results of the regression analysis. Full model with all control variables (sector,

occupation, part-time status, age, child(ren) below five in household, living with partner/spouse,

country). The effect of HRM practices allowed to vary by education level (two-way interaction

term).

Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.

 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 4111

76
Low
75
Good physical environment
education, female
74
Low
73 education, male
72 Upper secondary
71 education or
higher, female
70
69 Upper secondary
education or
68 higher, male
67
None of the four 1 -3 practices All four practices
practices
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Figure 4. Differences in the effects of employee participation on the physical work environment,

by gender and education. Note: Results of the regression analysis. Full model with all control

variables (sector, occupation, part-time status, age, child(ren) below five in household, living with

partner/spouse, country). The effect of HRM practices allowed to vary by education level and gender

(three-way interaction term).

Sample: Employees, EU27. EWCS 2010.

of participative HRM practices for this group for all other job quality dimensions, and in
working time quality in particular, further suggesting that high-performance workplaces
promote employee participation, partly as a reward for high work intensity. For the lower
educated, this pattern might reflect more involvement in jobs with more sources of
pressure, such as demands from clients, and tight delivery times. On the other hand, the
positive effect of employee participation on job prospects does not differ by gender, or by
the level of education.
One final point, the quality of the physical environment indicates that the effect of
employee participation depends both on the education level and gender. To better illustrate
this complex relationship, a three-way interaction term was included in the model,
allowing the effect of employee participation to vary by gender and by the level of
education at the same time. The results are illustrated in Figure 4, and the only statistically
significant difference is observed for education and men. Thus, better educated men report
a markedly lower quality of physical environment when they have no access to employee
participation practices. Overall, this group seems to benefit the most from access to
participatory HRM practices.

Conclusions
This study focuses on the role of participatory HRM practices in reducing the incidence of
poor job quality among vulnerable workers. The analysis of survey data from the EU27
indicates that workers characterised as vulnerable in the labour market through their
individual characteristics – gender and low education – are also disadvantaged by lack of
access to direct forms of employee participation. Furthermore, we find support for the
proposition that communication and consultation at the workplace level has a positive
effect on the quality of jobs. We show that task-based participation, representative
participation and especially direct communication influence job quality for all workers,
including vulnerable workers. The results obtained are consistent across a broad range of
job quality dimensions – including physical environment, work pressures, working time
 4112 A. Piasna et al.

and prospects – allowing a considerable degree of confidence in the robustness of the

findings. Finally, the outcomes of participatory HRM practices on job quality showed
some significant variation between vulnerable and non-vulnerable groups, but with
different dimensions of job quality affected in different ways. For instance, effects on
work pressure and working time quality were found to vary by level of education, while
those on quality of physical environment varied by both gender and education, with better
educated men benefiting the most from access to participatory HRM practices.
These findings should be taken as tentative and serve to widen the current debate rather
than to provide definitive answers. Due to a number of limitations of the present study,
similar investigations are called for using different datasets, where a broader range of
measures could be taken into account. With cross-sectional data, it is practically
impossible to determine the direction of the relationship between job quality and employee
participation, and support for drawing causal inferences comes from the literature, not the
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analysis undertaken. There is also a range of other contextual influences that can affect this
relationship, with only some of these included as control factors in this study (Dundon and
Wilkinson 2012).
Furthermore, while recent research emphasises the need for studying the depth and
breadth of employee participation schemes, because of the data constraints, we were only
able to focus to some extent on the breadth of the HRM practices. For example, practices
such as financial participation or team autonomy were omitted. Likewise, further
investigations are needed that consider vulnerability in different national labour markets,
with analyses by race, migrant status, disabilities or age of workers, all consistently linked
to precarious outcomes on the labour market. Finally, more comparative research is
needed to explore the role of the wider institutional context, including access to formal and
indirect forms of representation in shaping the impact of employee participation and
involvement on the quality of jobs. Nevertheless, for HR professionals, the results suggest
that the inclusion of the full range of employees in participatory practices raises potential
benefits for all employees’ job quality and work environments. The results by gender and
education also indicate that HR professionals need to be aware of the risks of excluding
certain vulnerable groups from participatory HRM practices.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the research managers and project team at the European Foundation for the
Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), and also the editors and reviewers for
comment on earlier versions of this article.

Note
1. A full list of regression estimates of the control variables is available from the authors on
request.

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