Participative Management as Related to Personnel Development

THEORY regarding patterns of deA X D P R A C T I C E cision-making in libraries have been relatively neglected aspects of library administration. Yet the decisions by which a library attempts to control its operations are of major importance to its welfare and effectiveness. Recent theories in management and social psychology have addressed themselves to the implications of participative management and group decision-making, and their findings appear to have important applications to libraries, not the least of which is personnel development. Likert has described in some detail the implications of group decision-making on productivity. Not only does it affect the quality of decisions, but their implications as wel1.l If the involvement of the library staff in determining the library's objectives and its means of attaining them is reflected in thc service the library provides, this factor should be considered as libraries and those responsible for the libraries' operation search for means of improving library service. Research into the power of group influences upon the functioning of organizations has provided increasing evidence of its effect on the achievement of the organization's objectives. One of the behavioral aspects of group influence is participative decision-making, The findings indicate that group decision-making has two major advantages over decision-making imposed unilaterally by management; these are that group decisions tend to be of superior quality and they tend to be more readily accepted by the group. While group decision-making alone appears to be neither adequate nor necessary to assure high productivity, it has been found to be generally characteristic of high production organizations.? Decisions are found to be superior especially