(Deetz,1995), including workers, investors, consumer, suppliers, host communities, and the world economic community. According to proponents of workplace democracy, shared decision making among all of these stakeholders is crucial in today’s complicated organization world.
Of course, workplace democracy and participation are not easy-to-enact panaceas for the ills of today’s organizations. Stohl and Cheney (2001) have recently written about the paradoxes that arise in instituting democratic and participative systems. These paradoxes point out situations in which ‘’the pursuit of an objective involves actions that are themselves antithetical to the desired end’’ (Stohl & Cheney, 2001, p. 354). In this case, stohl and cheney highlight 14 specific paradoxes of participation that fall into four general categories: