Participative management and employee job satisfaction in small and medium-sized enterprises

The paper aims at detecting relations between integration of employees in organizational work of micro, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and rewarding strategies applied there. The empirical part of the paper presents conclusions resulting from the analyses of: employee strategic awareness, involvement in goal-setting processes and integration in a discussion on company performance, linked with various rewarding systems applied in enterprises. The paper formulates three working hypotheses which are tested in reference to data from 93 SMEs and 86 large companies. The authors’ research adds an important element to the discussion on rewarding strategies proving that involvement of employees in organisational work is a precondition for developing performance-based rewarding strategies, and that such an involvement makes employees more satisfied with their working conditions