Book excerpt: This book traces the origins of worker participation in management and decision making, examines the repertoire of empowerment and participatory techniques as applied throughout the world, and assesses, by means of empirical evidence, their effectiveness in the day to day managerial work. Both theoretical and empirical bases of participation and empowerment are presented and their relationship with leadership, goal setting, and problem solving phenomenon analyzed. The book concludes with a chapter describing a comprehensive model of the dynamics of employee participation and its influence on work outcomes is suggested.