Was Menschen über Mitbestimmung denken

Germans evaluate participation in decision-making processes in general as well as employee participation very positively. However, they know little about workplace and company level co-determination. Most attitude surveys presume that respondents know about the subject of the survey and that both they and the interviewers mean the same thing by it. By using an association method, this study avoids the problems that result from these presuppositions. It starts by recording what 3,203 randomly selected people associated with the term 'participation' when asked in a survey. Subsequently, the respondents rated their own associations as positive, neutral or negative. In this way, the study is able to document the respondents' notions of participation as well as their attitudes towards participation. This association method was supplemented by a series of predefined statements which the respondents had to either agree or disagree with. In addition, 41 qualitative interviews with younger people were conducted.