Toward the Participatory Enterprise: A European Trend

Abstract

Workers' participation in management has been extending in various forms in Europe during the third quarter of the twentieth century, and in the last quarter the business enterprise in Europe will evolve into a pattern of organization that may best be designated "the participatory enterprise." This evolution will involve changes in conceptual models of the enterprise and continued effort to resolve certain practical problems that appear to be inherent in participation. Unlike classical models of organization, the participatory enterprise is a coalition of conflicting and cooperative interests. Further progress is required in clarifying the causal relations involved in participation, which the small research effort to date reveals to be more complex than is often assumed. Experience shows that participation does not remove problems of human inter action and relations, but changes their character. It is time to abandon global thinking about participation and move to a more discriminating approach which does not seek final solu tions but recognizes that participation is a living, evolving process, the outcome of which cannot be predicted in detail.