Further Thoughts on Experiments in Industrial Democracy and Self-Management

Abstract

Participation is developing its own mythology, with Germany, or Yugoslavia, becoming the Mecca, depending on the model of industrial democracy chosen. Britain, some observers claim, has de facto workers' control via shop-steward power. Can empirical research produce hard evidence, and sift realitiesfrom myths? The paper argues that we need a contingency theory of industrial democracy with appropriate organizational designs for each national setting; and that design and policy formulation should be more closely related. Participation, too, should take place in the designing process of systems.