Organization of any kind, from prehistoric hunting societies to companies working through the worldwide web, operate with a distribution of influence and power among their members. This distribution of influence has consequences at three levels: for the people working in the organization, for the organization itself, and, from time to time, for members of society outside the organization. A series of action-and policy-oriented projects on the distribution of influence were developed by or in collaboration with the Centre for Decision Making Studies of The Tavistock Institute over a quarter of a century. They started with a seven-country comparative research on top management decision making, followed by two 12-country studies on Industrial Democracy and a 5-year longitudinal program in seven companies in three countries. These and two longitudinal projects in Britian, one on a motor car manufacturer and the other on an airport, used a similar conceptual framework. The article draws on the evidence from this program of work, describes the evolving theoretical model and concludes that organizational influence sharing appears to have made only limited progress during the last 50 years. Four explanations are put forward: overidealistic expectations; a tendency to ignore the need for certain necessary antecedents, like competence; a tendency to act as if influence sharing is not subject to contingencies like the nature of tasks; and probably most importantly, the almost universal tendency to design influence sharing measures through uncoordinated mechanistic social engineering.
ABELL, P.The many faces of power and liberty: Revealed preference, autonomy and teleological explanation. Sociology, 1977, 113-23.
2.
ABELL, P.The viability of industrial producer cooperation. In C. Crouch and E Heller (Eds.), Internationalyearbook of organizational democracy (Vol. I). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1983.
3.
ACKOFF, R. L.The democratic corporation: A radical prescription for recreating corporate America and rediscovering success. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
4.
ADLER, A.The practice and theory of individual psychology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1925.
5.
ALLPORT, G.The psychology of participation. Psychological Reviews, 1945, 53117-132.
6.
BACHRACH, P., & BARATZ, M.Power and poverty: Theory and practice. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
7.
BERLIN, I.The crooked timber of humanity: Chapters in the history of ideas. London: John Murray (Publisher) Ltd., 1990.
8.
BERNSTEIN, P.Workplace democratization: Its internal dynamics. Organization and Administrative Sciences (special issue), 1976, 7(3), 1-127.
9.
BL (British Leyland). This was a 5-year field study in what was at the time the biggest U.K. car manufacturer employing 120,000 people. The action research was supported by top management and national as well as company unions. It was financed by the Nuffield Foundation, by the Department of Employment, and the National Enterprise Council. The project was negotiated by Frank Heller. Nikos Varelidis was the principal Research Assistant. The only detailed account is the Final Report to the funding bodies by Heller & Varelidis. References to this research have been made in various publications, 1977.
10.
BLAND, A. F., BROWN, P. A., & TAWNEY, R. H.English economic history select documents. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1914.
11.
BOSANQUET, B.The philosophical theory of the state. London: Macmillan & Co., 1899.
12.
BOULDING, K. E.Power: A general theory. Boulder: University of Colorado, 1989.
13.
BOWLBY, J.Psychology and democracy. The Political Quarterly, 1946, xvii61-76.
14.
BRANNEN, P., BATSTONE, E., FATCHETT, D., & WHITE, P.The worker directors: A sociology of participation. London: Hutchinson, 1976.
15.
BROWN, A., & HELLER, F.Usefulness of group feed-back analysis as a research method: Its application to a questionnaire study. Human Relations, 1981, 34(2), 141-156.
16.
BULLOCK. Report of the Committee of Enquiry on Industrial Democracy. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, Command Paper 6706, 1977.
17.
CALAS, M., & SMIRCICH, L.Voicing seduction to silence leadership. Organization Studies, 1991, 12(3), 567-601.
18.
CAVES, R. (Ed.) Britain's economic prospect. London: Allen & Unwin, 1968.
19.
CHELL, E.Participation and organization: A social psychological approach. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1985.
20.
CHILD, J.Participation, organization and social cohesion. Human Relations, 1976, 29(5), 429-451.
21.
CLEAVER, SIR A.Tomorrow's company. Royal Society of Arts Journal, December 1995, 21-32.
22.
COATES, K., & TOPHAM, A.Shop stewards and workers' control: A book of readings and witnesses for workers' control. London: Spokesman Books, 1975.
23.
CORNFORTH, C., & THOMAS, A.Cooperative development: Barriers, support structures and cultural factors. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 1990, 11(4), 451-461.
24.
DAHRENDORF, R.Life chances: Approaches to social and political theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
25.
DAVIES, A., NASCHOLD, F, PRITCHARD, W, & REVE, T with the assistance of B. Olsen, T Sorum, R. Saeveraas, and B. Willadssen. Evaluation Report, Commissioned by the Board of the SBA Programme, June, 1993.
26.
DIEBOLT, J.Is the gap technological?Foreign Affairs, 1968, 46(2), 276-291.
27.
DIO (Decisions in Organization). This was an in-depth longitudinal (5-year) study in seven organizations; three in the Netherlands, two in Britain, and two in Yugoslavia (now Slovenia). The principal researchers were Frank Heller (coordinator), Pieter Drenth, Paul Koopman, and Veljko Rus. Field workers included Alan Brown, Miro Odar, F B. M. Bus, A. J. Kruyswijk, and A. F M. Wiersdma. The British funds came from the Social Science Research Council which also paid for some of the Yugoslav costs. The Netherland Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research and the Research Community of the Republic of Slovenia supported their respective teams, 1988.
28.
DONALDSON, L.The ethereal hand: Organizational economics and management theory. Academy of Management Review, 1990, 15(3), 369-381.
29.
DREYFUS, H. L., & RABINOW, P.Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
30.
ECONOMIST, THE. The flourishing business of slavery, September 21, 1996.
31.
EMERY, F.Searching for common ground. In F. Emery (Ed.), Systems thinking (Vol. 2). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981.
32.
EMERY, F.Socio-technical foundations for a new social order. In E. Trist and H. Murray (Eds.), The social engagement of social science (Vol. 2). A Tavistock Anthology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
33.
EMERY, F. E., & THORSRUD, E.A New Look at Industrial Democracy. Symposium 15th International Congress of Applied Psychology, Ljubljana, August 1964. Mimeographed, The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London.
34.
EMERY, F. E., & THORSRUD, E.Form and content in industrial democracy: Some experiences from Norway and other European countries. London: Tavistock Publications, 1969.
35.
ETZIONI, A.Man and society: The inauthentic condition. Human Relations, 1969, 22, 325-332.
36.
ETZIONI, A.The moral dimension: Toward a new economics. New York: The Free Press, 1988.
37.
ETZIONI, A.Normative-affective choices. Human Relations, 1993, 46(9), 1053-1068.
38.
FESTINGER, L.The motivating effect of cognitive dissonance. In Lindzey (Ed.), Assessment of Human Motives. New York: Rinehard & Co., 1958.
39.
FRAZER, SIR J.The golden bough: A study in magic and religion. London: Macmillan, 1933.
40.
FRENCH, J. R. P., & RAVEN, B.The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social powerAnn Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1959.
41.
FUKUYAMA, F.The end of history and the last man. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993.
42.
GALLIE, D., & WHITE, M.Employee commitment and the skills revolution. London: Policy Studies Institute, 1993.
43.
GEMMILL, G., & OAKLEY, J.Leadership: An alienating social myth. Human Relations, 1992, 45(2), 113-129.
44.
GILL, C., & KRIEGER, H.The diffusion of participation in new information technology in Europe: Survey results. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 1992, 13, 331-358.
45.
GILL, C., BEAUPIN, T, FROHLICH, D., & KRIEGER, H.Workplace involvement in technological innovation in the European Community. Vol. II-Issues of Participation. Dublin, Ireland: The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1993.
46.
GRANICK, D.The European executive. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962.
47.
HAENNI, P.Management gap in a world context: A spectral analysis. Progress, Unilever Quarterly, 1969, No. 2, 106-114.
48.
HAMMOND, J. L., & HAMMOND, B.The town labourer 1760-1832: The new civilisation. London: Longman Green & Co., 1925.
49.
HANDY, C.What's it all for? Reinventing capitalism for the next century. Royal Society of Arts Journal, December 1996, 33-40.
50.
HELLER, F. A.Group feed-back analysis: A method of field research. Psychological Bulletin, 1969, 72, 108-117.
51.
HELLER, F. A.Group feedback analysis as a change agent. Human Relations, 1970, 23319-333 (German translation: Gruppendynamik 1972, 3, 175-191).
52.
HELLER, F. A.Managerial decision-making: A study of leadership styles and power sharing. London, Thvistock Publications, 1971.
53.
HELLER, F. A.Group feed-back analysis as a method of action research. In A. W. Clark (Ed.), Experiences in action research. New York: Plenum Press, 1975.
54.
HELLER, F. A.Group feed-back analysis as a method of action research. In A. W. Clark (Ed.), Experimenting with organizational life. New York, London, Plenum Press, 197, pp. 209-222.
55.
HELLER, F. (Ed.). The use and abuse of social science. London and Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1986.
56.
HELLER, F. A.Another look at action research. Human Relations, 1993, 46(10), 1235-1242.
57.
HELLER, F., & BROWN, A.Group feedback analysis applied to longitudinal monitoring of the decision making process. Human Relations, 1995, 48(7).
58.
HELLER, F. A., & VARELIDIS, N.A Current British Development in Industrial Democracy. Paper to Second International Conference on Participation, Workers' Control and Self-Management, Paris, September 1977.
59.
HELLER, F. A., & WILPERT, B.Competence and power in managerial decision making. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1981.
60.
HELLER, F. A., WILDERS, M., ABELL, P., & WARNER, M.What do the British want from participation and industrial democracy?London, Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, 1979, 105-105 pp.
61.
HELLER, F. A., DRENTH, P., KOOPMAN, P., & RUS. V.Decisions in organizations: A three country study. London: Sage Publications, 1988.
62.
HELLER, F. A., PUSIC, E., STRAUSS, G., & WILPERT, B.Organizational participation: Myth and reality. Oxford University Press. 1998.
63.
HERBST, P. G.Alternatives to hierarchies. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.
64.
HOBHOUSE, L. T., & WESTERMARK, E. A. (Eds.). The material culture and social institutions of simpler peoples. Monograph No. 3 on Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1918.
65.
HOBSON, J. A.John Ruskin: Social refonner. London: James Nisbet & Co., 1898.
66.
HOE, S.The man who gave his company away: A biography of Emest Bader, Founder of the Scott Bader Commonwealth. London: Heinemann, 1978.
67.
ICHNIOWKSI, C., KOCHAN, T., LEVINE, D., OLSON, C., & STRAUSS, G.What works at work: Overview and assessment. Industrial Relations, 1996, 55299-333.
68.
IDE-Industrial Democracy in Europe Research. A cross-national study in 12 countries. IDE 1981 study covered Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, U.K., West Germany, and Yugoslavia. The 1993 study in the same organizations also included Japan and Poland as new contributors. Thirty one researchers took part in both studies and are acknowledged in each publication. Bernhard Wilpert was the principal coordinator. The study was supported by various funding bodies in each country. Major coordinating funds came from the Ford Foundation, the Thyssen Foundation, from the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and the Nuffield Foundation. The British fieldwork was financed by the Anglo-German Foundation. The British project was followed-up by a random survey of the working population which enquired into some of the issues of the field study and added questions on trust.
69.
IDE (Industrial Democracy in Europe research group).Industrial democracy in Europe. Oxford University Press, 1981. (a)
70.
IDE. European industrial relations. Oxford University Press, 1981. (b)
71.
IDE. Industrial democracy in Europe revisited. Oxford University Press, 1993.
72.
JAQUES, E.The changing culture of a factory. London: Tavistock Publications, 1951.
73.
KAY, J.The Foundations of National Competitive Advantage: Is There Such a Thing as National Competitiveness? What Is the Nature of National Competitive Advantage? The Fifth ESRC Annual Lecture, ESRC, Swindon, 1994.
74.
KELLY, G., KELLY, D., & GAMBLE, A.Conclusion: Stakeholder capitalism. University of Sheffield in Association with Political & Economic Research Centre, 1997.
75.
KOCHAN, T., & OSTERMAN, P.The mutual gains enterprise. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1994.
76.
KORTEN, D.When corporations rule the world. London: Earthscan, 1996.
77.
LAWLER, E.High involvement management: Participative strategies for improving organizational performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.
78.
LIKERF, R.New patterns of management. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.
79.
LIKERT, R.The human organization. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
80.
LINDENFELD, F., & ROTHSCHILD-WHITT, J. (Eds). Workplace democracy and social change. Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, Inc., 1982.
81.
LOVERIDGE, R.What is participation: A review of the literature and some methodological problems. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 1980, XVIII297-317.
82.
LOWIN, A.Participatory decision making: A model, literature critique and prescription for research. Organization Behavior and Human Performance, 1968, 3, 68-106.
83.
MAKIN, P. J., COOPER, C. L., & COX, C. J.Organizations and the psychological contract: Managing people at work. Leicester: British Psychological Association, 1996.
84.
MARCH, J. G.Power of power. In D. Easton (Ed.), Varieties of political theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
85.
MARCHINGTON, M., GOODMAN, J., WILKINSON, A., & ACKERS, P.New developments in employee involvement. London: Manchester School of Management (UMIST), Department of Employment, 1992.
MARTIN, R.The new behaviorism: A critique of economics and organization. Human Relations, 1993, 46(9), 1085-1101.
88.
MILES, R. E.Human relations or human resources?Harvard Business Review, 1965, 43148-163.
89.
MILLWARD, N., STEVENS, M., SMART, D., & HAWES, W. R.Workplace industrial relations in transition: The ED/ESRC/PSI/ACAS surveys. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company Limited, 1992.
90.
MOW (Meaning of Working Research Team).The meaning of working: An eight country comparative study. London: Academic Press, 1987.
91.
NASCHOLD, F., COLE, R., GUSTAVSEN, B., & VAN BEINUM, H.Constructing the new industrial society. Social Science for Social Action: Towards Organizational Renewal.Maastricht, Assen: van Gorcum, 1993.
92.
NUSSBAUM, M., & SEN, A. (Eds). The quality of life: A study prepared for the World Institute for Development Economics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
93.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).Gaps in Technology: General Report. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1968.
94.
ORMEROD, P.The death of economics. London: Faber & Faber, 1994.
95.
PATEMAN, C.Some reflections on participation and democratic theory. In C. Crouch and F Heller (Eds.), International yearbook of organizational democracy. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1983.
96.
POOLE, M.Workers' participation in industry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.
97.
POPPER, K.The open society and its enemies (Vols. 1 and 2). London: Routledge & Sons, 1945.
98.
PRIESTLEY, J. B.Quotation taken from weekly wartime broadcasts and quoted in An inspector calls, 1940, Garrick Theatre Programme, December 1996.
99.
QVALE, T.A new milestone in the development of industrial democracy in Norway. In C. Lammers and G. Szell (Eds.), International handbook of participation in organizations. Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
100.
QVALE, T.Local development and institutional change: Experience from a "Fifth Generation" National programme for the democratization of working life. In P Drenth, P Koopman, and B. Wilpert (Eds.), Organizational decision making under different economic and political conditions. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1996.
101.
RADIN, M. J.Contested commodities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
102.
RAMSAY, H.Cycles of control. Sociology, September 1977, 11(3), 481-506.
103.
REICH, R. E.The executivés new clothes. New Republic, 1985, 23-28.
104.
RIVERS, W. H. R.Social organization. London: Kegan Paul, 1924.
105.
ROBERTS, E.Workers' control. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1973.
106.
ROGERS, J., & STREEK, W. (Eds.). Works councils, consultation, representation and cooperation in industrial relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
107.
SCHON, D. A.Beyond the stable state. The 1970 Reith Lectures. London: Maurice TempleSmith, 1971.
108.
SERVAN SCHREIBER, J.The American challenge. London: Athenaeum, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968 (French title: Le Diefi. Editions Desroel), 1967.
109.
SMITH, D. (May 1968) The "gap" that is a chasm. International Management, 1968.
110.
SOROS, G.The Guardian,Saturday, January 18, 1997, headed "Capital Crimes."
111.
STRAUSS, G.Some notes on power equalization. In H. J. Leavitt (Ed.), The social science of organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
112.
TANNENBAUM, R., & SCHMIDT, W.How to choose a leadership pattern. Harvard Business Review, March/April, 1958, 95-101.
113.
TMDM. Top Management Decision Making was a programme of study in 129 large companies and interviews with 1500 senior managers in eight countries: Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, France, Sweden, Spain, and Israel. The fieldwork was carried out by research teams in each country, including Peter Docherty, Jean Michel Foucarde, Pieter Fokkink, Bob Mays, Barto Roig, Theodore Weinshall, and W t'Hooft. Frank Heller and Bernhard Wilpert were the coordinators. Several publications resulted; some are referred to in the present article. The study was financed by the Economic & Social Research Council.
114.
TOYNBEE, A.The industrial revolution of the eighteenth century in EnglandLondon: Longmans, Green & Co., 1913.
115.
TRIST E., & MURRAY, H.The social engagement of social science. A Tavistock anthology. Vol. 1: The socio-psychological perspective. London: Free Association Press, 1990.
116.
TRIST E. L., HIGGIN, G. W., MURRAY, H., & POLLOCK, A. B.Organizational choice. London: Tavistock Publications, 1963.
117.
TRIST, E., SUSMAN, G., & BROWN, G.An experiment in autonomous working in an American underground coal mine. Human Relations, 1977, 30, 201-236
118.
VROOM, V., & YETTON, P.Leadership and decision-making. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973.
119.
WAGNER, J. A. III (1994) Participation's effect on performance and satisfaction: A reconsideration of research evidence. Academy of Management Review, 1994, 19(2), 312-330.
120.
WAGNER, J. A., & GOODING, R.Effects of societal trends on participation research. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1987, 32241-262.
121.
WEISBORD, M., et al. Discovering common ground. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1992.
122.
WHITEHEAD, A. N.Adventures of ideas. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1942.
123.
WHYTE, W. F., & WHYTE, K. K.Making Modragon: The growth and dynamics of the worker cooperative complex (2nd ed). Ithaca: ILR Press, 1992.
124.
WILLIAMSON, O. E.The organization of work: A comparative institutional assessment. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1980, 1, 5-38.
125.
WILPERT, B.Participation behavior and personal growth. In E. Krau (Ed.), Self realization, success and adjustment. New York: Praeger, 1989.
126.
WINNICOTI D. W.Some thoughts on the meaning of the word Democracy. Human Relations, 1950, 4, 171-185. Reprinted in E. Trist and H. Murray (Eds.), The social engagement of social science (Vol. 1), London: Free Association Books, 1990.
127.
ZIMBARDO, P., & LEIPPE, M.The psychology of attitude change and social influence. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
