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Abstract

This article describes a failed effort by employees in a manufacturing company to implement an employee buyout. To analyze the case, a sociotechnical systems approach was extended to include historical analysis and explore how past interactions shaped here-and-now group processes. Sociotechnical theory allowed the researchers to analyze the task work of the buyout and examine how the emotionality of various aspects of that work enabled, transformed, or confounded the efforts of the buyout group. Also considered was how historical context influenced the leadership requirements of the buyout effort. The article concludes that historical forces (both those deliberately evoked by buyout organizers and also those generated by the nature of the project) blocked the role transformations necessary for the employees, both workers and managers, to become owners.

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Time and Task in the Valley: A Case Analysis of an Employee Buyout Effort

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