Participative Management in Centrally Planned Economies: Algeria and Yugoslavia

Abstract

Experiments in industrial democracy and participative forms of management constitute central issues in the ongoing search for viable models of organizing. In countries that have espoused the socialist strategy for socio-economic development, such forms constitute prime instruments in the integration of individual and national objectives. In principle, institutionalized models of participative management should blend with both underlying socialist 'intentions' and socio-economic endeavours. However, examina tion and comparisons of the systems adopted in Algeria and Yugoslavia suggests that these basic national pursuits and their associated effects set limits to the implementation of the intended democratic management systems. These limits are most apparent in the constraints generated by central planning as a fundamental instrument of the socialist strategy, and in technological imperatives.

This paper compares the formalized mechanics of the Algerian participative system with the underlying principles of the Yugoslav model, drawing on data from fifteen Algerian State-enterprises and on published evidence on Yugoslav 'self management'.