This article closely looks at the nature of the Swedish production system incorporating autonomous work groups, and the historical course the innovation has taken from its emergence in the early 1970s to its reversion in the 1980s. The article examines (1) whether managers were motivated by idealism or by labor shortages and protest; (2) whether or not the production system is a sophisticated form of technical control; (3) whether or not the innovation produces mixed outcomes for labor and for employers; and (4) whether or not the managers' interest in the innovation has diminished as unemployment has risen in the late 1970s and 1980s. Based on eight months of interviews in Sweden and many secondary sources in English and Swedish, this article concludes that the adoption and diffusion of a workplace innovation cannot be fully understood without considering: (1) the characteristics of the production system in which the innovation is implanted that may simultaneously embrace rationalization and humanization, (2) the task environment of the firm that may compel managers to design production innovations with an eye to competition and market fluctuations, and (3) economic cycles and shifts in the political climate, both of which can influence (4) the relative strengths of labor and management to demand arrangements in a labor process favoring them.
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