Worker Ownership and Participation in the Context of Social Change

A bstract . A massive volume of literature has been generated over recent years concerning the nature of work organizations and resultant effects upon worker satisfaction and enterprise efficiency. Between extreme radical and conservative views, a good deal of attention has focused on worker ownership and the locus of power in the organization. Worker ownership can lead to beneficial results, but only if carefully structured. Worker participation in decision making is the key, but the transfer from authoritarianism is difficult. Any substantial transfer of enterprise ownership is remote. Even transformation to greater power sharing, short of ownership change, will be slow and fragile.