Independent work

The self-governing work community
A self-governing work community is not the participatory democracy. There are no elections or mass meetings. The working teams are organized by management for specific operations and specific jobs.
Work-community self-government cannot be and should not be based on democracy altogether. Authority and assignments can go by seniority. What matters is that self-government of work community tasks be local self-government and that it put responsibility where the consequences of the decisions have to be lived with.
No one yet addresses employees as ‘fellow managers’ and it is expected that no one ever will. Yet this is the goal. There has to be the reality of management power and authority, of command and of decision-making, of higher and lower incomes, of superior and subordinate. But there also is the task of building and leading organizations in which every man sees himself as a ‘manager’ and accepts for himself the full burden of what is basically managerial responsibility, that is the responsibility for his own job and work group, for his contribution to the performance and results of the entire organization, and for the social tasks of the work community.

References

1. 
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2. 
   Aguinis, H. (1993). Action research and scientific method: Presumed discrepancies and actual similarities. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 29, 416–431.
   
3. 
   Baritz, L. (1960). The servants of power. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
   
4. 
   Barnett, M. L. (2007). Stakeholder influence capacity and the variability off financial returns to corporate social responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 32, 794–816.
   
5. 
   Basu, K., & Palazzo, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: A process model of sensemaking. Academy of Management Review, 33, 122–136.
   
6. 
   Baue, W. (2004). Rating corporate sustainability: Behind the scenes at Oekom Research. Retrieved January 6, 2009, from http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/1575.html