Over the last several years worker cooperatives of many kinds have sprung up all around the world. As a result, industrial relations in the workplace have changed dramatically as workers have come to own and run their own enterprises. This book provides evidence on how these new enterprises are functioning today. Using evidence from their extensive research in various such firms, the authors identify the consequences for both the organisation and the workers when those who do the work also manage. Setting forth an original theory of democratic organisations, they reveal the very real dilemmas and trade-offs that democratic work organisations face, as well as the specific conditions in which workplace democracy flourishes or declines.

Over the last several years worker cooperatives of many kinds have sprung up all around the world. As a result, industrial relations in the workplace have changed dramatically as workers have come to own and run their own enterprises. This book provides evidence on how these new enterprises are functioning today. Using evidence from their extensive research in various such firms, the authors identify the consequences for both the organisation and the workers when those who do the work also manage. Setting forth an original theory of democratic organisations, they reveal the very real dilemmas and trade-offs that democratic work organisations face, as well as the specific conditions in which workplace democracy flourishes or declines.