Who decides to initiate change processes in organizations? Who sets the goals? What does it mean for employees to participate in change processes? The book examines organizational change processes based on collaboration between employers, employees and action researchers in Europe and the U.S. in the later part of the 20th century. The authors offer important insights into participation and change in organizations for researchers and practitioners by identifying dilemmas and paradoxes, conflicting interests and exercising of power.

Preface by Werner FrickeForewordIntroductionPart I: Participation in organizational changesChapter 1 An example of tensions and dilemmas in organizational action research'On the infinitely large in the infinitely small' in Team Product SupportWhat and why1.Tensions between participation as involvement and/ or as co-determination2.Tensions, positionings and the exercising of power3.Experimental change of communication patterns in Team Product Support4.Tensions between the smaller project context and larger organizational, societal and global agendas5.Tensions in the management of organizational difference through dissensusReflectionsChapter 2 A historical view of employee participation: four understandingsWhat and why1. Participation in working life: a mixed bag2. Participation as industrial democracy3. Two phases of participation as individualized involvement4. Participation as autonomy5. Some conclusionsReflectionsPart II: An empathetic-critical view of participation in organizational action research in the twentieth century— From self-managing groups to co-generation of practical and theoretical change?Chapter 3 Change-oriented social science: Early organizational action research in the USA in the 1940sWhat and why1.Aims and perspectives2.The Harwood studies: Action research at Harwood3.The Harwood Experiments4.Discussion of Lewin's view of participation5.Discussion of Lewin's theory of change6.Lewin's view of action research: A philosophy of science perspective7.Some conclusionsReflectionsChapter 4 The origin of socio-technical systems thinking— Studies at British coal mines in the 1950sWhat and why1.Introduction and aims2.The Tavistock group's experiences before, during and after the Second World War3.Initial studies at the Haighmoor mine4.Follow-up studies in the Durham collieries5.The new paradigm6.Socially engaged accompanying research: between research 'on' and research 'with'7.ConclusionReflectionsChapter 5 Industrial democracy: Experiments in Norway in the 1960sWhat and why1.Introduction2.Background: the democratic endeavour3.Analysis of two field studies4.A democratic paradox?5.Discussion of NIDP as applied research6.Conclusions ReflectionsChapter 6 Democratic dialogues—Dialogue conferences in Norway and Sweden in the 1980sWhat and why1.Background2.Aims and structure3.The organization of democratic dialogic development processes4.An example of democratic dialogue5.Participation in the practical dimension of the research process: deliberation and decision6.Deliberative democracy and democratic dialogues in organizations7.Participation and exclusion8.Exclusion of research from democratic dialogues?9.ConclusionsReflectionsChapter 7 Pragmatic action research—Projects in Spanish cooperatives in the latter half of the 1980sWhat and why1.Background2.Aims and perspectives3.A characterization of pragmatic action research4.Organization of participatory action research in Fagor5.Pragmatic action research as co-generative research6.Is pragmatic action research a participatory, conventional, applied and/or phronetic science?7.Conclusions ReflectionsChapter 8 Participation, past and future1. Introduction2. Differences and similarities between change-oriented social science, STS, NIDP, democratic dialogues and pragmatic action research3. Action researchers' exercising of power as silent discourse4. Participation in the future?5. A child of the Enlightenment?BibliographyIndex