This study deals with control, participation, and effectiveness in four Yugoslav industrial organizations. It investigates (1) the relationship between degree of participativeness in workers' councils, and participativeness defined in terms of social-psychological relations among all members of the organization; and (2) the relationship of participativeness to the distribution of control and to criteria of organizational effectiveness. The data were obtained from questionnaire responses of council and other members in four organizations and from a group of expert judges. Tentative conclusions suggest that the workers' council should be viewed as part of a larger system involving the day-to-day interactions of organization members.The Yugoslav industrial organization operates within a framework of workers' selfmanagement. The supreme authority in each organization is the workers' collective, which consists of all members of the organization. The members elect and delegate most of their authority to a workers' council of about 30 members. The council meets approximately once a month and is responsible for deciding the prices of the organization's products, the allocation of net profit, production plans, budgets, and other basic issues. The workers' council has the power to discharge managers. The council also elects a managing board of approximately 10 members which acts as an agent of the council. The managing board meets more frequently than the council and carries out the council's directives on a daily basis.The Yugoslav system formally includes two main hierarchies in each organization. The first hierarchy, concerned with self-management, extends from the workers' council at one end, with the managing board subordinate to the council, and finally the managers subordinate to the managing board. The second hierarchy is like the conventional chain of command, with managers at one end, followed by heads of economic units (roughly equivalent to department heads), supervisors, and the rank and file workers. In addition, several groups within the orga-nization, such as the party, the trade union, and the youth organization have significant influence.The system of workers' self-management has been designed to achieve ideological and practical objectives. Ideologically, the system attempts to realize a form of democratic or participative management. Practically, it is designed to minimize or eliminate ponflicts, improve interpersonal communication, increase confidence and trust among members, increase their involvement, improve their motivation, and maintain their support for the organization and its objectives (Adizes, 1968; Deleon, 1956; Dunlop, 1959: ch. 8; Kolaja, 1965; Kralj, 1969; Mandic, 1958; Sturmthal, 1964).Such results are consistent in a general way with a number of theories about participative management, for which some empirical support has been found (Friedmann, 1955;Katz and Kahn, 1966; Likert, 1961, Tannenbaum, 1966. These theories remain controversial, however. Furthermore, the Yugoslav form of par...
The legal system of workers' self-management in Yugoslavia provides to all of the employees of each enterprise ultimate authority over basic policy, personnel, and technical issues of the firm. This study explores the "actual" and the "ideal" distribution of control in Yugoslav industrial organizations as reported by members during a five-year period, from 1969 through 1973. The data are based on questions administered at yearly intervals (excepting one year) to a probability sample of more than 3,000 persons in 100 organizations. Because important legal changes in the direction of greater participation in the governance of Yugoslav organizations were introduced immediately prior to and during this period, we expected to find some change in the distribution of control during the five years of the study. The data fit a pattern that has been found in other countries, thus illustrating principles that may transcend culture and political system. The data also differ in degree from those of other places thus also illustrating the impact of the unique legal system or organizational control in Yugoslavia. Furthermore, the data seem to be characterized more by stability than by change during the five years of the study. If change has occurred it appears to have occurred more with respect to the expectations or "ideals" of respondents than with regard to their perception of the realities of control in their organization. We none-theless assume, partly on the basis of these data and of those from studies in other countries, that substantial change in distribution of control has occurred since before the Yugoslav revolution and that a process of evolution in the distribution of control is continuing. We offer a hypothesis about this process. In addition, because we rely on the judgment of organization members for our measure of control, we present data that may shed some light on the meaning of the concept of control to these persons and therefore on the degree of correspondence between their implicit definition of control and our own.
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