ABSTRACT
This review essay examines a broad multidisciplinary literature on democracy and work, highlighting issues of theory and practice of special interest to communication scholars. The essay treats relevant and selective research from the following fields (in addition to communication studies): the sociology of organizations, political science and public administration, comparative and labor economics, management and organizational behavior, cultural anthropology and organizations, industrial and organizational psychology, labor and industrial relations, and feminist studies of organizations. The following communication-related themes are used to organize the essay and to derive conclusions from the relevant literatures: (a) the boundary-spanning potential of organizational democracy, (b) multiple rationalities and motivations in employee participation programs, (c) the microprocess features of workplace democratization, (d) the structural aspects of participation and democracy at work, (e) the issue of “voice” and the expression of interests in organizational participation, (f) “adversarial” versus “consensus-based” versions of organizational democracy, and (g) issues of control, power, and influence in “alternative” versus traditional organizational structures.
