Question

Provide an example (but not a company mentioned in depth in the articles) of a Worker Self-Directed Enterprise. Explain how the organization operates and makes it unique from a “traditional” business.  

After looking at the course material on Supervisory Boards, do you think that they are a good idea towards better governance in corporations? Defend your position with a pro/con.

Answer 1

THE WORKER SELF-DIRECTED ENTERPRISE

Throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries, debates among socialists — who are far from a single mass — about the role of the state, whether it needed to own and control businesses or just provide a progressive tax system, continued unabated. However, the real question is not so much the role of the state, important as it is, but the role of democracy and democratic institutions. The bourgeois revolutions in the late 18th and mid-19th centuries promised freedom, equality and brotherhood, but they utterly failed to fulfill any of these. It is this failure that has energized socialists who want to make the promises of the bourgeoisie into realities for the whole of the world.

Intro

The implementation of self-directed work teams continues to gain momentum as organizations are looking to engage their workforce to maximize their productivity. “It is surprising to think that Herzberg first discussed these concepts in the 1960s, but that we are now just beginning to incorporate them in the 1990s. But self-direction will continue to grow because it makes sense in a highly competitive world. It also makes sense to a workforce desperately searching for dignity and meaning in its work.” (Grazier, 1999)

Pros

Some advantages of adopting the self-directed work team model are:

• Greater employee responsibility and accountability
• Greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction among employees
• Greater freedom for team innovation
• More effective use of individual team members’ skills
• Greater “ownership” of project results by team members who have a stake in the project’s outcome
• Greater empowerment, which leads to higher employee morale (Business.com, 2011)

Cons

While there are definitely many advantages to self-directed work teams, there are some also some drawbacks; especially in their initial phases of development.

• More meetings
• Longer decision-making process
• A dip in productivity before it takes off in a positive direction
• Chaos – infrastructure and support is needed by teams to accomplish their work.

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