Danièle Linhart

Managerial innovations: some main tendencies

Sweden has traditionally been seen as one of the leading societies in work life reform. The most recent reform program, The Work Life Fund, set up with clear instructions to improve the work environment and at the same time raise productivity, was launched in 1990 and came to an end early in 1994. More than 10000 so called workplace development programmes have been carried through. A summary of the results is being executed and a close investigation of more than 100 cases in different settings has been carried out. Three different development processes thereby become visible. The analysis shows that the Fund quite often has initiated a transition from relatively simple, technically oriented, traditional health and safety projects, towards concept driven change. The most successful cases seem to be projects comprising a development organisation with the building blocks: top management committed to, and involved in, the change process; project organisation; participatory structure; heavy investments in training.

DIRECT WORKERS EXPRESSION IN FRANCE A VOICE IN MANAGEMENT

Since the left came to power in 1981, French labour legislation has been redrafted. The Auroux Laws revised two‐thirds of the Labour Code and so broadly extended the rights of workers and their representatives within companies. The right of direct expression has had effects that vary as a function of situations within each work environment. Variables include: the economic branch or sector, the level and nature of employee qualifications, the size and legal status of the firm, the history of production units and their personnel. The potential in terms of managerial practices and the problems of “direct management” are discussed in the light of how the formation of direct expression groups has affected the ways in which operations are run within companies and how this innovation satisfies the contradictory interests from which it has sprung.