In their efforts to define and assess union democracy, researchers have principally relied on a “legalistic” perspective (Taft 1948; Edelstein and Warner 1976; Stephan-Norris 1998), which focuses on formal constitutional measures and a “behavioral” perspective (Lipset, Trow and Coleman 1956; McConnell 1958; Martin 1968; Nyden 1985; Stephan-Norris and Zeitlin1992; Needlemen 1998), which addresses the effects […]
By Year: 2002
Lean Production and the Discourse of Dissent: Radicalizing the Shopfloor at Mitsubishi Motors
In the spring of 1989, Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors entered into a joint venture to build cars in Bloomington‐Normal, Illinois. A dozen years after “lean production” and “employee teams” were introduced, this paper revisits the initial expectations of workers. Through an employee survey it assesses how employee attitudes, shop‐floor behavior, and language have coalesced to […]