Concepts and Transformation - Volume 3, Issue 3, 1998

An action research program was started in two Dutch concrete construction factories to reduce absenteeism due to sickness. Representatives of workers and managers analyzed all possible causes of absenteeism. This process was guided by the action researchers, who also explained theoretical models. Smaller working parties were then formed to formulate proposals for action. The working parties consisted of workers and foremen. Top management set aside a budget for improving the work environment. The communication structure in the organization was improved, especially by encouraging two-way communication and by creating more opportunities for workers to have their say and to participate. Care was taken to ensure a good fit between the absenteeism program and a Quality Control Program. The program succeeded in drastically reducing sickness absenteeism. The change process is described, with special attention to theoretical models and to the characteristics of action research.

We start the paper by reviewing the theory of desire developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Their theory of desire is complex in narrative terms, but it is, or so we suggest, overly romantic. It doesn't really explore the ways in which different performances of desire intersect with one another. We then proceed by telling stories from the life of a severely physically disabled person, Liv. These are stories to do with desire, and they are intended to show (with Deleuze and Guattari) that desires are discursively complex, and that they are produced in specific materially heterogeneous circumstances. But the stories are also intended to explore the intersections of different kinds of desires — and indeed the ways in which they produce one another. We conclude by returning to the question of story-telling, and press the view, touched on above, that single stories about persons (or their contexts) are unable to catch the ways in which different stories intersect to produce personal and social realities.

In the Netherlands what is called the Modern Socio-Technical School — an approach to integral organizational renewal — is well developed. This theory of practice is mainly concerned with design of organizational structures, which leads to an important point of criticism: the Dutch approach is an expert driven form of social engineering, lacking an effective, process-oriented intervention strategy. The approach does not know how to deal with power in organizations. Here we do not accept that this criticism is an inevitable characteristic of the Dutch approach. The criticism is used as a trigger to search for the contours of a process-directed intervention strategy, which fit in the design theory.

The Swedish economy is dominated by a comparatively large number of big companies. The problem for Sweden and for these big companies is that there are few districts and regions where supportive small and medium sized enterprises flourish. The Gnosjo region is the exception. It is viewed as the only real ''industrial district" in Sweden. It is well known throughout Sweden and also internationally for its entrepreneurial spirit. It is discussed how to shape the creative territorial energy that supports continuous renewal of a such a region. Historically, the territorial energy has been created within the Gnosjo region, in the internal networks. Nowadays, it could be argued that external partners also have to be brought into the region. However, bringing external partners into such a region is not without problems. They must not take over the process of territorial development, thereby threatening to drain it of indigenously created energy.

Within the discourse on contemporary, post-Taylorist working life, production games and simulations are widely accepted as tools to facilitate learning and communication in organizations. We suggest that research programs dealing with production games can be seen as lying between two typical positions. Insiders — any significant group that proposes that simulations are useful — argue that they are fair representations of work practices, and that they hold specific qualities. Outsiders — researchers seeking to understand how simulations work in action — reject these kinds of 3.. priori statements, claiming that it is not meaningful to express any of the qualities of simulations prior to the simulation situation without succumbing to mythologizing simulations. This paper presents a study, undertaken from an outsider perspective, of a simulation game used in Sweden. We suggest that simulation games are complex social interactions carrying a considerable, albeit not yet fully exploited, potential for learning. The outline of the simulation favored the use of recently developed shop floor practices over old practices, and the explanation for the success of the new practices was often interpreted in terms of technical aspects of the production process. Observations and interviews indicate that research from an insider perspective tends to underestimate the emergent character of the simulations and how the game can be a vehicle for discipline and the creation of dysfunctional patterns in workgroups as well as learning. In summary, the outsider perspective could, as in this study, provide alternative perspectives on simulations, providing new insights and ideas, for research as well as practice.

The first part of this article presents a brief analysis of the reasons why the immense amount of technological innovation in (old and new) industrialized countries does not seem to have contributed to any increase in social welfare. It is argued that the support from the political system to multinational firms' strategies for globalization is too affirmative, for reasons that are more of an ideological than of an economic nature. Thus, in the second part of the article the contours of a transnational politics are outlined, in an attempt to show how technological innovation can serve the development of a new social welfare around the globe.