earticle

영어

Workers’ participation in management, which has become popular through changes in production methods and management strategies since 1990, revives academic interests in theories on industrial relations and practices in workplaces.
This study analyses the Japanese models of workers' participation in terms of industrial democracy. It shows how the models of workers' participation in Japan are affected by their unions, and particularly, which organizational structure of labor unions contributes to development of the workers' participation model in Japan. In addition, this study tries to develop an analytic model of workers' participation models in Japan in terms of industrial democracy, while it seeks how workers’ interests inside companies is organized and mobilized.
In this study, the concept of workers' participation is newly defined in terms of industrial democracy which is differentiated from that of economic democracy. Based on this new definition of workers' participation, this study suggests a model of workers’ participation by
mobilization to explain the workers' participation in Japan.
In conclusion, workers' participation in Japanese companies is developed as a shape of mobilization only for managerial purposes. And the development of workers’ participation in management within Japanese companies, which can be categorized as “participation in management by mobilization,” is produced by power relations between labor and management and the role of trade unions.