Workers' self-management, also referred to as labor management and organizational self-management, is a form of organizational management based on self-directed work processes on the part of an organization's workforce. Self-management is a defining characteristic of socialism, with proposals for self-management having appeared many times throughout the history of the socialist movement, advocated variously by democratic, libertarian and market socialists as well as anarchists and communists.[1]
There are many variations of self-management. In some variants, all the worker-members manage the enterprise directly through assemblies while in other forms workers exercise management functions indirectly through the election of specialist managers. Self-management may include worker supervision and oversight of an organization by elected bodies, the election of specialized managers, or self-directed management without any specialized managers as such.[2] The goals of self-management are to improve performance by granting workers greater autonomy in their day-to-day operations, boosting morale, reducing alienation and eliminating exploitation when paired with employee ownership.[3]
An enterprise that is self-managed is referred to as a labour-managed firm. Self-management refers to control rights within a productive organization, being distinct from the questions of ownership and what economic system the organization operates under.[4] Self-management of an organization may coincide with employee ownership of that organization, but self-management can also exist in the context of organizations under public ownership and to a limited extent within private companies in the form of co-determination and worker representation on the board of directors.
^Steele, David (1992). From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 323. ISBN978-0875484495. The proposal that all the workers in a workplace should be in charge of the management of that workplace has appeared in various forms throughout the history of socialism. [...] [A]mong the labels attached to this form of organization are 'self-management', 'labor management', 'workers' control', 'workplace democracy', 'industrial democracy' and 'producers' cooperatives'.
^Steele, David (1992). From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 323. ISBN978-0875484495. The self-management idea has many variants. All the workers may manage together directly, by means of an assembly, or indirectly by electing a supervisory board. They may manage in co-operation with a group of specialized managers or they may do without them.
^O'Hara, Phillip (2003). Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2. Routledge. p. 9. ISBN978-0-415-24187-8. In eliminating the domination of capital over labour, firms run by workers eliminate capitalist exploitation and reduce alienation.
^Prychito, David L. (2002). Markets, Planning, and Democracy: Essays After the Collapse of Communism. Edward Elgar Pub. p. 71. ISBN978-1840645194. The labor-managed firm is a productive organization whose ultimate decision making rights rest in the workers of the firm...In this sense workers' self-management – as a basic principle – is about establishing control rights within a productive organization, while it leaves open the issue of de jure ownership (that is, who enjoys legal title to the physical and financial assets of the firm) and the type of economic system in which the firm is operating.
