What's in a Name?

My analysis thus far is a bit too neat. What are we actually comparing when we say that we are trying to explain the spread of direct shop and office floor participation in decision making in the three

countries? It is hard to get a grip on the concept of participation in decision making.

This is because participation can occur in many work domains and in different parts of the decision-making process. There are small-group activities with greater and lesser degrees of employee participation. I selected small-group activity as a generic term that would not be weighed down by the specific connotations of direct participation . Such a neutral term makes it possible to examine the processes operating in the three countries with less likelihood of attributing values and intentions to actors that do not apply. While small-group activity is hardly a household term, at least one U.S. company, Hughes Aircraft Co., has created the title of manager of small-group activities.

In any case, my focus is on the introduction and spread of small-group activities at the workplace . Specifically, I examine quality-control circles in the United States and Japan and what were once known as semi-autonomous work groups in Sweden. As implied above, the small-group activities represented by these labels vary in structure and process across the three nations and indeed over time in a given nation.

What is involved in quality-control circles and self-managing teams? Since QC circles were introduced in Japan under the auspices of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) it is appropriate to use its definition:

The QC circle is a small group within the same workshop that voluntarily carries out quality-control activity. The small group continuously conducts control and improvement of the workshop as one part in the chain of companywide quality-control activity. In this fashion, utilizing quality-control techniques, the small groups carry out self-development and mutual development.
(JUSE 1970:1; my translation)

The circles are relatively autonomous units composed of small groups of workers, usually of common status, in each workshop. A 1983 JUSE survey reports that typically circles had five to eight members. Some 60 percent of the groups choose their own leaders, and some 20 percent rotate the leadership; still others have staff specialists as leaders, or leaders are appointed by the supervisor (Lillrank 1984). The circles usually meet once a week for an hour or so; they are parallel organizations in that they are not directly a part

of the work process. The workers are taught fairly simple statistical techniques and modes of problem solving and are guided by leaders in the selection and solving of problems. The circles concentrate on solving job-related quality problems, broadly conceived as improving methods of production as part of companywide efforts. The circle solutions are presented to management for action, with the circle members having no authority to implement the solutions on their own. Quality-control circles are supposed to allow for the acquisition of skills by workers, the development of career potential, cooperative activity, and the like. If functioning properly, they should give workers a sense of control over their everyday activities on the shop floor.

As the concept of the circles spread to the United States, they became separated from their quality-control foundation in Japan. As a consequence, they also became less concerned with statistical methods and more focused on building process skills (for example, how to run an effective meeting). Thus, a case can be made that the circles themselves are not the same institution in Japan and the United States. Reflecting this difference, they are known in Japan as quality-control (or QC) circles, while in the United States they are generally known simply as quality circles.

The Swedish idea of self-managing teams or autonomous work groups^[1] is that workers make their own decisions regarding work allocation, recruitment, planning, budgeting, production, quality, maintenance, and purchasing. The group members are not merely carrying out a certain number of tasks. They are working together on a continuous basis to coordinate different tasks. They take responsibility for the organization of work and take the necessary measures to cope with the work of the entire unit. Job rotation among members at their initiative is seen as a normal part of work activity. A great deal of mutual help, joint responsibility for the total operation, and continuing opportunities for learning are expected.

This ideal has seldom been fully realized in practice, but it constitutes a set of objectives toward which many Swedish companies have made partial progress. We can see that even modest implementation of the concept of autonomous work groups would give workers greater control over the work process than is the case with

[1] I use the terms semi-autonomous work teams, autonomous work teams , and self-managing teams interchangeably.

quality circles. Workers in such groups can not only make recommendations based on their analysis, but can make decisions about their work and implement them in a broad framework established by management and unions. To be sure, such action tends in practice to have been focused on working conditions, task assignment, work methods, personal equipment, and establishment of daily routine, while broader management issues tend to be left to higher-level management and union officials. The former are the same work domains that occupy quality-control circles, but the self-managing teams, unlike circles, in principle involve themselves in personnel matters and budget decision making as well. In practice, too, self-managing teams often seem to have greater access to decision-making processes than do quality circles. Moreover, they are part of the work process, not a parallel institution.

In contrast to self-managing teams, there tends to be less of a gap between the ideal of quality circles and how they actually operate. This relatively close correspondence suggests that quality circles represent a tighter (better-defined requirements) and less demanding (more realizable in terms of fewer required changes from conventional practices) package than self-managing teams.