_Values at Work
Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragón_
By
George Cheney
_Values at Work_ is an analysis of organizational dynamics with
wide-ranging implications in an age of market globalization. It looks at
the challenges businesses face to maintain people-oriented work systems
while remaining successful in the larger economy. George Cheney revisits
the famous Mondragón worker-owned-and-governed cooperatives in the Basque
Country of Spain to examine how that collection of innovative and
democratic businesses is responding to the broad trend of "marketization."
The Mondragón cooperatives are changing in important ways as a direct
result of both external pressures to be more competitive and the rise of
consumerism, as well as through the modification of internal policies
toward greater efficiency. One of the most remarkable aspects of the
changes is that some of the same business slogans now heard around the
globe are being adopted in this set of organizations renowned for its
strongly held internal values, such as participatory democracy, solidarity,
and equality. Ironically, while the cooperatives are reconfiguring
themselves as market-driven and customer-focused firms, they may be
sacrificing the very internal integrity that has been crucial to their
success for over four decades. Instead of emphasizing the special or unique
qualities of the Mondragón experience, this book demonstrates the case's
relevance to trends in all sectors and across the industrialized world.
Cheney argues that serious ironies and risks are associated with the shift
in business policy, at Mondragón and elsewhere, despite the short-term
maximization of profit it brings. Also, his analysis reveals how talk about
business values is important in the life of the organization. The book
offers practical recommendations for value-based organizations that seek to
maintain their social integrity while engaging today's market.
"_Values at Work_ is a provocative read on the prospects for workplace
democracy in today's hypercompetitive global economy. George Cheney excels
in showing how both cooperatives and conventional corporations must
reconcile relentless marketization of our cultural and economic life with
the democratic spirit."
--Charles Derber, Sociologist and author of _Corporation Nation:
How Corporations Are Taking over Our Lives and What We Can Do about It_
George Cheney is Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at
The University of Montana-Missoula and Adjunct Professor in the Department
of Management Communication at The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New
Zealand. He is the author of Rhetoric in an Organizational Society:
Managing Multiple Identities, winner of the award for best book of 1992
from the Organizational Communication Division of the National
Communication Association. He has published widely in journals and has
lectured in North America, Western Europe, Latin America, and Australasia.
_Values at Work_ is available now in hardback for US$35.00, from:
Cornell University Press, P.O. Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851-6525 USA;
OR by phone at: 607-277-2211; or by e-mail at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
George Cheney
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Communication Studies
The University of Montana-Missoula
Missoula, MT 59812
USA
tel.: 406-243-4426
fax: 406-243-6136
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
