Democratic alternatives to hierarchy – why so few?

Abstract

Examples are briefly described of organizations that offer a perspective to complement the experience of industrial democracy inNorway and Mondragon. The examples are organizations choosing a structure and culture that minimize hierarchy. They provide a less traditional approach to balancing political and socio-technical participation. To do so they devolve responsibility for coordination of effort and expertise to individuals and teams most directly providing the effort and expertise. This gives the individuals and teams high autonomy. Examples include a university class, action learning projects in community and organizational settings, and a voluntary self-organizing network of facilitators. In addition, a small sample of organizations from the larger sample documented by Corporate Rebels (https://corporate-rebels.com/) is also briefly described and compared. Finally, the examples are located within other, wider, changes taking place.