INDUSTRIAL MODERNIZATION BY WORKERS PARTICIPATION

The European car industry is in a crisis. The saturation of traditiona l markets, the need for product innovation and the Japanese challenge have put this industry, more than almost any other, under pressure to modernize. This modernization has a systemic character. It creates new forms of division of labour between producers and suppliers and remov es the Tayloristic-Fordist production concept in the firms without any certainty as to what will take its place. This increased uncertainty creates a boom for personnel management, resulting from a new evaluati on of labour capacity, from a production factor to a human and investm ent factor. New forms of workers' participation are being invested in - what are the consequences? Quality circles are used as an example of the possible consequences of successful participation in the field of intra-company labour relations. In this context it is worth taking a look across the border. French management discourse is more pronounced and French sociological research more productive than in Germany. Wha t can we learn from the French experience with participative managemen t? Are there signs of an adaptation, perhaps a European road of develo pment in the field of intra-company labour relations parallel to the i nternationalization and adaptation tendencies in industrial production ? Our research shows which possible development perspectives participa tive management contains in the field of intra-company labour relation s. Nation-specific and system-overlapping aspects are presented for th at purpose.