Workers' last performance: Why some factories show their best results during countdown

In this article we highlight rationalizations within industry that were ini tiated and conducted locally during overt or latent threat of plant close-d own. A common feature in our four investigated cases of 'declining organiza tions' is that the surprising increases in productivity cannot be thought o f as the result of 'management by fear' or other active measures taken by m anagement. On the contrary, our findings suggest that the 'dose-down effect ' is brought about through workers' active and creative involvement in prod uction matters when managers' interest in maintaining the established order at the workplace is fading away.