Team work in the context of lean production. The neutralization of status as a medium of rationalization

This article is based on the assumption that team work in the context of "l ean production" promotes rationalization not not only on the individual lev el, but that it aims particularily at the modification of patterns of socia l interaction. Participative management is characterized as a contradictory mode of control: learning processes on the shop floor which are based on t he neutralization of status in direct interaction between employees not onl y open up new possibilities for participation, but also lead to exclusion f rom and horizontal supervision within teams. As a result neutralization of status can be considered to be a contradictory attribute of team work. This specific form of social cooperation in the workplace cannot be understood without reference to socially established modes of interaction and of confl ict resolution. This analogy is further analyzed in the context of Klaus Ed er's and Jurgen Habermas' neo-evolutionist work. Both authors consider the neutralization of status to be the presupposition as well as the medium of quite different learning processes in the political Moderne. In this way th e contemporary changes in the organization of labor and production can be p ut in the context not only of the economic but also of the cultural dynamic s of modern societies.