Voluntarism, Representative Leadership and Organisational Democracy

There seems little doubt as to the plurality of interests at work in contemporary organisation forms. Such is the rate of change, complexity and interdependence in the business environment that organisations have to be responsive to a plethora of stakeholder interests in order to survive. In such pluralist settings, ‘harnessing the capabilities and commitment of knowledge workers is, it might be argued, the central managerial challenge of our time. Unfortunately, it is a challenge that has not been met’ (Manville and Ober, 2003, p. 48). For at the same time as organisations strive to build the commitment of their employees, they are engaged in a second objective tugging in the opposite direction, one of coherence, standardising procedures, integrating systems and creating consistent corporate cultures. The rational bureaucratic model of organising, implicit in this objective, runs deep in managerial mindsets. How can business leaders improve on such a well-developed concept of the way in which human beings collectively best accomplish their objectives?