The autonomous worker under pressure at Finnish engineering shops
29th International Labour Process Conference
University of Leeds, 5-7 April 2011
WORK IN PROGRESS – PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE
Markku Sippola
University of Eastern Finland
Timo Anttila
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
ABSTRACT
During the last decades we have witnessed an outflow of the Fordist production to South-East Asia.
We can make out a case for an argument that so far the Nordic countries have managed to safeguard a postFordist mode of production in their region. However, the Nordic end of the manufacturing value chain has
not remained untouched by the increasing international competition. It is argued that the 1990s saw an
intensification of pressure in firms to prioritise cost cutting and the downsizing of their activities along the
lines of the 'rationalisation ideology'. We have witnessed the development of the Nordic mode of labour
process, which culminated in industrial democracy in Swedish car manufactories, but which has retreated
and given way to Japanese intensified production models. Simultaneously, we see that workers’ autonomy at
Finnish workplaces has not increased, but discretion over one’s pace of work and work tasks has stagnated.
The changes in work organization usually call forth changes in the use of labour, potentially resulting
in the fading of the Nordic ideal of autonomous worker (or self-directed teams). To study this, we have taken
three engineering shops from Finland under scrutiny. Given the nature of the type of production, workers are
expected to be in a position where they should be treated as ‘core’ employees who fit well in the Nordic ideal
of responsible and autonomous worker. But on the other hand, pressures from the product and labour market
concern them as well, due to the economic crisis 2008-09 and corporate strategies geared at gaining a
‘competitive edge’. Because of the scarcity of skilled labour, the employer has temptations to increase effort
levels, which may result in ‘high-strain’ workplace practices.
This research seeks answers to the following questions: 1. How autonomous workers are individually,
and within team, and how this relates to the Nordic ideals? 2. What are repercussions of process controls
(continuous improvement, reporting, machine controls) for employee autonomy? 3. How intensification of
work affects employee autonomy? The findings suggest that although the labour process at the Finnish
engineering shops is still characterized by relatively high discretion of workers over their work tasks and
pace of work, some signs of work intensification are in sight. The introduction of process controls and teams
are associated with work intensification at the factories. Moreover, we see that there is much variation
between facets of autonomy (pace of work, order of tasks, methods), and between individual and collective
(team) forms of autonomy. The ultimate rationale for lean production, eliminating buffers, is increasing
intensity of work, which has a harmful effect on worker autonomy individually and within teams.
Introduction
Trends in employee autonomy and work intensity
Employee autonomy is particularly interesting subject of research from the Nordic perspective: Denmark,
Finland, Norway and Denmark are famous for their high levels of job autonomy and work intensity
(Kristensen 2009). Workers in Nordic countries report for example a higher quality of work tasks and better
opportunities for participation in decision making compared to other European countries (Gallie 2003).
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Moreover, Nordic countries seem to score high in self-development opportunities and learning at work
(Green 2006; Parent-Thirion et al. 2007). The most important factor explaining job satisfaction in Finland in
particular and Scandinavia in general has been worker discretion (interestingly, in other EU states the most
important issue has been the perception of pay). These findings are by large consistent with Green´s (2006;
see also Green & Tsitsianis 2005) notion that effort, task discretion and qualification match are the most
important factors explaining job satisfaction. Nevertheless, there are other comparative studies conducted
following more delicate country clustering. Recent study of Peña-Casas and Pochet (2009) pointed out
interesting results: although Scandinavia is known for high levels of discretion, training and use of skills,
there has been some movement downwards (towards the European average) and countries like the
Netherlands and Great Britain have moved closer to Scandinavian level in terms of job quality.
Table 1
Possibilities to influence at a Finnish workplace 1984–2008, % (A lot / quite a lot – the
bigger the figure, the more autonomy)
Influence over
methods of work
Influence over
tempo of work
Influence over
order of tasks
Male
manual
1984
1990
1997
2003
2008
Change
1984–2003
1984
1990
1997
2003
2008
Change
1984–2003
1984
1990
1997
2003
2008
Change
1984–2003
Female
manual
Male nonFemale
Total
manual
non-manual
77
68
79
70
80
73
78
69
81
70
54
56
58
56
61
52
59
62
60
60
63
67
69
67
70
+7
58
64
56
58
61
+8
52
63
54
50
49
+4
70
71
66
64
65
+2
58
60
55
50
52
+7
59
64
57
55
57
+3
55
58
59
61
63
-3
44
56
56
54
53
-5
76
74
77
72
73
-6
61
62
63
64
64
-2
59
62
65
64
64
+8
+9
-3
+3
+5
Source: Working Conditions Surveys 1984, 1990, 1997, 2003 and 2008
As regards the autonomy trends in Finland, illustrated in Table 1, it is worth noting that although the overall
trend is growing in all aspects of autonomy (except for the tempo), the growth has stagnated since 1990s. In
other words, during the last fifteen years, no particular improvement in employee autonomy has occurred.
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This change in the trend has occurred after the rationalization measures taken by Finnish firms after the
economic crisis in the beginning of the 1990s, and one might argue that the development went along
Swedish lines, where ‘rationalisation ideology’ in work organizations took over that of ‘humanisation’ that
characterized the 1980s, and ‘democratisation’ that was peculiar to the 1970s (Huzzard 2003, 16). If
humanization of work has lost its significance as a strategy for labour management, it might have happened
that the ideal of ‘autonomous worker’ has also faded.
The level of task discretion is dependent on the organization of work, especially on the way managements
shape the organizational culture and control the work process (Dahl et al., 2009; Green, 2006). According to
post-Fordist paradigm, in contemporary work organization, there is a shift away from Taylorist strategies due
to the fact that direct control and deskilling are thought to generate worker dissatisfaction and employeemanagement conflict. By the same token, bureaucratic organizations are seen as incapable of meeting the
challenges posed by the new economy, thus resulting in the emergence of post-bureaucracies where jobs
have a higher degree of ‘responsible autonomy’ (Johnson et al., 2009; Kalleberg, 2001). Psychosocial
models, based on the notions of work demands and job control, offer us another ground for the assessment of
job autonomy. This frame of reference suggests that a combination of little latitude for decision-making and
high demands at work potentially increases levels of stress (Karasek and Theorell, 1990). A lack of
employee discretion is also seen as detrimental to work satisfaction and subjective well-being at work
(Green, 2006). Autonomy, like skills, is regarded as a work resource, which is defined as a ‘structural or
psychological asset that may be used to facilitate performance, reduce demands, or generate additional
resources’ (Voydanoff, 2004; Bakker and Demerouti 2007; Bakker et al. 2008).
However, warning signs can be seen with regard to the de-commodified Nordic labour process, as we can
assume something similar might happen in the Nordic countries as in the West European labour regime with
regards to the international subdivision of the labour process in the 1970s and 1980s (Fröbel et al. 1980;
Kasvio 1985). High levels of worker participation in the Nordic countries that once culminated in industrial
democracy in Swedish car manufactories has retreated and given way to Japanese intensified production
models. Car manufacturers such as SAAB, Volvo and Volkswagen constituted the prime examples of
industrial democracy but they have either adopted different production models or closed down in the face of
global pressures – or due to the Nordic management’s disbelief in the value of the autonomous worker.
Besides the debate on work autonomy, the issue of growing work-related pressures affecting worker wellbeing has become topical in debates regarding the quality of work-life. In Europe, evidence on changes in
perceived pace of work points to a continued process of work intensification during the last decade (Burchell
et al., 2009; Green and McIntosh, 2001; Green, 2008). Interestingly, weekly working hours are still
decreasing, although at a slower pace than in the past. A commonly held view to work intensification is to
connect it to technological and organisational innovations. Green (2004, 2008) has termed technological
3
change ‘effort biased’. Technological innovations have enabled work to be redesigned in ways that facilitate
monitoring of the labour process. In addition, the use of new technology produces a heightened demand on
workers to keep up with skill requirements, in turn increasing work pressure (Green and McIntosh 2001;
Gallie, 2005). New forms of work organization, such as high-performance and high involvement
management practices, which include incentives linking effort with pay, have also been associated with the
intensification of work (Ramsay et al., 2000; Green and McIntosh, 2001; Green, 2004) and stress (White et
al., 2003; Kalleberg et al., 2009).
One can make a case for the argument that the ‘high-strain’ model (little discretion but intensive work) might
contain some truth in the Finnish context. Research based on the fourth European Working Conditions
survey showed that Finnish employees report very similar levels of skill demands to Scandinavians but do
have less discretion over their tasks than Scandinavians. In addition, employees in Finland and Scandinavia
experience somewhat a higher pace in their work compared to other European countries (Hartikainen et al.
2009). In a Finnish survey concerning quality of work life respondents regarded time pressures and tight
schedules as the most important factors that make their work less enjoyable (Lehto and Sutela 2005, 86).
Along with this development, work-based psychophysical symptoms and work overload have increased in
Finland.
The developments of team autonomy and process controls
Besides the interest in work autonomy or intensification of work per se, this research seeks to find what
explains the variation in employees’ experiences of autonomy. The dynamics of teamwork and process
controls can help us in understanding the underlying processes. It is important to make a distinction between
individual, and collective autonomy (or team autonomy). What is more, the introduction of teams at a plant
implies a fundamental change in work organisation, which, on the other hand, has impact on worker
autonomy. Also, other aspects of the labour process, such as the extent to which process controls have been
adopted, play a considerable role. Moreover, an increased need for coordination / control emphasises the role
of teams. According to Klein (1991), the increase in task dependence in process-oriented organisation leads
to growing discretion of teams, not of individuals. Therefore, the delegation of decision-making to teams
tends to increase collective autonomy at the expense of individual autonomy (ibid.).
Klein (1991) argues that on the one hand, employees gain forms of autonomy in some cases and in others
not, and that process controls appear most compatible with collective autonomy. He tentatively argues that
certain facets and the two dimensions of autonomy could be supplementary to one another. He (ibid.) asks:
“...is it sufficient to provide workers collective input into task design while limiting variation in task
execution?” He also hints at the positive effect of process controls, such as JIT and standardisation, on
collective autonomy, although he seems to be rather optimistic in the participative effect of these measures:
4
“...process controls, such as JIT and strandardization, impose new and more constricting limits; rather than a
team of individuals coming to agreement on decisions, several teams or an entire plant (or potentially an
entire customer-supplier network) must often reach mutual agreement”. Klein (ibid.) does not seemingly take
into account the possibility of managerial prerogative in introducing JIT and standardisation measures,
leaving room for work intensification.
Teamwork can serve as a proxy for intensification of work towards a Toyotist model (Danford 1998; Pruijt
2003), where the management’s ultimate purpose might not be to foster worker discretion per se but to make
the workers individually responsible for the quality of work. In the ‘Toyotist’ or lean production model,
teams have more limited control with less autonomy and less complex tasks as contrast to ideal type of
Scandinavian model with semi-autonomous teams with high employee task discretion (Kalleberg et al.
2009). It is possible that Nordic negotiated form of delegated responsibility may be shifting towards the
Japanese paternalist form, where managerial control of work organisation is increasing and worker discretion
and involvement is decreasing (see Whitley 1999, 92). In this scenario, the ‘Volvoist’ model will give place
to the ‘Toyotist’ production concepts also in the Nordic countries.
Literature on job quality provides mutually contradicting accounts and evidence regarding the impact of
teamwork on employee well-being. On the one hand, teamwork provides complementary competence and
sharing of the responsibility for results and outcomes and this presumes large degree of autonomy. Workers
are subject to less standardized work processes and direct surveillance. Autonomy and training provided to
the members of teams is assumed to enhance commitment among employees, which has a positive impact on
performance. According to this argument, consequently, work intensity tends to be lower when workers have
higher influence over daily organization of tasks and they are to lesser extent subject to individual
performance monitoring. On the other hand, critical tones emphasize that new forms of organisation, such as
teamwork techniques have little or no effect on personal discretion (Kalleberg et al. 2009; Gallie et al. 2004).
In the era of post-bureaucracy, a possible explanation for a paradoxical decline in task discretion is the closer
monitoring of work as a response to greater international competition and managerial culture emphasizing
goal-setting (Green 2008).
Given such tendencies, a question arises whether the Nordic labour process can retain its position as a pool
of functionally flexible, skilled, and autonomous labour? This is under scrutiny in the current research, the
theme of which revolves around worker autonomy in terms of one’s work pace, work methods and the order
of tasks individually and within a team. More specifically, the research questions are:

How autonomous workers are individually, and within team, and how this relates to the Nordic ideals?

What are repercussions of process controls (continuous improvement, reporting, machine controls) for
employee autonomy?
5

How intensification of work affects employee autonomy?
Ultimately, this analysis attempts to answer to a question, what is the rationale for delegating responsibility
to individuals or teams? What added value such a production strategy brings in its train?
Data
The sample consists of three engineering shops in the North Karelia region in Finland. The original sample
included five engineering shops, of which these three factories have been chosen on the basis that they have
team organisation in use. The data on Finnish engineering shops will consist of transcripts of management,
employee representative and employee interviews at the three factories. At each factory, production and
personnel managers were interviewed. These interviews were thematic ones, concerning personal
background, enterprise information, subcontracting, work organisation, quality of work life, internal/external
flexibility, human resource management, and industrial relations. The interviews will took one to 1.5 hours.
At each factory, a chief shop steward was interviewed. Because of a strong position of the unions in the
industry, the shop steward institution typically constitutes a principal body of employee representation at the
workplace. These interviews took approximately one hour. Also, a half dozen employees per factory were
interviewed. These interviews were more structured in form, and they took 30-45 minutes per each. The
themes concerned personal history, tenure, employee participation, job autonomy, control over the work,
work intensity, job security and participation.
The North Karelia region is located close to the border between Finland and Russia. There is a declining
tendency in the industrial activity in the region. At the end of 2009, there were 11,400 employees in the
industrial sector of the North Karelia province. The number of workers decreased by more than a thousand
workers year-to-year. The metalworking industry suffered worst in terms of employment in 2009. The
number of metalworkers dropped by 659 employees ending up with 4,256 employees at the end of the year.
The region has traditionally been worst off in term of unemployment in Finland, the unemployment rate
accounting for 15.6 percent of the workforce in February 2010. An average unemployment rate in Finland is
currently at 9 percent. The local environment is not most favourable for business activity, since the markets
and suppliers are distant and transportation is consequently more expensive than in South-West of Finland.
On the other hand, the closeness of Russian border is expected to offer some added value to the firms
operating here due to great market opportunities. Wages do not radically differ from other regions because
sectoral agreements are usually extended to all workers in Finland. What is more, firms face the challenge of
6
attracting skilled workers, for the Eastern corner is located in the periphery of Finland, and professional
workers prefer Helsinki (the capital) region if they wish develop their careers.
The research permit to the Finnish companies was obtained in a following way. There were altogether 15
companies operating in the metal and plastic industry with which we contacted. This was a total number of
the firms in this sector in North Karelia comprising the firms that had 50 workers or more. The list of the
companies was acquired from a database provided by the Regional Council of North Karelia. Five firms out
of the original number of fifteen granted us a permission to do research in their factory. Some firms refused
due to downsizing or poor economic performance, others refused because they already participated in other
research or developmental programs. The final sample consisted of those firms that have managed relatively
well in the 2008-09 economic crisis.
Table 2
Characteristics of the plants chosen for study
Spare Parts
Light Parts
Wood Harvest
Firm structure
vertical
horisontal
Company size,
employees
Operates in x countries
Market orientation
100
vertical (family
company)
75
1
Finnish export
industries, global
market
1985
160
global market
The year of start
1
Finnish export
industries, global
market
1993*
Turnover 2008 m€
Size of the site
0.8 – 1.6
50
8.5 - 17
75
>17
400
Research and
development
A few persons involved A few persons
in the R&D
participate in R&D
50.000
1972
R&D located in another
unit in Finland
*) Operation started at Spare Parts in 1975, but went into bankrupt in 1992-1993. However, the plant continued
operation with former business concepts in 1993.
Spare Parts exhibits us an example of a relatively successful adaptation to the new global marketplace. The
nature of work has changed from manual to computer-based one, jobs have been enlarged, and the products
are nowadays highly customised. The company underwent a radical restructuring under the previous
recession in the beginning of the 1990s, and eventually it went bankrupt in 1993. According to the managing
director, however, the firm did not interrupt operation even though it collapsed financially at the event of
bankrupt. Although there have been several different owners, the business concept has remained more or less
the same. The lesson to be learned from those times was that the company could not compete with mass
production of standardised spare parts coming from the Far East. In the words of the managing director, they
“experienced a China syndrome already twenty years ago.”
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Light Parts is an example of a workplace that has flexible working practices in terms of working hours and
bonus payment. The company produces highly customised products, although it has departments in which
the use of multi-use equipment is modest. On the other hand, the managing director asserts that multi-skilled
labour is a key feature of the plant, which in the main, is evident. The plant is a supplier for bigger Finnish
companies producing both domestic and international markets. The situation at Light Parts was exceptional
in the sense that it did not virtually suffer from downsizing or dismissals during the financial crisis 2008-09.
Light Parts makes up an interesting example of teamwork: its semi-autonomous workgroups are used in a
way that resembles the ideal Scandinavian model with relatively high levels of job discretion and complex
tasks (Gallie 2003; Kalleberg et al. 2009).
Wood Harvest is the biggest factory in the sample. It had 400 workers in February 2010. There were
temporal layoffs in 2009, but in the beginning of 2010 the factory again started operation in full capacity and
the layoffs were cancelled. In this year, the company has received a lot of offers and it intends to build new
office and canteen facilities as well as a center for visitors. Since Wood Harvest produces forestry machinery
that requires complex technology and high quality, it has high requirements for its suppliers. The company
also utilises a large network of suppliers in China, South Korea, India and Eastern Europe. The problem with
the supply chain originating in the low-cost countries is that constant quality checking is needed especially
when it comes to the production of new equipment. Although no interviews were conducted at the factory by
the submission of this paper, the general information provided by the management concerning the overall
situation of the company hints at a successful transition from economic recession to sustainable growth,
while simultaneously maintaining work organisation conditioned by employee responsible autonomy.
Analysis
Spare Parts
The comments of the interviewed workers at Spare Parts indicate relatively high levels of autonomy in terms
of pace of work and order of work tasks. One comment regarding discretion over the pace of work reveals
this: “Everybody determines the pace of work himself, we have not taken to pressing one another”. One
elderly worker reported that the pace of work is more or less relaxed, but the management urges on an
increase in the pace: “Indeed, they try to put pressure on us, but one doesn’t need to comply with it ...You
wouldn’t have strength enough to do it [if you made concessions]”. There were mixed reports concerning
discretion over the order of work tasks. Some kind of change was underway: “It was earlier when we were
able to determine ourselves the order of our work tasks, but now we have a team leader, who determines in
which order we execute the work. It has changed in such manner.” One respondent explicitly argued that he
could not influence on the order of the tasks; one has to do the jobs in the order which they appear. Although
8
the team organisation is built in a rather hierarchical manner, replicating line organisation, some features
peculiar to ‘genuine’ teams exist: the team leader mainly determines the tasks, but negotiations are held
among the team members on the allocation of jobs.
Teams have played an essential part in the work organisation at Spare Parts already a few decades. There
have been three teams representing different production processes from the beginning, having a permanent
(not rotating) team leader. Typically it is a merited team member who is chosen for as team leader. The team
leader takes care of the allocation of work tasks, although team members are able to participate in this
process. At first, the team leader dealt with team-related responsibilities while doing his own work, but
recently the leader has been more detached from the execution of work whereas planning and representative
duties have increased:
Interviewer: How about the responsibilities of the team leader, have any changes occurred?
Worker: Yes, it has. In fact, at first when I was working at the machine I acted as a team leader at the same
time. [...] Then, in the last ten years I have continuously been [acting] so that I have [participated] in the
production proper only occasionally.
Interviewer: Have you had any rationale for the detachment from the production proper?
Worker: Yes.
Interviewer: Have the teams become bigger?
Worker: Yes, they have. There has been a growing number of machines and in reality there has been a
considerable increase in paperwork. To my view there is too much of this A4 waste.
Interviewer: Do you have the [increased] paperwork because of increased monitoring or more certificates...
or quality control?
Worker: Well, yes and no. Reports and these checking minutes has to be filled out there. This is task of
certain employees whose job this is. The writing of such minutes and quality checking occurs at the point of
production.
The management have great possibilities to monitor the workers, but obviously they have not gone as far as
making conclusions on individual performance of workers. However, a question remains whether the
management have had an idea of the potentially or really “constructionist” workers or not, first to be
dismissed during the previous round of dismissals. One employee reported that “...during the last
adjustments, the obstructionists were first to be dismissed”. The seniority principle – last hired, first fired –
did not since some workers recruited a few years earlier were allowed to continue while some workers with
more than ten years tenure had to leave.
It is apparent that monitoring of the work has increased during the last years. One worker replied to a
question concerning reasons for disagreements between the management and the employees that “...wages
9
make up such an issue, and what is more, the initiating of monitoring.” According to one respondent, quality
control has increased during the past few years. Moreover, the process control system collects very specific
information on the performance of the workers, which allows the management for controlling the shop-floor
workers to a considerable extent. As a matter of fact, this phenomenon may be linked with the introduction
of ‘continuous improvement’ initiative at this factory. An idea of ‘continuous improvement’ was initiated to
bring through responsibility and communication within the teams. A negative feature possibly associated
with the continuous improvement at Spare Parts was fatigue associated with the increased pace of work, as
some workers reported. As a matter of fact, intensified pace of work is associated with the dynamics of the
teams, which is reflected in one respondent’s comment:
Interviewer: Do you have weekly team meetings, haven’t you?
Worker: No, we haven’t. Some time in the past we had them, but we held them only a few times. There is
always such a rush here.
Interviewer: Did everybody want to return back to work [from the meetings]?
Worker: Yes, indeed we are producing in such a hurry all the time, and many times we are lagging behind
[the production goals].
The teams at Spare Parts are closely interlinked with one another, and the management’s and team leaders’
task is to ensure seamless and synchronous running of production. Also, weekly meetings between the
managing director, production manager and team leaders have been held a year’s time from the event of the
interviews. One rationale for a gradual upgrading of the role of the team leader from a co-worker to a
supervisor seems to be to allow the leaders for more room for contacting other team leaders, as well as
suppliers and customers. This is a clear step towards a JIT-based system where several teams or an entire
plant (or an entire customer-supplier network) must reach mutual agreement, which imposes new and
constricting limits to individual (or even team) autonomy (Klein 1991).
Furthermore, one experienced worker argued that the change of the team leaders’ duties in a more
supervising direction has facilitated the work itself, thus calling for a similar question to that of Kalleberg et
al. (2009): is participation good for workers? Their finding was that teamwork increases job stress, and given
the context of Spare Parts in which there are not real semi-autonomous work groups having much selfdirection but on one hand batch production, on the other hand standardised line production with supervisors
(irrespective of the nominal names as ‘team leaders’), their conclusion in fact gains proof from this research.
In the words of the aforementioned worker: “the team leader keeps track on the matters all the time, we do
not need to think ourselves about them”. Still, the work organisation is not yet a line-based system but
characterised by work groups having clearly defined tasks of their own, allocating jobs within the given task
themselves. Only a question remains whether the team organisation is used as means for work
intensification, as Pruijt (2003) suggests.
10
Light Parts
The latitude for employee autonomy is even greater at Light Parts than at Spare Parts. As regards the pace of
work, a few employees directly replied that they cannot fully determine it or that it depends on the order, the
execution of which is, however, subject to negotiations: “Last time we got an order, the team received one
guy more – we had not hint to them a long time [in order to get a new team member]”. Despite the ‘flexible’
team organisation, some sort of routinisation of work has been experienced: “We have such an integrated
schedule [...] which tells us from the beginning to the end where we have to be placed”, or: “There have been
the same routines from year to year”. As to autonomy over one’s order of tasks, the answers are equally
mixed: “You have been given a list, and you can select a task from it on yourself”. One worker replied to a
question concerning the order of work tasks: “one cannot deviate from the given plans or sketches without
permission”.
There are signs of work intensification at Light Parts. Two respondents complained about fatigue caused by a
perpetual hurry at work. One explanation for this was that they had been working that hard that another
supplier had not kept the pace with their work, and consequently they had been blamed for delivering
unfinished products. This caused uncertainty about the sufficiency of their work effort. Another interviewee
reported that in addition to the heightened pace of work, also physical and psychological pressures had
grown. Yet another respondent complained about an increased workload compared to that of other workers,
who just loitered at their work sites. Such ‘loafers’ had not yet fully understood or adopted the ideas of
‘continuous improvement’ promoted by the management. Besides the intensification of work, another
distinctive feature compared to Spare Parts and particularly to Wood Harvest is the minor impact of process
controls at Light Parts. In fact, one can discern from the workers’ answers that more control over the
organisation of work would be required. The scarcity of managerial control is aptly put in one worker’s
reply:
Interviewer: Do you have such a control system that you sign personally for a completed work?
Worker: No, not at least in [my operation]. We only check that [the item produced] is ready, that is to say, the
job has been finished.
The work itself is organised around teams, which, on their part, are based on projects. The shift from a
hierarchical management structure to teams occurred in a situation where a work organisation based on
supervisors and subordinates did not function as expected; Supervisors were “too expensive” and they were
lacking a general sense of the production process. Teams have relatively high discretion to plan their own
work, although team/project leaders take the responsibility for the completion of the work. Semi-autonomous
11
workgroups are used in a way that resembles the ideal Scandinavian model, where – in this case – the
workgroups have once been responsible for the selection of their leaders (Frohlich and Pekruhl 1996, 86).
Indeed, a few years ago the management made an experiment to rotate the leader of the team, but the
arrangement did not lead to satisfactory results. Nowadays, it is the management who takes the initiative to
suggest a team leader. The powers with which the team leader are invested, are limited, as an excerpt from a
worker interview reveals:
Interviewer: How the work of team leader differs from that of a team member?
Worker: Well, the only such thing is that he supervises the work. As if they are between the employees and
the management. He has, after all, quite limited powers.
Interviewer: On what matters is he authorised to determine?
Worker: On the allocation of job tasks, that is, on which job each of us does.
Although the ideal of workgroups capable of choosing their own leaders has faded, the workgroups still have
a possibility to suggest new members to the group (although the management keeps the authority to decide
upon the selection of the new members). Moreover, the workgroup is autonomous in a sense that it takes
budgetary responsibility and it takes care of the scheduling of the projects allocated to it. Workgroups also
communicate and share resources with each other. The workgroup also controls the quality of the production.
A distinctive feature of the teams at Light Parts is the team members’ impact on the design of work, as a team
leader’s interview evidences:
Interviewer: Can you tell as a new project is launched, whether you will be able to do certain things or not?
Worker: Yes, look at this line, for example. You can plan it yourself, how do you make it. Formerly, we used
different platforms on which we built it, now we have got reels on the floor. We were required to re-think
everything. We were left to do it ourselves. We were given an area in which we had to install it.
Interviewer: Well, were there only you as team leader, or...?
Worker: In practice, when the guys came there... we agreed on it. Of course the others wanted also to go in
for planning. The point of departure was, however, what I [personally] wanted to do.
One has to note, however, that the quoted team leader happened to be one of the key employees, in whom the
employer seemed to trust. Therefore, generalisations to other teams cannot be made, and this case can be an
exception. Another respondent argued on the contrary that the changes in work organisation are determined
by the management. All in all, it seems evident that the management at Light Parts has developed the work
organisation in the direction of ‘responsible autonomy’ by delegating decision-making to the team level. But
has the increase collective autonomy compounded with employee involvement and group delegation implied
a decrease in individual discretion over pace and work methods? Although certain amount of collective
autonomy has been provided to the work groups, it may have occurred at the cost of independence in task
12
execution (see Klein 1991), and evidently, at the expense of more general employee participation. According
to Kalleberg et al. (2009), self-directed teams tend to produce more job stress through the high number of
job-related contacts and intensity of communication between the members; although one might disagree
upon the reasons for stress, the ‘Light Parts’ case shows that the management is able to organise work around
teams in such a manner that fosters strain through eliminating buffers (see Klein 1991).
Wood Harvest
Employees’ experiences on their work autonomy at Wood Harvest indicate that the workers are able to
influence their work pace – unless they work at the assembly line. And indeed, most of the workers do. The
same is true with regards to the order of work tasks: the machine mainly determines it, which leaves little
room for own discretion. This does not evidently concern everybody, such as production engineers and test
drivers, as one comment suggests: “At my work unit, I can influence exceptionally much. The line workers
cannot influence on their order of work tasks”. The reason for little discretion is clear, as one worker
responded: “We have got a new production control system (that has been in operation for one year) that
determines the order of the jobs. The pace of the work is determined in the same system”. The fact that the
pace and order of work tasks is controlled by the line does not exclude the fact that certain workers in the
group can have relaxed pace of work – at least occasionally.
The production process in its entirety has been optimised to obtain higher performance. A half of the workers
interviewed complained about fatigue. One respondent had observed that one needs to achieve more results
all the time, while the management requires that the passing times of production become faster. On the other
hand, better quality and safety at work are required, whereas the production process has become more
effective due to the fact that the production methods enhance. In fact, the idea of ‘flow production’ does not
allow deviations from work flows allotted to a worker or workers’ group. A middle manager had observed a
link between the changes in work organisation and intensity: “Actually the flow production allows for
tightening the tempo of the work, that the work becomes more and more intensive”. While at Light Parts, one
worker reported an increased pace of work compared to other workers, at Wood Harvest an interviewed
worker compared their pace of work to that of another (German) unit – they had not yet caught up with the
pace prevailing at that unit. As a curiosity, the same German unit has provided a ‘best practice’ in the
introduction of the ‘continuous improvement’ initiative to the Finnish unit.
The factory had recently introduced process controls, which is seen in one respondent’s answers:
Interviewer: How about the control of work results. Do you feel that it has increased?
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Worker: Yes, indeed, they monitor the results of work. On my site as well, the group of workers working on
the same [produced item] cannot proceed without fulfilling the controls defined to it.
Interviewer: Is your work group collectively responsible for it?
Worker: Yes.
The ‘work group’ denotes here a few workers, who are working in the same unit. Another worker mentioned
an increased quality control when asked about the changes in the extent of control at the factory. In his
words, auditing of the completed machine has increased, which is to his view mainly a good thing.
Additionally, the self-control measures have enhanced work discipline among the line workers. A
representative of the management speaks of ‘quality gates’ that an employee or a group of employees have to
pass: “In such a manner, a person leaves his fingerprints, that is to say, the information on who is the person
responsible for that, as well as the things that have been asked for to be checked”.
Wood Harvest is a case of a shift from team-based batch production to more individualist line production. In
the 1990s, the firm was more enthusiastic of the use of teams as a basic structure of production, but the teams
posed too many problems for the management how to measure the performance of the team and how to deal
with all the interfaces with other teams. At the moment, the production is organised around the line, where
the word ‘team’ is used to denote a process rather than a self-directed work group, and the concept of ‘team
leader’ has given way to that of ‘foreman’. An interviewed worker clarifies the time when teams were
introduced at the factory:
Interviewer: Do you have teamwork in use?
Worker: We haven’t had true teams since the era at the turn of the 1980s and the 90s when we had teamrelated training sessions and there was a lot of discussions on teams. [...]
Interviewer: Did you mention the 1980s, and...?
Worker: It was in the 1990s, wasn’t it, as we attempted to accommodate ourselves to Japanese teamwork.
Interviewer: But it did not materialise?
Worker: The times changed before it was brought into use.
[...]
Interviewer: Oh, was it so that Japanisation was not brought into use before the whole organisation
changed... wasn’t it the time of economic recession...?
Worker: Yes, it was, the recession was in the 1980s and the 90s. – And that pure form of teamwork does not
fit very well into the Finnish mentality, which was given us to understand.
Interviewer: What was wrong with it, this is interesting...
Worker: Perhaps the reason was the power relations within the team, the relationships between leaders.
14
As a continuation to the discussion, this respondent insisted that the Finnish worker required a foreman that
directs the job. The latter explanation for the rejection of the ‘genuine’ teamwork does not seem plausible but
the real rationale for this change of work organisation originates in the ‘rationalisation’ tendency in the 1990s
(as for Sweden, see Huzzard 2003) on one hand, and in the management’s disbelief in the semi-autonomous
workgroups with delegated responsibilities, on the other.
Conclusion
This research aimed at discerning current tendencies implicit in the Finnish manufacturing labour process
concerning employee autonomy and work intensification. It was hypothesized that increased process controls
and teamwork have an impact on these developments. The main findings concerning workers’ autonomy,
control, intensity and teamwork at the case companies are summarized in the following table:
Table 3 Autonomy, control, work intensity and teams at the case study factories
Autonomy
Managerial control
Work pace
Teams
Spare Parts
Light Parts
Wood Harvest
quite a lot influence
on the pace of work;
the impact on one’s
order of tasks
depends on the job
low, increasing
process controls
varying influence on
both pace and the
order of work tasks,
depending on one’s
task
low
decreased discretion
over pace and order
of work tasks due to
new process controls
relaxed
team leader
responsible for task
allocation
considerable,
increasing process
controls
high
intermediary
a type of self-directed no discretion of their
teams; team members own; characterised
participate in task
rather as ‘cells’ of
allocation
production
The stagnation of the autonomy trends in Finland, as reflected in the case study companies, implies a
considerable variation of worker’s discretion over his/her work tempo, order of tasks, or methods rather than
an overall declining autonomy. The competitive edge is still more or less based on the autonomous worker,
who is allowed for discretion over pace of work and order of work tasks. Although the degree of autonomy is
not declining, the measures related to the organisation of work have an effect on whether individual or
collective autonomy is promoted. At Spare Parts and Light Parts, autonomy takes different shapes within
certain (managerially defined) limits. On the contrary at Wood Harvest, the recent introduction of process
controls have a clear impact on worker autonomy. In the latter case, it must be noted that the worker
collective have considerable powers of employee participation through trade union representation. However,
it cannot taken for granted that ‘participation’ or ‘partnership’ arrangement are capable of compensating the
deficit of employee discretion over one’s own work.
15
An interesting finding concerns with the use of teams as a potential source of work intensification.
Teamwork has been associated with greater stressfulness on the job and a proxy for work intensification
(Kalleberg et al. 2009; Prujit 2003). Kalleberg et al. (2009) have even found that the effects were greater for
self-directed teams than for supervised teams, the latter having higher relation intensity. An alternative
explanation for intensified work is based on the dynamics of team autonomy. If the collective autonomy is
limited to task design as opposed to task execution, standardization of the production process comes into play
(Klein 1991). The situation at Light Parts resembles such pattern.
It is hence argued in the ’Light Parts’ case that teams serve as a proxy for intensifying the work. Accordingly,
the explanation for job strain lies in dynamics of team autonomy rather than in relation intensity. The teams
are clients to one another within the factory, and independently responsible for the items they produce for the
management and customers. There is a growing burden imposed upon by the management on the teams –
they bear a relatively high responsibility for the operation, budgeting and schedules of their production. It is
to be noted that contrary to the team experiment at Wood Harvest, the introduction of teams at Light Parts
has improved both quality and productivity. However at Light Parts, a greater degree of collective autonomy
and less managerial control compounded with teamwork is directed at increased organizational performance.
This occurs through the combination of worker commitment and job strain, which confirms both the highcommitment management and labour process models in explaining worker performance (see Ramsay et al.
2000). The same goal is pursued for at Spare Parts and Wood Harvest, albeit at these factories, through
greater process controls.
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