Organizational democracy has become a key issue in current change-management
programmes, such as restructuring, total quality management and Enterprise Resource
Planning, and there has been a persistent quest for a post-Fordist model in recent
times. The article emphasizes the need to study democratic processes per se, given
that democracy faces significant odds vis-a-vis the larger context, even in those
organizations that have been expressly initiated for democratic functioning. The
contradictions with the context inevitably manifest themselves inside the organization
as well. The present study makes a case for understanding organizational democracy
as an evolving reality, based on participant observation of democratic functioning
within a workers’ cooperative over seven years.