Individual autonomy in new forms of work organization

New management methods are trying to reproduce the performance dynamics of self-employed entrepreneurs among their ‘regular’ employees, leading them to become the driving force of a company’s production growth. In order to do this, they have to replace the system of command and control by a system of indirect control, which makes the autonomous free will of the individual employee instrumental to the company’s purpose. Works councils and trade unions are thereby confronted with an entirely new situation, the main thrust of which is to render ineffectual the conventional means of conflict with which they are inclined to react to its negative consequences. To cope with this challenge agreement must be reached on our understanding of autonomy and the changes it encounters, associated with the changes in forms of management itself.