Affiliations: [a] Dalarna University College, Department of Economy and Society, SE-781 88 Borlänge, Sweden. Tel.: +46-23-778557 or +46-709-100594; Fax: +46-23-778052; E-mail: rwi@du.se | [b] The University of Newcastle, Employment Studies Centre, Faculty of Business and Law, NSW 2308, Australia. Tel.: +61-2-49-216814; E-mail: john.lewer@newcastle.edu.au | [c] Örebro University, Department of Economics, Statistics and Informatics (ESI), Fakultetsgatan 1, SE-701 82 Örebro, Sweden. Tel.: +46-19-303971 or +46 709-450995; E-mail: magnus.hansson@esi.oru.se
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author.
Abstract: Both the public and private sectors have since the 1980s relentlessly cut the size of their workforces. The downsizing has regularly been reported to lead to closure of a whole or a part of a corporation or organization. Some studies which have analyzed the closures have reported that remarkable, counterintuitive improvements in labor productivity occurred during the time-period between the closure announcement and the final working day. Testing an elaborated cybernetic model on a Swedish case study, and on an exploratory basis, this paper proposes a holistic approach to generate a better understanding of this phenomenon. The main holistic pattern is a new order where management control is replaced by more “Self-management” on the plant level, and very strong psychological reactions based on feelings of unfairness.
