PROBLEMS OF CONSTRUCTING THE COMMON CORE OF PARTICIPATION, ORGANIZATIONAL DEMOCRACY AND/OR SELF-MANAGEMENT RESEARCH INSTRUMENT PROBLEMS OF CONSTRUCTING THE COMMON CORE OF PARTICIPATION, ORGANIZATIONAL DEMOCRACY AND/OR SELF-MANAGEMENT RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

Main social causes of present lack of comparable longitudinal data on social relations’ transformation contradictory interests of orderers, subjects and objects of research to conserve, reform or transform the existing social relations determine: > whether participation, organizational democracy &/or self-management will be researched at all > what aspects of these complex forms of social relations’ organization will be operationalized into the research instrument items and how

Example from former Yugoslavia Typical for the standpoint of “technocrats” and neo- liberals > initial conscious hiding of privatisation plans: “Having in mind the revolutionary * character of changes brought about by the changes in ownership, especially in the dominant way of thinking and ideological conceptions, public presentation of one’s attitudes, at the least in the beginning, had to be not irritating” (Vukotić, Veselin, 1993: 79). > consistent negative valuation of all resistance to privatisation as “authoritarian collectivism”, “redistributive statism”, “blocked transition” (Lazić, M., Cvejić, S., 2007, 54-74)

Example from European Union PEPPER* III report - typical for social –democratic standpoint > identification of advantages of employee participation schemes: contribution to increased employee commitment, identification with the firm’s goals and performance, higher work incentives, productivity and competitiveness, reduction of the costs of monitoring individual workers, introduction of greater wage flexibility through lowering of basic wages, financial participation in enterprise results and sharing risks of the firms success or failure (pp. 9, 38-9, 42, 47, 51-3, 55-6, 58, 66-67,.72, 75, 80, 82, 85, 87, 93, 306 > confinement to reforms of dominant capitalist relations: “clear recognition of the adoption and development of market economy” (70)

Optimal research situation collaborative, participatory and interactive, on the active solving of the problem oriented research process overcoming the class division of labor involvement of research objects in dialectical social relationship of collective research dialoging and problem solving > increases the relevance and quality of research questions, the impartiality, validity, reliability of the findings and their optimal application in problem solving > transforms research objects into research subjects regaining control of their life reproduction through sustainable development of their own human capacities, generating socialised, equitable solidary satisfaction of communal needs, instead of the accumulation of private profits and power of financial oligarchy, generating social and ecological disasters.

Propositions for construction of a research instrument common core pose self-reflexive question: what is the social standpoint from which we construct research instrument? include aspects the most often omitted so far: 1.the attitude of citizens in the family, local community, school, workplace, nation state, regional and worldwide organizations, toward the basic value and normative- institutional principles of various types of p, o.d. &/or s.m.; 2.advantages and disadvantages, positive and negative experiences of the effects of existence or absence of p, o.d. &/or s.m.; 3.one’s own readiness to take part in p, o.d. &/or s.m concerning transformation of existing ownership and decision-making relations from local to global levels of social existence.