User participation: A strategy for work life democracy??

Abstract

Scandinavian system development projects have traditionally put a strong emphasis on user participation. In this paper we discuss to what extent user participation has contributed to work life democracy. We argue that there has been a development from politics to ethics, and that the political dimension should be brought back to system development research. A reorientation of system development strategies aiming at increasing work life democracy can learn from the historical success stories, in particular the combination of global strategy and local action used in the LO-NAF cooperation projects and the NJMF project. Recent development in technology and work life will, however, introduce new challenges to system development, and the reorientation may include a discussion of what is possible to achieve through system development.