The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of domination in participative organizational structures. We use the concept of social control, the difference between social and bureaucratic ways of control and Habermas's idea of lifeworld's rationalization, to theoretically propose a definition of normative social control as a new way of controlling in participative organizational structures. We propose that normative social control refers to the institutionalization of economic purposive-rational orientation in the realm of personal informal relationships, and that it can be understood as a new emphasis upon ways of social domination and organizational control not based on rational-legal authority, but on the legitimacy of consensual decisions, in spite of the way consensus is reached. This kind of social control is understood here as an organizational reaction to the risk naturally implicated in participative decision-making processes, and as a key condition to the continuity of organizational systems that have to face complex decisions.
Social control; rationalization; bureaucracy; participation; decision