Democratization in Industry via Multi-Agent Systems, The case of a production company

Abstract: Democracy is typically a question of political government. Nevertheless, in recent years, the forms of democratic development have changed in the course of the governance debate. According to Council of Europe, E-democracy tools use technology to boost key democratic values like participation, inclusivity, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, openness and accountability within the democratic system. Alongside civil society, companies are playing an increasingly important role in the establishment of collective order. The difficult aspects of this development can be seen in the concentration of market power and the circumvention of employee co-determination. At the same time, however, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sometimes take on the role of pioneers. One key example is about AI-based decision support systems in order to realize new decision-making and co-determination opportunities. This raises the question of what potential for democratization and, if so, in what form, is actually emerging here. On the one hand, this article raises the question of how aspects of a “democratization” in companies can be realized and presents a conceptual approach for analysing such ambitions. On the other hand, specific challenges of a “democratization” via digital tools will be worked out by analysing the case study of a SME. An important result is that forms of democratization via multi-agent systems are only perceived as democratic if they are introduced and procedurally anchored within the company through social processes that are perceived as legitimate.

Keywords: Democracy, SME, Democratization via digital tools, Multi-Agent Systems

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004709

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