Internal Contractualisation and supervisory control

The paper presents empirical findings from two case studies in the German automobileindustry. The cases are used to discuss contemporary attempts by corporate management toimplement new governance and control practices within the firm. These attempts follow anew paradigm, or “Leitbild”, of organisational restructuring. The three main elements of thisnew paradigm are presented and discussed in turn. One of these three elements, that we call“internal contractualisation”, seems to play a particularly important role in an age ofshareholder value and financialisation. We argue that this new „Leitbild“ has inherentambiguities and leads to contradictory results on the level of production. Because of theseambiguities, current rationalisation depends on the intervening role of the first-line productionsupervisor. We will discuss the supervisor’s function in the process of implementing andmaintaining new forms of regulation and control. Finally, we will turn to the question whetherbureaucratic regulation and hierarchical control are superseded by new forms of control.