In recent years, there has been much talk of, and experimentation with, new production methodologies and new forms of work organisation like lean production, total quality management and world class manufacturing. Commentators and practitioners alike have stressed the need for significant changes in the way work is organised if European companies are to meet the competitive threat posed by foreign competitors. A key constituent of many of these new work structures is the place accorded to employee involvement and participation particularly in the form of team working. For many commentators the key to achieving competitive advantage is increasingly through the organisation of work; new technologies are more widely available, and it is the manner in which workers’ skills and human resources are grouped around these technologies which is crucial. While employers, trade unions and governments have seen the advantage of promoting employee participation for some decades, the prominence and importance attached to team working received a new rigour and vitality with the publication of Womack et al’s (1990) study of the automobile industry, The Machine that Changed the World. In this study, the authors point to a new form of work organisation, called lean production, which has its origins in Japan and is identified as the key element in companies’ successful penetration of world markets.