Opportunity structures for co-determination in innovations: The case of the Stuttgart area

This paper discusses firm-operational innovation processes against the background of conflict and cooperation relations between employers and work councils. It is demonstrated that the German model of codetermination offers occasion structures for an active role of work councils and other interest representations of employees in innovation processes. As a composition of actors and institutions of different scales these occasion structures indicate limits and chances of the interest representations of employees in firm-operational changing processes of firms.