In his classic work, The Frontier of Control, Carter L. Goodrich examined the workplace organisation amongst miners and others workers, as well as the growing syndicalism in the unions and the guild socialist movement, in the UK in the turbulent period of 1919-1920.  In this he identified the site of struggle around the frontier between management prerogative - or 'complete executive control' - and full workers' control.  He sees the increasing strength of workers able to encroach on management control, in a shifting frontier, building up the strength and initiative of workers in their self organisation.  This approach has been influential in many historical accounts of workers' movements - such as in David Montgomery's Workers' Control in America - and for the Institute for Workers' Control.   

goodrich frontier of control