The whole movement, read and linked.

Harvard Business Review · Ricardo Semler

Semler's third HBR article; the page also references 'Managing Without Managers' (1989) and 'Why My Former Employees Still Work for Me' (1994).

Change the Work · Change the Work

Getz on the first generation (Gore, USAA, FAVI, Semco...) and the second (Poult, Chronoflex, HCL...).

changeX · Stephanie Borgert

German essay mapping the most-cited self-organising companies (Buurtzorg, Upstalsboom, Haufe-umantis, dm, Semco, FAVI...).

RAE eletrônica (SciELO) · RAE author

Academic analysis of how Semler's ideas and 'participation' were diffused and reframed in Brazil in the 1980s.

Interfaces Científicas — Educação · Academic authors

Links democratic school management with participative business management (cites Moggi's USP thesis on Semco-era participation).

Revelry · Revelry

Practitioner reading of Maverick: factory committees, open books, chosen bosses, four-layer hierarchy.

Peerdom (blog) · Peerdom

2026 explainer on Semco's growth from $4M to $212M with self-set salaries and hours.

Wikipedia · —

Reference bio: firing 60% of top managers on day one, matrix failure of 1986, Maverick.

Wikipedia · —

Summary: worker-set quotas, profit sharing to the floor, 75% fewer supervisors, three concentric circles.

Scribd · Student case

Portuguese-language student case on Semco's participative model.

Corporate Rebels · Joost Minnaar / Pim de Morree et al.

Corporate Rebels' write-up of Semco's practices (self-set hours, chosen bosses, open books).

Harvard Business Review · Ricardo Semler

The 1989 original: 800 employees set their own hours, see the books and vote on decisions; 150+ managers set their own pay. Three principles — democracy, profit sharing, information.

Harvard Business Review · Ricardo Semler

Purchasable reprint with abstract.

Harvard Business Review (via donnapace.com) · Ricardo Semler

Open PDF of reprint 89509 incl. the self-set salary and self-titled 'coordinator' passages.

Harvard Business Review · Ricardo Semler

1994 HBR piece on turning employees into satellite suppliers instead of laying them off.

Thunderbird School of Global Management · Thunderbird case writers

Teaching case: one-third of middle managers quit 1985–87 as self-managed teams arrived; six-month unit mandates.

Academia.edu · Academic author

Paper synthesising Maverick, The Seven-Day Weekend and both HBR articles; 12 layers to 3, corporate staff cut 75%.

Harvard Business Review · HBR

HBR index page: Semler's 'go to the movies on Sunday' remark, the HBR/McKinsey M-Prize Beyond Bureaucracy Challenge winners, and a Semco teaching case.

Die Unternehmensdemokraten (Andreas Zeuch) · Andreas Zeuch

Reply to a Süddeutsche piece on electing bosses; notes Semco's democracy was born in crisis.

MT/Sprout · MT/Sprout

Dutch business magazine on how the Semco Style Institute partnership began; notes Semler's MT interview is among the site's most-read.

Koedijk.com · Erik Jan Koedijk

How a Tegenlicht broadcast led to the 2015 'Semler in de Polder' event with 1,600 people.

Boom Management · Arko van Brakel

Van Brakel on 12 years of self-management practice, incl. applying the principles in regional public governance.

Veronique Kilian (blog) · Veronique Kilian

Coach's reading of Semco Style incl. the 'inevitable price of corporate democracy' — long discussions.

Jacob van der Wal (blog) · Jacob van der Wal

Dutch summary of Semco's circles, chosen managers and open salaries.

Lerende Leiders · Koos Groenewoud

Curated Dutch dossier of 50+ articles, videos and books on self-management (Voys handbook, Buurtzorg principles, Weggeman).

Semco Style Institute · SSI

Dutch site of the institute built on Semco principles.

Semco Style Institute · SSI

Talk series episode on moving from 'MEconomy' to 'WEconomy'.

The Christian Science Monitor · CS Monitor

Contemporary press: Semco filling a job with 1,430 résumés and no personnel department.

Trabajar es una lata (Substack) · Substack author

Spanish reading of Maverick as the classic post-bureaucratic case.

Politechnika Krakowska (library PDF) · Andrzej Blikle

Contents of the free 3rd edition incl. case chapters on Semco and Polish firms Marco and Brewa.

Exame · Exame

Semler's own contemporaneous verdict on the dot-com crash: greed, vanity and a basic misreading of economic reality, not just bad luck.

Exame · Exame

2021 interview: an ABN Amro branch that fired 392 of 420 managers on Semco Style advice, and an update on Lumiar and the still-unwritten next book.

Trade (revista corporativa) · Trade

Semler on the shrinking Semco group (5,000 employees across five or six firms) and Semco Style's export to the Netherlands and, more recently, Japan.

strategy+business (PwC) · strategy+business

Leadership scholar Warren Bennis calls Semco's employee-elected officers 'the most advanced, progressive, and... problematic' form of participative management he knows of.