The Politics of Working LifeHow does the politics of working life shape modern organizations? Is our desire for meaningful, secure work increasingly at odds with corporate behaviour in a globalized economy? Does the rise of performance management culture represent an intensification of work, or create opportunities for the freewheeling individual career? This timely and engaging book, by leading authorities in the field, adopts the standpoint of the 'questioning observer'. It is for those who need an informed account of work that is accessible without being superficial. The book is unique in its multi-dimensional approach, weaving together analysis of individual work experience, political processes in organizations, and the wider context of the social structuring of markets. The book identifies central questions about working experience and answers them in a direct and lively manner. It has a strong analytical foundation based on a political economy framework, giving particular weight to the contradictory character of organizations. These contradictions turn on the competing demands placed on organizations and the different political projects of groups within them. This perspective integrates the chapters, and permits numerous scholarly debates to be addressed - including those on identity projects, gender and work, power and participation, escalation in decision-making, and the meaning of corporate social responsibility. This book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate classes in Organizational Behaviour, Business Strategy and the Sociology of Work and Employment. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in grappling with the complexity of the changing environment of work. |
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Table des matières
Conclusions | 141 |
Why Do Disasters Happen? | 145 |
Administrative Evil? | 147 |
Cultures of Fear | 150 |
Reliable Systems | 152 |
Understanding Technology | 154 |
Manmade Disasters | 157 |
Normal Accidents | 158 |
| 20 | |
| 22 | |
| 27 | |
| 31 | |
| 37 | |
| 41 | |
| 44 | |
| 48 | |
| 52 | |
| 54 | |
| 58 | |
| 60 | |
| 63 | |
| 64 | |
| 71 | |
| 75 | |
| 79 | |
Changing Modes of Management? | 82 |
Conclusions | 84 |
How Is Performance Defined Measured and Rewarded? | 87 |
Rise and Operation of PMS | 90 |
Appraisal as Discipline | 94 |
Performance Management Ritual and Symbol | 96 |
Understanding Workplace Rules | 101 |
Negotiating Budgets and Rules | 104 |
Conclusions | 112 |
Why Is Empowerment Hard to Achieve? | 114 |
How Does Power Work in Organizations? | 116 |
Mapping Participation | 123 |
Why Participation Matters | 130 |
Extent of Empowerment and Participation | 131 |
Conditions for Participation to Work | 139 |
The Politics and Economics of Safety and Risk Assessments | 164 |
Conclusions | 170 |
Is Decisionmaking a Rational Process? | 173 |
Groupthink | 175 |
Escalation as Group Psychology | 178 |
Escalation as a Failure of Rationality | 181 |
Persistence Failure and Rationality | 188 |
Learning | 191 |
Conclusions | 195 |
How Are Markets Constructed? | 197 |
How Do Markets Work? | 198 |
From Managerial Capitalism to Shareholder Value | 202 |
Option Pricing Financial Instruments and Corporate Scandals | 209 |
Effects of Market Restructuring in the USA | 215 |
Alternative Models of Capitalism | 218 |
Varieties of Capitalism | 220 |
Competing Logics Not Competing Models | 226 |
How Is Globalization Affecting Work? | 229 |
Myth and Reality | 230 |
Contests over Effects of Globalization | 235 |
The Global Economy and the IMF | 237 |
The Regulation of Global Trade | 240 |
Globalization and Work in Organizations | 245 |
Conclusions | 253 |
What Are the Opportunities and Responsibilities of Organizational Life? | 255 |
Business Issues | 257 |
Beyond the Stakeholder View | 259 |
Business Ethics | 265 |
References | 271 |
Index | 295 |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
agerial analysis approach argue argument autonomy behaviour call centres capitalism capitalist career cent Chapter Coltan commitment complex context contract corporate Corporate Social Responsibility costs countries culture debate decision-making defined disasters discussed economic employees employment empowerment Enron evidence example expectations experience fact firms focus Fordism gender global goals groupthink Honda idea identified important increased individual industry interaction interests involved issues Japan labour market logic managerial means ment MNCs operation organizational organizations participation particular performance appraisal performance management Perrow political practice pressures production psychological contract question rationality reflect relations responsibility responsible autonomy result risk rules safety sector shareholder value Shoreham skills social society stakeholders standards strategy stress structures targets Taurus telework tion trade trade unions trends women work-life balance workers workplace
Fréquemment cités
Page 24 - ... does not develop freely his mental and physical energies but is physically exhausted and mentally debased. The worker, therefore, feels himself at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless. His work is not voluntary but imposed, forced labour.
Page 24 - What constitutes the alienation of labour? First, that the work is external to the worker, that it is not part of his nature; and that, consequently, he does not fulfil himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery rather than well-being, does not develop freely his mental and physical energies but is physically exhausted and mentally debased.
Page 24 - Lastly, the external character of labour for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else's, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another.
Page 119 - What one may have here is a latent conflict, which consists in a contradiction between the interests of those exercising power and the real interests of those they exclude.
Page 55 - Out there in the land of household work there are small industrial plants which sit idle for the better part of every working day; there are expensive pieces of highly mechanized equipment which only get used once or twice a month; there are consumption units which weekly trundle out to their markets to buy eight ounces of this non-perishable product and twelve ounces of that one.
Page 65 - Be loyal to the company and the company will be loyal to you. After all, if you do a good job for the organization, it is only good sense for the organization to be good to you, because that will be best for everybody.
Page 24 - ... himself in his work but denies himself, has a feeling of misery, not of well-being, does not develop freely a physical and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and mentally debased.
Page 55 - The work of men has become centralized, but the work of women remains decentralized. Several million American women cook supper each night in several million separate homes over several million separate stoves— a specter...
Page 83 - However, as argued above, the abstract worker is actually a man, and it is the man's body, its sexuality, minimal responsibility in procreation, and conventional control of emotions that pervades work and organizational processes. Women's bodies — female sexuality, their ability to procreate and their pregnancy, breast-feeding, and child care, menstruation, and mythic "emotionality" — are suspect, stigmatized, and used as grounds for control and exclusion.

