"Come, Join Our Family": Discipline and Integration in Corporate Organizational Culture

Abstract

This article critically examines primary processes and effects of the so-called "new organizational culture" that is organized on the principles and practices of Total Quality Management (and its variations) and increasingly practiced in corporate organizations in the 1990s. The paper specifically analyzes the effects of the organizational cultural practices of "family" and "team" on the employee and discusses their role in corporate discipline, integration, and control. Data are drawn from field research conducted in a large multinational corporation and the analyses and interpretive propositions are informed by a critical social psychoanalytic perspective. The paper disputes the conventional view that the practices of the "new culture" and its purported reform of the hierarchical, specialized, conflict-ridden workplaces of traditional industrial organizations "empower" employees and provide "meaningful" relationships in the workplace. It is argued, on the contrary, that these new "designer" cultural practices serve as processes of regulation, discipline, and control of employee subject selves.

The clinical governance of the soul: ‘deep management’ and the self-regulating subject in integrated community mental health teams

“…In this sense the management structures have been internalised, such that the members know what they think should be done but there is no external manifestation of this in the formal ceremonies of the organisation. The practitioners are 'self-producing' (Casey, 1999). This subjective organisation of structure has a relative autonomy from traditional pathways of influence which have been identified in health care, such as Traynor's (1996) identification of managerial inroads or Stein's (1967) 'doctor-nurse game'.…”

“…This then is at the core of what we call deep management. The rebirth of social concepts such as teams as if they were matters of subjective feeling (Casey, 1999), the recursive focus on the individual practitioner as the solution to the organisation's problems, with a precise, self-managing way of relating to themselves and their future creates a regime of personhood and a regime of organisational truth (Casey, 1999;Rose, 1997). Thus, we have seen evidence in this health service organisation for a process which scholars of the commercial organisational sector have also begun to detect.…”

Kontrolle und Autonomie in der selbstorganisierenden Unternehmung: zum Post-Industriellen Strukturwandel des Arbeitsprozesses.

“…The object of these analyses remains, however, within managerial hierarchy (Webb et al, 2009;Knights and McCabe, 1998;Hales, 2000;Harley, 1999). In other studies, the focus either does not lie on the structural analysis of the labour-process, or they do not address the question on the level of the entire organisation (Grugulis, Dundon, Wilkinson, 2000;Cicmil, Gaggiotti, 2013;Ahrens, Mollona, 2007;Willmott, 1993;Casey, 1999;Willmott and Knight, 1987;Willmott, 1993). The most famous and relevant empirical contribution here is Barker's (1993) account of a company's transition from a bureaucratic hierarchy to self-managing teams.…”

Uma Breve Reflexão Da Instituição Família Como Antecedente Espistemológico De Investigações Em Organizações Familiares

“…Oo significado familiar pode, por exemplo, desempenhar um aspecto prático quando a qualidade ou profundidade da relação social de alguém é questionada. Pode, também, desempenhar papel político ou psicossocial quando a organização é concebida como representação do lar ou da mãe protetora (PAGÈS, BONETTI, GAULEJAC & DESCEN-DRE, 1979;BROWN & MCCART-NEY, 1996;CASEY, 1999;GABRIEL, 1999;KONDO, 2009).…”