Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and Its Relevance for Human Resource Management

Townley, Barbara

doi:10.2307/258907

Cited by 313 publications

(320 citation statements)

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“…The article by Townley (1993) shows that the positivist approach to the HR area is in perfect harmony with the classic view of Administration, in which the main objective of organizations would be to seek a stable efficiency that is adapted to its system. In this context, the HR function is one of the means by which organizations can achieve their stabilizing objectives.…”

Section: Hrm As a Functionalist And/or Positive Sciencementioning

confidence: 98%

“…Most critical authors in the field classify HRM as functionalist, and several (such as Townley, 1993) as both functionalist and positivist. The article by Townley (1993) shows that the positivist approach to the HR area is in perfect harmony with the classic view of Administration, in which the main objective of organizations would be to seek a stable efficiency that is adapted to its system.…”

Section: Hrm As a Functionalist And/or Positive Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first, according to Townley (1993), is the issue of control and power in the Foucaultian view. The second, on the other hand, is the fact that this control may be exercised using both hard and soft approaches to human resources policies and practices which according to Legge (1995) and Keenoy (1990Keenoy ( , 1991Keenoy ( , 1999, allow a useful ambiguity regarding the conduct of organizational policies.…”

Section: Hrm As Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Critical approaches point out that IHRM, just as domestic HRM, would be ultimately concerned with control and with perpetuating power relations in organizations (Legge, 1995;Peltonen, 2006;Townley, 1993). Contrary to the functional viewpoint, within a critical approach, the cross-border transfer of HRM practices would be perceived as an attempt to facilitate control of subsidiaries and host country realities by headquarters, placate potential headquarter-host country contradictions and conflicts, or solidify power relations that should rather be questioned or overcome.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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IHRM in developing countries: does the functionalist vs. critical debate make sense South of the Equator?

Caldas

Tonelli

Lacombe

2011

BAR, Braz. Adm. Rev.

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A recent debate has taken place in International Human Resource Management (IHRM) theory and practice between the so-called functionalists and the critical approaches. This paper reviews the literature on mainstream, functionalist IHRM and the critical approaches, and theoretically discusses their fit to emerging countries' realities and multilatinas experience. The essay's main objectives and contributions are: (a) to argue that this debate, overly typical of the American-European context, may not be fully applicable to ambiguous and contradictory contexts, such as most developing countries and, particularly, Latin America; (b) to argue that the disputes between both functionalist and critical IHRM theorists, in equally richer countries, is inadequate for other (non-rich-involving) contexts; and (c) to propose redirection possibilities for this debate, particularly, in Latin America.

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Section: Hrm As a Functionalist And/or Positive Sciencementioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Hrm As a Functionalist And/or Positive Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hrm As Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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IHRM in developing countries: does the functionalist vs. critical debate make sense South of the Equator?

Caldas

Tonelli

Lacombe

2011

BAR, Braz. Adm. Rev.

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“…Others – mainly in the field of critical management studies – have understood this in terms of identity regulation (Alvesson and Willmott ) or socioideological control (Alvesson and Kärreman ). Barbara Townley (:528–529) claimed that personality tests and attitude measurements are “arrangements for ranking,” which “provide a grid of codability of personal attributes,” placing individuals on “comparative scalar measures.” Such tests and measures often fall under the rubric of human resource management (HRM), a field that is, given what is stated above, clearly susceptible to a Marxist critique of an obsession with the individual – or as Rose would put it: “the apotheosis of the celebration of the individual in capitalist ideology” (:219). Psychological tests and measures may gain notoriety among employees, for they can easily bring competition to a next level (i.e., from competition on the basis of output and work performance to levels of the “psyche,” the “hearts and minds,” “cultural values,” and so on).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“All of Me”: PsychologizingTurkish‐Dutch Police Officers in theNetherlands

Mutsaers

2014

Anthropology of Work Review

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This article offers a critical take on the excessive use of psychological applications in the work sphere, that is, management techniques that open up the psyche of the individual employee to interceptions, evaluations, and manipulations by superiors. It builds upon existing work on the psychologization of labor under the aegis of human resource apparatuses and contributes to it by centralizing the role that confessions have in this process. The article details the careers of Fehim and Halil, both Turkish-Dutch officers working for a Dutch police agency.The field data, which have been obtained through an ethnographic fieldwork between 2008 and 2013, offer an insight into how psychological applications (such as personal development plans, "fireplace sessions," empowerment courses, personality surveys, etc.) affect labor relations. The analysis opens up pathways for a better understanding of ethnic inequality in the workplace.

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Power in Groups and Organizations

Coleman¹,

Voronov²

2003

International Handbook of Organizational Teamwork and Cooperative Working

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This is a chapter about power in groups and organizations. In the following pages, we suggest that the analysis and exploration of the complexities of organizational power by managers and workers is both necessary and useful. We begin by discussing three of the prominent theoretical perspectives on power from the literatures of social and organizational psychology and critical management studies. We then outline some of the dilemmas and challenges faced by executives, managers and workers around empowerment, disempowerment and organizational democracy. Then, building on the seminal works of Follet, Deutsch, Tjosvold, Clegg, Mumby and others, we offer a framework of organizational power which views power as a multifaceted phenomenon; as thoughts, words and deeds which are both embedded within and determining of a complex network of relations, structures and meaning-making processes at different levels of organizational and community life. Such a framework enables us to understand the relational aspects of power and authority within the context of the macro structures and ideologies that give them meaning. It can also help identify those domains in organizations where the potential for sharing cooperative power is, in fact, not disempowering, but genuinely empowering for all concerned. The chapter concludes with a set of practical recommendations for managers that emphasize the benefits of multiple emancipatory initiatives within organizations when implemented with respect to the paradoxes of power.

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Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and Its Relevance for Human Resource Management

Cited by 313 publications

References 0 publications

IHRM in developing countries: does the functionalist vs. critical debate make sense South of the Equator?

IHRM in developing countries: does the functionalist vs. critical debate make sense South of the Equator?

“All of Me”: PsychologizingTurkish‐Dutch Police Officers in theNetherlands

Power in Groups and Organizations

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