Power, Control and Computer-Based Performance Monitoring: Repertoires, Resistance and Subjectivities

Abstract

This paper examines Computer-based Performance Monitoring (CBPM) in two UK financial services organizations. In doing so, it examines and critiques the existing manner in which this area has been theorized by both traditional and critical organization theorists. It then offers an alternative analysis of CBPM in terms of power, control and resistance, which involves the close interrogation of subject positioning within the speech of those who are subject to and manage this technology. By examining subject positions in interpretive repertoires, the paper demonstrates how power, control and resistance are constituted at an individual level and are specifically linked to the use (and abuse) of CBPM technology. It then further considers the nature and origins of the interpretive repertoires in relation to their organizational contexts, describing the differential circulation of disciplinary power in each. CBPM is thus understood as a politically neutral technology of power, which, when mobilized by management and discursively interwoven into practice becomes a potent force within local organizational sites. The central message of this paper is that it is possible to reveal the intertwining of individual and institutional discourses purely by examining technologies, practices and subjectivities in local organizational sites.

Power in Management and Organization Science

“…Spicer's (2005) investigation of online innovations in an Australian public broadcaster found that various groups championed different representations of the technology in order to manipulate its organizational legitimacy. In a similar study of technological implementation, Ball and Wilson (2000) found that the use of stories and narratives was central to the agenda setting process. However, these stories and narratives may have broader structural consequences such as the marginalization of women in the organization.…”

“…Because the spatial arrangement of the plant resembled a 'panopticon', the managerial gaze was always present among employees, to the extent where they enacted its influence upon themselves and fellow workers (also see Halford and Leonard, 2006). Knights and Murray's (1992) investigation of an insurance firm introducing new information systems similarly demonstrates how the new climate of 'transparency' substantially changed the way workers understood themselves and their roles, revealing the insidious social power of technology when enacted within certain political settings (also see Ball and Wilson, 2000;Coombs et al 2002;Bloomfield and Danieli 1995).…”

The abolition of the General Teaching Council for England and the future of teacher discipline

“…The culmination of discipline and punishment according to Foucault is the Panopticon, the process of surveillance and the internalisation of discipline. Although some scholars argue that the panoptic metaphor has been over-used (Ball and Wilson, 2000;Taylor and Bain, 2003;Thompson, 2003), it remains a useful concept to investigate processes of power and control in the education sector (e.g. Selwyn, 2000;Bushnell, 2003;Piro, 2008).…”

Deltagende overvågning og sociale fællesskaber på nettet

“…Her er der snarere tale om en «flad» relation, hvor den overvågede ikke er fanget af overvågerens blik, men i stedet for bliver en aktør med egen dagsorden. Det kan eksempelvis vaere i form af modstand mod overvågerens blik (Ball & Wilson 2000;McGrath 2004), eller, som vi så ovenfor, kan det komme til udtryk på en mere positiv måde i form af «magtgivende ekshibitionisme» (Koskela 2004).…”