Management Lives : Power and Identity in Work Organizations

by David Knights

• ISBN13: 9780803983335
• ISBN10: 0803983336
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-07
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd

Summary

'The authors bring a spark of vitality and life to an area that could be cynically viewed as a series of conflicting fads and fashions....I would recommend anyone in the process of reviewing or designing an entrepreneurship development course to consider the benefits that this book would bring to the teaching process' - Entrepreneurship and Innovation 'Using fiction in the classroom as an approach to stimulating the study of people in organizations is well-established. What this book contributes is a way of exploring some of the existential elements of life in organizations, which are typically difficult to study. It will be on my reading lists. Hopefully, this example, and regrettably few others which exist, will contribute in the long term to the reformulation of how the lived experience of organizational life may be explored in the classroom' - Leadership & Organization Development Journal Based on courses taught by the authors over many years, this innovative text is a lively and accessible analysis of people at work and the problems they have to confront. The student is introduced to a range of key themes in management such as: power and identity; consumption and bureaucracy; rational choice and meaning all through the medium of characters and situations in contemporary literature. The clear theoretical framework, supported by footnotes, summaries and further reading guides, makes this an introduction to management the student will find useful as well as enjoyable.

Table of Contents

Preface	viii
Background	viii
Usage	ix
Acknowledgements	x
Managing Knowledge	1	(29)
Against the text	2	(2)
Introducing the novel	4	(5)
From textbook to novel	5	(1)
Nice Work	6	(2)
Relevance of the novel	8	(1)
Managing knowledge	9	(5)
Information and understanding	10	(1)
Textbook syndrome	11	(1)
Guru syndrome	12	(2)
Managing as a lived experience	14	(4)
Vic the manager	14	(1)
Nice play?	15	(1)
The personal and the political	16	(2)
Interpreting everyday life	18	(6)
Interpreting the factory	18	(2)
Interpreting the lecture	20	(1)
The politics of teaching and the struggle to learn	21	(3)
An overview	24	(2)
Summary	26	(4)
Organizing Work	30	(23)
Conceptualizing (working) life	31	(2)
Power, inequality, identity and insecurity	31	(2)
Working lives	33	(11)
The historical meaning of work	35	(1)
Industrial work	36	(1)
The existential meaning of work	37	(3)
Orientations to work	40	(4)
What makes work meaningful?	44	(6)
Industry and society	45	(2)
Academia and society	47	(3)
Summary	50	(3)
Identity and Insecurity at Work	53	(35)
The burden of identity	54	(3)
The battle for human nature	57	(5)
The selfish gene?	58	(1)
Contextualizing human nature	59	(1)
Claims about human nature	60	(2)
Behaviourism: stimulus and response	62	(6)
The illusion of free will	64	(1)
Critical reflections on behaviourism	65	(3)
Symbolic interactionism: meaning and self	68	(8)
The process of self-formation	70	(3)
Critical reflections on symbolic interactionism	73	(2)
Beyond behaviourism and symbolic interactionism	75	(1)
The precariousness of identity in the context of work and society	76	(8)
The limits of rational control	76	(1)
Identity formation in conditions of uncertainty	77	(2)
The context of capitalism	79	(1)
Resistance and control	80	(1)
Identity and exploitation	81	(1)
Identity and consumption	82	(2)
Summary	84	(4)
Power and Inequality at Work	88	(33)
Devotion to a master	89	(2)
Devotion to success	91	(2)
Conceptualizing power	93	(6)
Lukes's three-dimensional model	95	(2)
The question of `real interests'	97	(2)
Conceptualizing inequality	99	(9)
Rereading the novels through an understanding of inequality	101	(1)
Nice Work	101	(1)
The Remains of the Day	102	(1)
The Bonfire of the Vanities	103	(2)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being	105	(2)
Discussion	107	(1)
Dynamics of inequality	108	(8)
Stereotyping	108	(2)
Domination	110	(1)
Subordination	111	(1)
Indifference	112	(1)
Resistance	113	(3)
Summary	116	(5)
Managing to Manage	121	(37)
Everyday managing	122	(6)
Analysing mundane managing	124	(4)
Making the modern organization	128	(10)
Weber and bureaucracy	130	(3)
Taylor and scientific management	133	(2)
The denial of morality?	135	(3)
Refining the modern organization	138	(2)
Remembering Barnard	138	(2)
`Post-bureaucratic' organization	140	(3)
Reflections on post-bureaucracy	142	(1)
Managing to manage	143	(8)
Managerial manipulation	143	(2)
Issues of hierarchy and accountability	145	(1)
Identity and insecurity	146	(2)
Power and inequality	148	(3)
Summary and conclusion	151	(7)
Apendix A Synopses of Novels	158	(5)
1 Nice Work	158	(1)
2 The Unbearable Lightness of Being	159	(1)
3 The Remains of the Day	160	(1)
4 The Bonfire of the Vanities	161	(2)
Appendix B The Conceptual Framework	163	(8)
Identity	163	(1)
Insecurity	164	(2)
Power	166	(1)
Inequality	167	(2)
An illustration	169	(2)
Index	171