Organisations, Identities And the Self

by Webb, Janette

• ISBN13: 9780333804889
• ISBN10: 0333804880
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-28
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Why do we have the organisations we have? What have modern organisations done to us and for us? Do we have any influence over the way they work? This timely new book provides a sociological account of the interactions between organisations, social identities and our sense of self, in an era of global capitalism. Organisations, Identities and the Self offers a fresh, theoretically informed account of organisational life in contemporary society. Drawing upon the latest research and global data, the author considers both modernist and postmodernist perspectives, offering a balanced appraisal of the impact of big organisations on us and our society. An accessible text, it is structured around an explanation of the interconnected changes in political economy, organisations and individual's lives as consumers, workers and citizens, while maintaining agency at the heart of its discussion.

Author Biography

JANETTE WEBB is Reader in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh and Associate Editor of the journal, Work, Employment and Society.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xi
List of Tables	xii
Acknowledgements	xiii
Introduction	1	(14)
A Sociological Perspective on Organisations	3	(1)
The Distinctiveness of Modern Organisations	4	(1)
Structure and Agency in the Context of Organisations	5	(2)
The Challenge of Postmodernism	7	(3)
An Analytic Distinction between Self and Identity	10	(1)
Interpretative Approaches to the Interconnections of Organisations, Identities and the Self	11	(1)
The Structure of the Book and Chapter Outline	12	(3)
1 Understanding Organisations, Identities and the Self: a Conceptual Framework	15	(21)
The Sociological Perspective on the Self and Social Identities	15	(2)
The Postmodernist Treatment of Identity and Subjectivity	17	(2)
The Historical Development of the Self as Agent: from Ascribed to Achieved Identity	19	(1)
A Circumscribed and Instrumental Form of Agency? Weber's 'Iron Cage' of Rationalisation	20	(3)
Self-determination and Agency Dissolved in a Postmodern 'Invisible Cage' of Total Institutions	23	(3)
Do Organisations Determine Identities?	26	(1)
Sociological Evidence from Organisations: Agency Continues	26	(3)
A New Oversocialised Concept of Organisations as Determined by Cultural Identities	29	(2)
The Dialectical Relationship between Agency, Identity and Organisation	31	(3)
Conclusion	34	(2)
2 Globalising Economies and Organisations	36	(17)
The Globalist Model: the Inevitability of a Global Market?	37	(1)
The Traditionalist Critique of the Globalisation Perspective	38	(1)
Change and Continuity? The Transformationalist Perspective	39	(1)
Organising Deregulated Global Markets: the Role of the IMF, World Bank and WTO	40	(4)
Global Finance and the Strategies and Identities of Corporations	44	(3)
The Irrationalities of Rationalised Economies: Corporate Identity and the Enron Case	47	(3)
The Politics of Identity and its Connection to Globalised Financial Markets	50	(1)
Conclusion	51	(2)
3 Organisations, Identities and Consumption	53	(21)
Organisations and the Development of Consumer Markets	54	(3)
Why Globalising Markets Create the Need for Organisational Identities	57	(2)
Branding and Organisational Identity	59	(1)
An Industry in Organisational Identity?	60	(2)
Organisational Identity and 'Lifestyling'	62	(2)
Agency, Identity and Consumerism	64	(4)
Critique — the Indivisibility of Production and Consumption	68	(2)
Collective Consumer Identities and the Politics of Resistance	70	(2)
Conclusion	72	(2)
4 Public Service Reorganisation, Work and Consumer Citizenship	74	(21)
The Context: Social Democratic Welfare States and Social Identity	76	(1)
The Dual Crises of Welfare States: Neoliberalism and Identity Politics	77	(3)
The Reorganisation of Public Services: from Professional Bureaucracy to Management Tools and Markets	80	(4)
Public Management and a New Identity Project for Public Servants	84	(4)
Experiencing the Contradictions between Empowerment and Rationalisation	88	(1)
New Contracts for Public Service: Empowered Partners or Rationalised Labour?	89	(2)
The Identity of Consumer Citizenship	91	(1)
Conclusion	92	(3)
5 Organisations and Global Divisions of Labour	95	(31)
Theoretical Conjectures: the Restructuring of Work and Organisations?	96	(1)
Work and Occupational Change in Advanced Capitalist Countries: an Evaluation of Theoretical Assertions	97	(15)
The Globally Organised Interdependence of Labour	112	(5)
Conclusion	117	(2)
Appendix	119	(7)
6 Organisational Restructuring, Work and Social Divisions	126	(25)
Theoretical Conjectures about Employment and Occupational Change	128	(1)
Challenging the Myths of Mass Casualisation of Work, Short-termism in Employment and the End of Careers	129	(4)
The Power of Finance Capital and the Intensification of Work	133	(1)
Changing Class, Ethnic and Gender Divisions in Organisations?	133	(3)
Organisations and Restructured Gender Divisions	136	(4)
'Racialised' and Ethnic Divisions in Organisations	140	(3)
The Restructuring of Class Divisions in Organisations	143	(1)
Social Divisions and Processes of Cultural and Social Identity	144	(3)
Does Economic Individualisation Necessarily Produce Individualism?	147	(1)
Conclusion	148	(2)
Appendix	150	(1)
7 'We Are the Company': Work, Control and Identity in the Organisations of Advanced Capitalism	151	(23)
Explaining the Organisational Emphasis on Managing Employee Identity	152	(2)
Organisational Control through Regulating Identity	154	(6)
The Organisational Colonisation of Identity?	160	(2)
Critique of the Effectiveness of Organisational Control through the Regulation of Identity	162	(3)
Organisational Power Relations, Social Divisions and the Meanings of Emotional Labour	165	(7)
Conclusion	172	(2)
8 Organisations Are Us: Understanding Self-identity in Organised Societies	174	(19)
Globalising Markets, Organisations and Individualisation	175	(2)
The Organisation of a Productive Self: a Postmodernist Analysis	177	(2)
An Expertise of Self-improvement?	179	(1)
Is Work Treated as a Resource for Self-improvement?	180	(4)
Subversive Responses to the Enterprise of the Self	184	(1)
'Being Productive' in Work, Non-work and Leisure?	185	(2)
Evaluating the Concept of a Productive Subjectivity	187	(4)
Conclusion	191	(2)
Conclusion: Bringing Life Back to Organisations	193	(14)
A Summary of the Argument	193	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 1	194	(2)
Key Themes from Chapter 2	196	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 3	197	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 4	198	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 5	199	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 6	200	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 7	201	(1)
Key Themes from Chapter 8	202	(2)
In Conclusion	204	(3)
Bibliography	207	(18)
Index	225