‘Are they out to get us?’ Power and the ‘recognition’ of the subject through a ‘lean’ work regime

Critical studies of ‘lean’ work regimes have tended to focus on the factory shop floor or public and healthcare sectors, despite its recent revival and wider deployment in neoliberal service economies. This paper investigates the politics of the workplace in a United Kingdom automotive dealership gr...

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Veröffentlicht in:Organization studies Jg. 42; H. 11; S. 1721 - 1740
Hauptverfasser: Mackenzie, Ewan, McGovern, Tom, Small, Adrian, Hicks, Chris, Scurry, Tracy
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: London, England SAGE Publications 01.11.2021
Sage Publications Ltd
Schlagworte:
Acknowledgment
Autonomy
Critical theory
Deployment
Discourses
Ethics
Governmentality
Health care
Health services
Human capital
Interpersonal relations
Marginality
Medical personnel
Neoliberalism
Organization studies
Power
Prescription drugs
Professional autonomy
Recognition
Social relations
Technology
Work
Workers
Workplaces
technologies of power
subjectivity
governmentality
lean
Foucault
ISSN:0170-8406, 1741-3044
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:Critical studies of ‘lean’ work regimes have tended to focus on the factory shop floor or public and healthcare sectors, despite its recent revival and wider deployment in neoliberal service economies. This paper investigates the politics of the workplace in a United Kingdom automotive dealership group subject to an intervention inspired by lean methods. We develop Foucauldian studies of governmentality by addressing lean as a technology of power deployed to act on the conduct of workers, examining how they debunk, distance themselves from and enact its imperatives. Our findings support critiques of lean work regimes that raise concerns about work intensification and poor worker health. Discourses of professional autonomy allow workers to distance themselves from lean prescriptions, yet they are reaffirmed in their actions. More significantly, we illustrate the exercise of a more encompassing form of power, showing how lean harnesses the inherently exploitable desire for recognition among hitherto marginalised workers, and its role as a form of ‘human capital’. The paper contributes to critical studies of lean by illustrating its subtle, deleterious and persistent effects within the analytical frame of neoliberal governmentality. We also demonstrate how studies of governmentality can be advanced through the analysis of contested social relations on the ground, highlighting the ethico-political potential of Foucauldian work.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840620912708