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7 - Discursive struggle: the case of globalization in the public sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Peter Fleming
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
André Spicer
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Why is it that the word ‘globalization’ has recently entered into our discourse in the way it has? Who put it there and why? … words like ‘imperialism’, ‘colonialism’ and ‘neo-colonialism’ have increasingly taken a back seat to ‘globalization’ as a way to organize thoughts and chart political possibilities.

(Harvey, 1995: 1)

In the last two chapters we saw how employees used various tactics to engage an apparently overpowering corporate culture. We found that these close engagements undermined the company culture at the same time as perpetuating the body corporate. Interestingly, most of these struggles against the corporate culture did not appear in public. Like most workplaces, the discontent, anger, concern and hurt experienced by employees took place in the hidden crevasses and folds of organizational life. For some, it is only within these concealed spaces of ‘micro-politics’ that struggle can be expressed (e.g. Thomas and Davies, 2005; Sennett, 2006). The voices of dissent in organizations are to be found in rebellious subcultures, conspiratorial glances, carefully timed flatulence and the omnipresent ‘demotivation poster’. However, we would be sadly mistaken to assume that struggle in today's organizations takes place only through workplace ‘infrapolitics’ (Scott, 1990). Many aspects of work life are subject to publicly declared political contestation. Struggle sometimes involves ‘large-scale, collective changes in the domains of state policy, corporate practice, social structure, cultural norms, and daily lived experience’ (Ganesh, Zoller and Cheney, 2004: 177).

Type
Chapter
Information
Contesting the Corporation
Struggle, Power and Resistance in Organizations
, pp. 131 - 149
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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