Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Prisons, playgrounds and parliaments
- Part 1 Theoretical framework
- Part 2 Forms of resentful struggle
- Part 3 Overt, organized and collective struggle
- 7 Discursive struggle: the case of globalization in the public sector
- 8 Struggles for justice: wharfies, queers and capitalists
- 9 Struggles for common ground in organizations
- Conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Index
7 - Discursive struggle: the case of globalization in the public sector
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Prisons, playgrounds and parliaments
- Part 1 Theoretical framework
- Part 2 Forms of resentful struggle
- Part 3 Overt, organized and collective struggle
- 7 Discursive struggle: the case of globalization in the public sector
- 8 Struggles for justice: wharfies, queers and capitalists
- 9 Struggles for common ground in organizations
- Conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Index
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 CorporationStruggle, Power and Resistance in Organizations, pp. 131 - 149Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007