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Power and Organizations

Contents

1. Fixing the Institutionalization of Theory and Practice

In this chapter we will: Outline the approach and the intention behind the book. Provide some background information on how power has been discussed in organizational theory. Explain our approach to power and how it differs from more traditional views of power in organizational theory. Introduce the chapters and elaborate their main themes, present a 

roadmap of the chapters that are to follow, and elaborate the logic of the book.

2. Power and Efficiency

In the second chapter we begin to address how certain aspects of the way management and organizations were conceptualized first emerged, concentrating especially on how power became embedded in routines in organizations and how social programs evolved to buttress power at work. We begin by examining mundane understandings of management as they are embedded in the language that we habitually use to discuss it. Some of this language bears etymological analysis in historical terms and we endeavor, as non-specialists, to make such an analysis.

3 Body, Soul, and Mind

The chapter begins by looking at how reform of the economy spread rapidly and globally, eventually becoming the basis for a reform project of society as a whole. We also explore how the analysis of organizations shifted from the formal design of work to a concern with the consciousness of the employee at work. The body was set to acquire a soul at work, which, in turn, would be disciplined further, so that new conceptions could supplement a wholly embodied concept of the person in a cascading quantum of efficiency. Such an innovation meant mounting a project opposing individualism. Not surprisingly, when we seek opposition to individualism, we find it located in community, which is where Mary Parker Follett fixed it

4 The Curious Case of Max Weber

In this chapter we investigate how a sophisticated analysis of power in organizations was being constructed in German in Max Weber’s work in the early years of the twentieth century. Early in the twentieth century some German scholars had given great thought to the dynamics of power, the business of rule, and how dom- ination might become authority. Chief amongst these were Max Weber and Georg Simmel. While organization theorists rarely mention Simmel, Weber is frequently claimed as a founding father of rational classical administrative theory. Of particular importance in the process is the transformation of the topic referenced by the German term Herrschaft from a concern with domination to a concern with legitimate authority.

5 The Rational System and Its Irrational Other

We examine how power became the systemic enemy of the incorporation of formal and informal organization in one frame. Power was the source of irrationality in an otherwise rational system, and invariably came from self-interested lower-order employee objections. The constitution of power in modern organization and management theory was accomplished in the inter-war years between 1918 and 1939. Of particular interest here is the role of the Fatigue Laboratory at Harvard University, and another key Harvard institution, the Pareto Circle, an institution that became central to the production of what would be taken to be compelling truths about modern management, as well as providing an analytical framework in which to embed them. 

6 The Heart of Darkness

At the core of modern organizations there is a heart of darkness, one which stains not only history but also present realities.15 We argue that the heart of organization is power and at the heart of power is a darkness that has been bleached out of contemporary accounts of power in organizations. Rather than be stain removers, we wish to draw attention to what turns the heart black

7 Power To and Power Over

There have been two dominant tendencies in modern conceptions of power, and one of them, the positive conception associated with Talcott Parsons, has been relatively neglected by organization theorists, even though it has deep roots in the work of Mary Parker Follett. We explore sophisticated debates in social theory that, with few exceptions, have hardly informed organization theory, thus establishing organization theory as something of a backwater in terms of the relative lack of sophistication of its theorizing in social science terms. We look at the development of contrasting views that stress ‘power to’ and ‘power over’

8 The Foucault Effect

The assumptions of the power debate that stretched from Hobbes through Locke to Steven Lukes’ work were to be radically questioned by Michel Foucault’s evolving analytics of power. It is often the case that, just as it seems that a debate is about to be resolved, it is reopened from a space that no one was expecting. Michel Foucault opened up such a space that offers a case in point

9 Critical Theories of Organizational Power

Management scholars built on ideas from Critical Theory in sociology to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of the corporation, modern management, and management knowledge. We consider the development of a critical moment in management studies focused on explicating the structures of power and control that characterize the modern corporation and on challenging the notions of performativity, naturalness, and non-reflexivity that characterize mainstream management thought

10 Discursive Theories of Organizational Power

Largely neglected by organization theory were sociological models that located organization members as essentially discursive (i.e. speaking) subjects. Given that much management and organization may be seen as discursive work, this was surprising. As Clegg (1975) recognized, much of what is done in organizations is done discursively, through words and other signs in both text and talk, an insight that has gathered pace with the popularity of Foucault’s work, at least in Europe and Australasia

11 Power and Organizational Forms

Debates on bureaucracy relate to fundamental dynamics of underlying structures of power, stretching from democratic to oligarchic forms. The hybrid capacities of power regimes will be explored to uncover the notion of political performance as the basis of political dynamics. Thus, in Chapter 11 we look at the complex intricacies between power and the underlying political forms that have shaped the agenda of organization scholars for decades.

12 Corporate Power Elites

Analysis of power has been shaped by the question ‘Who governs?’ We investigate the elitist/pluralist debate as it has shaped the way scholars analyze the roles and dynamics of elite bodies, and the contemporary dynamics of corporate elites and how they influence the deep political structures of organizations, particularly the forms of subordination. 

13 The Futures of Power

Chapter 13 suggests new problems, new perspectives, and new avenues for political and organizational scholars interested in the broad issue of power. New problems arise from the further extension of what Beck has termed a risk society into one that we refer to as a heightened state of insecurity. New perspectives are needed to incorporate such concerns within the remit of organization studies. In consequence, new issues materialize, especially around issues of identity and the ways in which these are increasingly scanned, simulated, and structured in action

SAGE Publications
London. Thousand Oaks. New Delhi