The 'personal' was once something to be put to one side in the work
place: a 'professional manner' entailed the suppression of private
life and feelings. Now many large corporations can be found exhorting
their employees to simply be themselves. This book critically
investigates the increasing popularity of personal authenticity in
corporate ideology and practice. Rather than have workers adhere to
depersonalising bureaucratic rules or homogenous cultural norms, many
large corporations now invite employees to simply be themselves.
Alternative lifestyles, consumption, ethics, identity, sexuality, fun,
and even dissent are now celebrated since employees are presumed to be
more motivated if they can just be themselves. Does this freedom to
express one's authenticity in the workplace finally herald the end of
corporate control? To answer this question, the author places this
concern with authenticity within a political framework and
demonstrates how it might represent an even more insidious form of
cultural domination. The book especially focuses on the way in which
private and non-work selves are prospected and put to work in the
firm. The ideas of Hardt and Negri and the Italian autonomist movement
are used to show how common forms of association and co-operation
outside of commodified work are the inspiration for personal
authenticity. It is the vibrancy, energy and creativity of this
non-commodified stratum of social life that managerialism now aims to
exploit. Each chapter explores how this is achieved and highlights the
worker resistance that is provoked as a result. The book concludes by
demonstrating how the discourse of freedom underlying the managerial
version of authenticity harbours potential for a radical
transformation of the contemporary corporate form.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191569982
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
OUP Oxford
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter