Organizational scholars have shown considerable interest in the rise of complex systems of organizational control, sometimes referred to metaphorically as the process of tightening the iron cage, as well as patterns of workplace resistance to it. More recently, the scholarly spotlight seems to have shifted from formal modes of employee resistance to more informal or routine forms of workplace resistance. This paper presents a detailed ethnographic account of informal resistance and its ability to limit managerial control in a health maintenance organization undergoing the computerization of its administrative functions. Our study adopts a more problematic approach to understanding routine resistance, tracing its discursive constitution in the workplace. Using the findings of an ethnographic study involving observation and interviews, we show how routine resistance was discursively constituted and how it limited organizational control in interesting and unexpected ways. This discursive constitution was achieved through (a) owning resistance, (b) naming resistance, and (c) designating indirect resistance. The paper also analyzes how these different discursive constructions limited managerial control by affirming autonomous self-identities, renegotiating roles and relationships, and reinterpreting dominant managerial discourses. Finally, broader implications for understanding routine resistance in organizations are drawn.

Across the Red Sea, the Saudis watch Soviet influence increase on the horn of Africa. The Russian presence is felt in South Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And now, across the Persian Gulf, the populous and important nation of Iran, once considered the guardian of the mouth of the Persian Gulf, is in turmoil. Continuing heavy reliance on Middle Eastern oil is extremely dangerous to the security of the United States and its allies in the industrialized Western world.Letter to Shareholders (Amoco, 1978, pp. 4-5) In this paper, we analyze Chief Executive Officers' letters to shareholders in the United States petroleum industry during the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the industry's turbulent relationship with OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). We discuss and deploy the methodology of critical hermeneutics. The "texts" of the CEO letters, when juxtaposed against the "context" of key historical events, suggest that these letters were deployed to produce a certain attitude toward OPEC among their readers that deflected attention from the crisis of legitimacy faced by the oil companies domestically. We suggest that the trope of Orientalism helps us understand what exactly the texts sought to achieve through their pronouncements about OPEC.

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