Accounting and management–labour relations: the politics of production in the ‘factory with a problem’

Ezzamel, Mahmoud; Willmott, Hugh; Worthington, Frank

doi:10.1016/s0361-3682(03)00014-x

Cited by 90 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This has undoubtedly greatly changed views regarding radical organizational restructuring. At a more micro-level, other critical scholars have focused on resistance and examined its various forms and effects on restructuring projects (Ezzamel et al 2001, Ezzamel et al 2004. In particular, Ezzamel et al (2001Ezzamel et al ( , 2004 have explained how workers" resistance to new manufacturing and accounting models stems from fundamental conflicts of interest between managers and employees but is also related to identity-building.…”

Section: Critical Research On Organizational Restructuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At a more micro-level, other critical scholars have focused on resistance and examined its various forms and effects on restructuring projects (Ezzamel et al 2001, Ezzamel et al 2004. In particular, Ezzamel et al (2001Ezzamel et al ( , 2004 have explained how workers" resistance to new manufacturing and accounting models stems from fundamental conflicts of interest between managers and employees but is also related to identity-building. Their analysis provides examples of employee resistance that impeded or at least slowed down the adoption of practices that would have most severely limited their autonomy or challenged their identity as skilful workers.…”

Section: Critical Research On Organizational Restructuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Struggles Over Legitimacy in Global Organizational Restructuring: A Rhetorical Perspective on Legitimation Strategies and Dynamics in a Shutdown Case

Erkama¹,

Vaara

2010

Organization Studies

198

256

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1 1 Both authors have contributed equally. They are listed in alphabetical order as a matter of convenience. We wish to express our gratitude to Volvo"s and Carrus"s managers and personnel for making this study possible. We also want to thank Cynthia Hardy and the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments that have greatly improved the paper. Cooperation with Janne Tienari and Pasi Ahonen has been a major source of inspiration and learning. Finally, we are grateful for David Miller for language revision. 2 AbstractCritical organization scholars have focused increasing attention on industrial and organizational restructurings such as shutdown decisions. However, we know little about the rhetorical strategies used to legitimate or resist plant closures in organizational negotiations. In this paper, we draw from New Rhetoric to analyze rhetorical struggles, strategies and dynamics in unfolding organizational negotiations. We focus on the shutdown of the bus body unit of the Swedish company Volvo in Finland. We distinguish five types of rhetorical legitimation strategies and dynamics. These include the three classical dynamics of logos (rational arguments), pathos (emotional moral arguments), and ethos (authority-based arguments), but also autopoiesis (autopoietic narratives), and cosmos (cosmological constructions). Our analysis adds to the previous studies explaining how organizational restructuring as a phenomenon is legitimated, how this legitimation has changed over time, and how contemporary industrial closures are legitimated in the media. This study also increases our theoretical understanding of the role of rhetoric in legitimation more generally.

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Section: Critical Research On Organizational Restructuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Critical Research On Organizational Restructuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Struggles Over Legitimacy in Global Organizational Restructuring: A Rhetorical Perspective on Legitimation Strategies and Dynamics in a Shutdown Case

Erkama¹,

Vaara

2010

Organization Studies

198

256

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The potential to gain insights from comparing and contrasting the experiences of two similar organizations addressing similar issues concerning MCS facilitated change is illustrated in the studies by Ezzamel, Lilley, and Willmott (2004) and Ezzamel, Willmott, and Worthington (2004). In the former study, MCS were seen as helpful in developing an empowered workforce and relatively harmonious industrial relations, while in contrast, the second study shows how MCS lead to employee hostility and the eventual failure of the MCS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of management control systems in planned organizational change: An analysis of two organizations

Chenhall

Euske

2007

Accounting, Organizations and Society

128

104

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“…Central to this perspective is the view that subjectivity plays an essential but ambiguous role in the dialectic between discourse and power/resistance. Indeed, subjectivity can in turn serve -from an identity perspective -the workers in their resistance (Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington, 2004), or be the very component through which they are subjected and rendered vulnerable to control by others.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Working and Resisting when One’s Workplace is Under Threat of Being Shut Down: A Lacanian Perspective

Vidaillet¹,

Gamot

2015

Organization Studies

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The case presented here shows how a set of Lacanian concepts can be useful for analysing the behaviour of employees' representatives in a factory belonging to a large globalized and financialised corporation and threatened with closure. We identify a central characteristic of this organization (the obliteration of symbolic authority) to identify the psychic processes the employees' representatives go through as a result of this characteristic and the impact in terms of their difficulties in exerting resistance. We rest our analysis on the distinction Lacan makes between utterance and enunciation and make use of the concepts of master signifier, symbolic authority, fantasy and superego. We show that in this case the absence of symbolic authority leads the staff representatives to be taken over by the fantasy of a tyrannical and unbarred Other that has the absolute power to close down the factory at any time, and to feel guilty that they never do enough, a typical sense of guilt resulting from the superego's unfulfillable demands. This theory is also relevant for understanding the paradoxes of resistance: the staff representatives will need to reintroduce a symbolic authority so as to be able to start resisting and no longer be overwhelmed by the fantasy of an unbarred Other. We emphasize the benefits of using a Lacanian approach for understanding how discursive, psychic and emotional processes are joined in the power relations characteristic of a global capitalist corporation, and reflect on the structural conditions in which resistance is possible in contemporary organizations.

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Accounting and management–labour relations: the politics of production in the ‘factory with a problem’

Cited by 90 publications

References 22 publications

Struggles Over Legitimacy in Global Organizational Restructuring: A Rhetorical Perspective on Legitimation Strategies and Dynamics in a Shutdown Case

Struggles Over Legitimacy in Global Organizational Restructuring: A Rhetorical Perspective on Legitimation Strategies and Dynamics in a Shutdown Case

The role of management control systems in planned organizational change: An analysis of two organizations

Working and Resisting when One’s Workplace is Under Threat of Being Shut Down: A Lacanian Perspective

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