“I Shot the Sheriff”: Irony, Sarcasm and the Changing Nature of Workplace Resistance

Abstract

The spread of Lean management has fuelled debates over the changing nature of workplace domination. While Lean discourses often espouse a 'human relations' approach, research has suggested the proliferation of coercion systems and questioned whether Lean is instead shorthand for cost-cutting and new forms of domination. The varied interpretations of Lean have explained the heterogeneity of worker responses, including forms of resistance. Our ethnography explores this heterogeneity by examining the implementation of Lean in a printing factory and tracing the emergence of shopfloor opposition. Various tactics were devised by workers, ranging from tangible procedures such as sabotage and working-to-rule to more subtle forms reflecting irony and contempt. We argue that the distinctive manifestations of domination emerging during the Lean programme stimulated particular forms of worker reaction, which are explained through fieldwork illustrations. Overall, we produce a theoretical explanation of domination and resistance that builds upon and extends the extant scholarship.

A Theotókos De Vladimir Na Obra De Marko Ivan Rupnik

“…Isso demonstra a força dos pontos centrais da rede em gerar influência. No entanto, essa influência, como já exposto, depende de uma intermediação legitimadora, que pode ser da ideologia (VALEY, 2008) ou do testemunho de outros membros do grupo (GRANOVETTER, 1983), pois pode gerar resistência se encarada como coerção da liderança pelos adeptos (ALCADIPANI et al, 2018).…”

“…Essa identificação deve ser assegurada por outros laços fortes ou fracos da pessoa, que devem se comportar como uma testemunha a favor do líder. Ainda temos a questão da resistência que pode aparecer no momento da aceitação da influência (Alcadipani et al, 2018), mesmo que mediada (Valey, 2008), por tanto, para que surja esse capital político é necessário a percepção de um verdadeiro pertencimento, que deve ser mediado por outros relacionamentos mais próximos a pessoa que recebe a influência, sendo que a ideologia pode funcionar como essa testemunha de pertencimento e diminuição de resistência.…”

A New Methodology for Supply Chain Management: Discourse Analysis and its Potential for Theoretical Advancement

“…Accordingly, discourse analysis promotes a different meaning—one in which employees are recognized as agents that are able to take action in support of, or in opposition to, lean initiatives. For many employees, lean does not mean efficient production so much as it is “a shorthand for cost‐cutting and new forms of domination” (Alcadipani, Hassard & Islam, , p. 1452). It should not be surprising then when employees try to resist lean initiatives in ways that can range from sabotage and working‐to‐rule to subtle forms of irony and contempt (McCann et al, ; Videla, ; Waring & Bishop, ).…”

Rethinking Resistance as an Act of Improvisation: Lessons from the 1914 Christmas Truce

“…Passive resistance might entail playing dumb or avoiding work (Crowley, 2012; Fleming & Spicer, 2007). Where resistance is more active it might include simulation of productivity (Ybema & Horvers, 2017), working to rule (Alcadipani, Hassard, & Islam, 2018), machine sabotage (Dubois, 1979), gossip (Alfano & Robinson, 2017), irony (Rhodes & Badham, 2018) or criticism of absent superiors (Hodson, 2001; Scott, 1990). Forms of collective resistance, ranging from undercover organized activities, such as publishing newspapers in ghettos or mounting unofficial educational programmes (Martí & Fernández, 2013), through to insurrections, defined as ‘collective, owned and publicly declared forms of resistance that aim to challenge, or unsettle existing social relations, forms of organizing and/or institutions’ (Mumby et al, 2017, p. 1170), are increasingly acknowledged (Courpasson & Martí, 2019).…”