Contesting the Corporation: Struggle, Power and Resistance in Organizations
Cambridge University Press, 7/26/2007
EAN 9780521860864, ISBN10: 0521860865
Hardcover, 236 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
In an age when large corporations dominate the economic and political landscape, it is tempting to think that their power goes largely unchecked. Originally published in 2007, Contesting the Corporation counters this view by showing that today's corporations are driven by political struggle, power plays and attempts to resist control. Building on a wide range of theoretical sources, Fleming and Spicer present an analysis of the different ways in which power operates within the modern workplace. They begin by building a theoretical perspective that synthesizes previous investigations of power and resistance, identifying struggle as a key concept. Each chapter illustrates a different dimension of workplace struggle through an array of original empirical studies relating to sexuality, cynicism, new social movements and new-wave trade unionism. The book concludes by demonstrating that social justice claims underlie even the most innocuous forms of resistance, helping to transform some of the largest modern corporations.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
prisons, playgrounds and parliaments
1. Faces of power in organizations
2. Faces of resistance at work
3. Struggle in organizations
4. Dis-identification and resentment
the case of cynicism
5. De-sexualizing work and the struggle for desire
6. Displacement and struggle
space, life and labour
7. Discursive struggle
the case of globalization in the public sector
8. Struggles for justice
wharfies, queers and capitalists
9. Struggles for common ground in organizations
Conclusion
Notes
References.
Review of the hardback: 'Contesting the Corporation offers a window on the corporate world that is too rarely viewed. Behind those many facades of contemporary corporate life stand real people, sometimes feeling trapped by their roles and the necessities of life, sometimes playing - ironically, cynically, creatively - with the demands that are made, or sometimes just exercising the right to be men and women and voice that which makes them different. In exploring these worlds, the reality of life contained and constrained by the corporation is dissected by the authors in terms of corporate and contested strategies of power, resistance and struggle.' Stewart Clegg, Professor of Organisational and Work Culture, University of Aston Business School