Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Light in the darkness?
T2 - managers in the back office of a Kafkaesque bank
AU - McCabe, Darren
PY - 2014/2
Y1 - 2014/2
N2 - The ‘dark side’ of organizations has been represented in the literature as dysfunctional or abnormal, while more critical scholars regard it a condition of the ‘normal’ way in which organizations operate within a capitalist system. Drawing on the work of Franz Kafka, this paper develops a critique of both approaches.It is argued that we can learn much from Kafka because his representations challenge a top-down view of power and, therefore, suggest that there is light in the darkness. These insights are applied to a case study of a United Kingdom bank, to explore how managers, who are often neglected in critical accounts, are constituted through power relations, and how in the process of enrolling and controlling others, they discipline themselves. In taking this approach, the paper makes four main contributions. First, it elucidates how the ‘dark side’ has become an integral feature of everyday life in a contemporary organization and, second, it indicates limitations to the power that managers are able to exercise. Third, it explores how managers are fabricated as particular types of subject as they endeavour to discipline others, and finally it argues that whole layers of management can be understood as victims of the ‘dark side’.
AB - The ‘dark side’ of organizations has been represented in the literature as dysfunctional or abnormal, while more critical scholars regard it a condition of the ‘normal’ way in which organizations operate within a capitalist system. Drawing on the work of Franz Kafka, this paper develops a critique of both approaches.It is argued that we can learn much from Kafka because his representations challenge a top-down view of power and, therefore, suggest that there is light in the darkness. These insights are applied to a case study of a United Kingdom bank, to explore how managers, who are often neglected in critical accounts, are constituted through power relations, and how in the process of enrolling and controlling others, they discipline themselves. In taking this approach, the paper makes four main contributions. First, it elucidates how the ‘dark side’ has become an integral feature of everyday life in a contemporary organization and, second, it indicates limitations to the power that managers are able to exercise. Third, it explores how managers are fabricated as particular types of subject as they endeavour to discipline others, and finally it argues that whole layers of management can be understood as victims of the ‘dark side’.
KW - bureaucracy
KW - financial services
KW - Kafka
KW - managers
KW - power
KW - resistance
U2 - 10.1177/0170840613511928
DO - 10.1177/0170840613511928
M3 - Journal article
VL - 35
SP - 255
EP - 278
JO - Organization Studies
JF - Organization Studies
SN - 0170-8406
IS - 2
ER -