The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Cages in tandem: Management control, social identity, and identification in a knowledge-intensive firm

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

Developments in organization studies downplay the role of bureaucracy in favour of more flexible arrangements and forms of organizational control, including socio-ideological control. Corporate culture and regulated social identities are assumed to provide means for the integration and orchestration of work. Knowledge-intensive firms, which typically draw heavily upon socio-ideological modes of control, are often singled out as organizational forms that use social identity and the corporatization of the self as a mode for managerial control. In this article we explore and discuss social identity and identification in a large IT/management consultancy firm with a strong presence of socio-ideological or normative control, but also with strong bureaucratic features. Structural forms of control-formal HRM procedures and performance pressures are considered in relation to socio-ideological control. We identify organizational and individual consequences of identification in a context of social, structural, and cultural 'closures' and contradictions, including the tendency to create an 'iron cage of subjectivity'.

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

149-175

Publication/Series

Organization

Volume

11

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1350-5084