Self and organization: Knowledge work and fragmentation

Abstract

A normative hurdle needs to be taken of moving beyond claims that relationship(s) of exploitation (neo‐Marxism) and bureaucracy (neo‐Weberian) are determinate, and that there is nothing new under the sun. Descriptive research is needed into what is new in the knowledge work economy/society. New relationships between self and organization demand the rethinking of logocentricism. In knowledge work, management by content mobilizes the self via individualist and creative work. An organizational (epistemic) regime emerges where the claim on the self is total. Ethnographic research has revealed self/organization identification, wherein the identification of the two leads via divergence and conflict to (organizational) fragmentation. Kunda has shown that self/organization identification can endanger the self through burn‐out and an unhealthy fixation on work. Establishes that identification between self and organization can endanger necessary boundary objects threatening requisite meanings and structures.

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