Hegel and Organization Theory

8/11/2019 Hegel and Organization Theory

1/21

Managing Subjectivity and theDialectic of Self-consciousness:Hegel and Organization Theory

Philip Hancock and Melissa TylerGlasgow Caledonian University, Scotland

Abstract. This article presents the work and ideas of the German philo-sopher G.W.F. Hegel as a means of addressing recent debates concerningthe management of employee subjectivity within contemporary workorganizations. Drawing primarily upon his writings on the phenomeno-logical development of self-consciousness and the concept of ethicallife as a state of realized subjectivity, the authors argue that they provide

a meta-theoretical framework within which the processual ontology oforganizational (inter)subjectivity can be both addressed and criticallyappraised. This is then illustrated by a discussion of the role corporateculturalism plays in the mediation of this process, with particular atten-tion being paid to its impact on the embodied dimension of the subject.Key words. culture; dialectics; embodiment; Hegel; subjectivity

Introduction

Related to the emergence of new regimes of international competition,technologies of production and the restructuring of labour markets, themanagement of employee subjectivity has come to be recognized asfundamental to the pursuit of those essentially managerial imperatives offunctional flexibility and the pursuit of cultural homogeneity oftenassociated with so-called flexible or post-Fordist modes of workplaceorganization (Flecker and Hofbauer, 1998). The question of subjectivity

has, consequently, consolidated itself over the last decade or so as a keyproblematic for the critical analysis of contemporary work organizations.

Volume 8(4): 565585Copyright 2001 SAGE

(London, Thousand Oaks, CAand New Delhi)

1350-5084[200111]8:4;565585;020396

articles


2/21

At the heart of this sits a concern with how a sense of self-identity is,and indeed can be, constituted and reconstituted through relations ofpower, knowledge and identity within the organizational environment(Burawoy, 1985; Knights and Willmott, 1989; Gabriel, 1995; Casey,

1996).Notably, much of the work carried in relation to such questions is to be

found within the UK-dominated Labour Process tradition where a num-ber of meta-theoretical disputes have arisen between what is, in essence,an essentialist (modern?) Marxian understanding of species being and aradical post-structuralist (postmodern?) de-centring of the unified subject(see Parker, 1999). The former position views the status of the subject assomething which, while facing an assault by the alienating imperatives ofcapitalist economic and social relations, is essentially stable and self-interested. As such, the primary concern is to establish those conditions

under which the subject is able to assert such self-interests, usually in theform of resistance to managerial initiatives, and therefore to facilitategreater self-understanding among employees to the potential of their ownagency. Alternatively, the latter position tends to place a greater emphasison the analysis and critique of various technologies of power within theworkplace that serve to constitute the subject as an outcome of organiza-tional discourses of instrumentalism and perfomativity. Consequently,while it maintains the critical intent evident within the essentialistposition, it calls into question the possibility that one can ever simplyreveal the authenticsubjectivity of the individual as a means towards an

emancipatory transformation of repressive modes of workplace organ-ization.

While both perspectives are illuminating in their own right, the differ-ing ontological assumptions which underpin them have tended to resultin a state of incommensurability which seems to have hindered thepossibility of any meaningful dialogue between them and, as such,limited the potential for intellectual progress. This article represents analbeit tentative attempt to advocate a third position which may go someway towards transcending this increasingly polarized debate. It does soby addressing the significance of the organizational management of

subjectivity along one possible alternative route, namely that which canbe elicited from the work of G.W.F. Hegel and his philosophical accountof the phenomenological emergence of reflexive self-consciousness. Indoing so, it aims to argue for the relevance of such a theoretical frame-work to a critical understanding of managerial interventions into organ-izationally embedded inter-subjectivity as what we shall term strategicmediations of process; that is, instrumental interventions into what isconsidered to be the dynamic and perpetual constitution of subjectivity.

The article proceeds via a brief review of recent debates on subjectivityas these have taken place within critical analyses of the management of

the subject in work organizations (Thompson and Ackroyd, 1995;Thompson and Findlay, 1996; Willmott, 1990, 1994, 1995; Knights, 1990,

Organization 8(4)Articles

566


3/21

1995, 1997), to an exploration of the central tenets of the Hegeliandialectic of self-consciousness. We then examine briefly the idea ofcorporate culture as a broad illustration of what we term a site ofstrategic mediation, or loci of managerial intervention into the process

of subjectivity, before focusing in more depth on one particular example;namely, the management of human corporeity. That is, we focus onmanagerial interventions into the inter-subjective processes of becominga subject, which are mediated through the materiality of the humanbody. We conclude by emphasizing what we believe to be the possiblevalue of a critical perspective based on a Hegelian phenomenology ofsubjectivity and his derivative conception of ethical life, to contempor-ary debates within organization theory.

The Subject in Organizational AnalysisAs noted in the introduction, the interrelationship between labour andsubjectivity represents a major concern of contemporary organizationtheory. In the UK at least, this concern stems largely from ongoingdebates within labour process theory and a number of responses to theperceived need for it to establish a paradigmatic theory of the subject.While it is not the aim of this article to conduct an extensive review ofthese ongoing debates, a brief and critical summary of the positions heldby the main protagonists is useful in providing a context for the laterconcerns of the paper.

Perhaps the most appropriate starting place is with the work ofThompson (Thompson and Ackroyd, 1995; Thompson and Findlay,1996) and, in particular, his case for a core labour process theory(Thompson, 1989). From this approach, any analysis of the managementof the labour process within work organizations must be embeddedwithin a presuppositional model of hierarchical structures and asym-metric relations of power between labour and capital. However, whileacknowledging that under capitalism the management of workplacerelations requires the mobilization of labour subjectivity, he appears

reluctant to incorporate the question of subjectivity into his model of acore theory. Yet, this is clearly problematic; for while on the one handprocesses of subjective resistance by employees to managerial initiativesare vaunted as integral to the core theory approach (Thompson andAckroyd, 1995), any attempt to theorize the nature or ontology of thissubjectivity is dismissed as a distraction which falls outside the remit ofthis core. The paradox that arises, then, is that, while employee sub-jectivity, grounded in an essentially humanist model, remains a possiblesite of resistance to structural forces, there appears to be no clearexplanation of how or why this should be the case. Yet, even if sub-

jectivity as resistance were to be entertained in this core theory, its rolewould appear to be highly limited. As Knights has noted, reducing the

Managing SubjectivityPhilip Hancock and Melissa Tyler

567


4/21

subjective dimension to an analysis of labour resistance, however valu-able in its own right, has the unintended effect of replacing Bravermansdeterminism with a control-resistance dualism or paradigm (Knights,1990: 305) which itself is highly mechanistic and theoretically unso-

phisticated.It is such a line of critique which has led Knights (1990, 1997; Knights

and Morgan, 1991) to develop an alternative position, drawing on theanti-humanist insights of various post-structuralist theorists such asFoucault and Derrida in an attempt to avoid the dualistic pitfalls ofpolarizing a voluntaristic subject against a determining structure orobject. From this line of thinking, power emerges as the prime mover ofsubjectivity whereby the subject itself becomes little more than a fictionalconstruct, determined yet devoid of substance. However, in his analysis,it is recognized that a conception of the subject as the passive product of

technologies of power is also reductionist (Ezzy, 1997: 428) and, in sodoing, Knights acknowledges the need to develop a conception of sub-jectivity more adequate to an analysis of contemporary work organiza-tions, and beyond the control resistance dualism. He argues that bothphenomenological reflections on the social construction of self andexistential perceptions of the fear or anxiety of social isolation should beinvoked in the development of a theory of subjectivity at work, in so faras both approaches examine the way in which individuals make use ofmaterial and symbolic resources (Knights, 1990: 329) to construct astable sense of subjectivity. However, this appears to be as far as Knights

gets in the terms of this analysis and, as Ezzy (1997) has noted, he doesnot examine the potential application of this theoretical framework to theactual analysis of subjectivity within the contemporary workplace.

A second alternative to the perspective advanced by Thompson is thatbelonging to Willmott (1990, 1994, 1995), who has drawn upon a numberof radical traditions within contemporary social theory in an attempt todevelop a serious project to restore the missing subject to labour processtheory and, more broadly, organizational analysis. Subjectivity has cometo be understood by Willmott, at least in part, as the outcome of theindividualizing discourses embedded within the cultural formations of

capitalist modernity. These discourses offer up a reified process ofidentity formation through the propagation of an instrumental sub-jectivity that is determined by this commodified identity rather thanconstitutive of it. Thus, the link between subjectivity and capitalism ismaintained but on a much wider stage than Thompson seems to allow,with the workplace itself as one site among many where processes ofsubjectivization take place.

Willmott (1994) has taken this idea considerably further, however,most notably in his call for the need to develop a post-humanist model ofthe subject that opposes all processes that constitute the illusion of the

sovereignty of the subject. This is presented as a critical attempt toundermine the existential anxieties upon which forces of domination and


568


5/21

repression thrive. While we acknowledge that this represents animprovement on the analysis offered by Thompson, especially in terms ofits recognition of the ideological nature of the bourgeois model of thesovereign subject, we fear that a post-humanist approach that implicitly

undermines the possibility of human autonomy runs the risk of descend-ing into a nihilistic form of anti-humanism which inevitably denies theemancipatory possibilities Willmott has consistently sought to champion.Alternative attempts by the likes of, say, Grey (1994) and Newton (1996)to theorize the shaping of subjectivity at work, drawing on the ideas ofFoucault and Elias respectively, while interesting, have themselves beenunable to transcend the problems of duality versus the virtual eradicationof the subject that haunts the debate as a whole. As Ezzy has noted, a lessmechanical conception of subjectivity still needs to be elaborated (Ezzy1997: 431), one which, in our opinion, understands subjectivity both as

an outcome of externalized phenomena while, at the same time, continu-ing to posit its faith in the possibility, if not the inevitability, of ahistorical reconciliation of the constitutive subject with itself and theworld.

It seems to us, therefore, that the challenge remains to develop aprocessual as opposed to a mechanical understanding of subjectivity inthe analysis of contemporary work organizations and their managementand, in doing so, to begin to understand contemporary managerialprojects as strategic interventions into the perpetual process of becominga subject at work. It is to this end, that is, grasping the potential

theoretical significance of the dynamism of the dialectical phenomenol-ogy of subjectivity within organizations, that this article turns to Hegelsontology of self-consciousness and a belief that his phenomenologicalaccount of the process of subjectivity potentially offers both a possiblemeans of addressing the theoretical lacuna identified above as well as acritical lens through which to view the management of workplace sub-jectivity.

Hegel and Organization Theory

While it would be a gross exaggeration to suggest that Hegelian philo-sophy has had any great direct impact upon contemporary organizationstudies, its influence is occasionally felt in the pages of related journalsand conference presentations, and perhaps more so by implication thanby explication.1 Willmotts (1990) previously mentioned writings onsubjectivity, for example, proceed from an engagement with the methodo-logical implications of Hegels dialectical approach while eventuallyjettisoning it in favour of Marxs later, more materialist revision. Addi-tionally, Reed (1996) has invoked Hegels cultural historicism to providean explanatory framework for the study of recent shifts in managerial

activity and its analysis (Reed, 1996: 141). That is, managerial discoursesof enterprise, flexibility, quality and human resource management


569


6/21

are posited as exemplifying a shift away from a materialist historicism,whereby organizational evolution is driven by technological develop-ment, to a new regime of historical change premised upon the centralityof the ideological superstructure (Reed, 1996: 143). He concludes that

managerial and organizational theory must become sensitized to this shiftby embracing a reinvigorated sociology of organizational and managerialknowledge which, in his own words, must steer a middle-way analyt-ical course between cultural voluntarism and structural determinism(Reed, 1996: 154). As such, it expresses a common concern with ques-tions of structure and agency as expressed by Willmott (1990) and whichremain central to any understanding of Hegelian philosophy.

In the sections that follow we do not, it must be stressed, seek topresent an exegesis on the Hegelian system in its entirety, nor do weclaim to offer a definitive interpretation of the ideas under consideration.

Furthermore, we do not take Marx as our starting point and seek to workbackwards. While this approach to understanding Hegel may have itsmerits, it also presents great risks of misunderstanding. Marxs inter-pretation of Hegel was itself situated at a specific socio-historical junc-ture, which was expressed clearly in Marxs own political andinterpretative priorities. Rather, it is our aim to utilize specifically ourown understanding of Hegels ontology of the subject; that is, the phe-nomenological process through which subjectivity evolves and to exam-ine managerial interventions into the process of subjectivization,focusing in particular on the management of the body as a contemporary

illustration. Finally, we recognize that, despite recent attempts to counterthe pervasive influence of the ontological and epistemological imper-atives of postmodernism (see for example Reed, 1997, Willmott, 2000) formany, the idea of resurrecting the spirit of German idealist philosophy ina postmodern age is deeply unfashionable. Nevertheless, it is perhaps inthe spirit of the postmodern celebration of pluralism that this particulartradition is offered for open-minded consideration.

Hegel and (Ethical) Subjectivity

Hegels theory of the evolution of human subjectivity or, as he terms it,self-consciousness, can be found in his 1807 treatise The Phenomenologyof Spirit(Hegel, 1977) and, to a lesser extent, in the 1817 Philosophy ofMind(Hegel, 1971). Here, self-consciousness refers, or so it would seemto us, to a full or perfect state of self-reflexive subjectivity; that is, onethat is able to embrace the holistic truth of the totality or interrelatednessof all things within the social universe. As such, it transcends theindividualistic and systematically modernist idea of subjectivity be-queathed by the likes of Kant and firmly views it as something onlyobtainable as an outcome of an evolving unity between the subject and

their social and cultural environment. Central to the possibility of suchan ontology is Hegels assertion that human beings have a particular need


570


7/21

that is definitive of the species; that is, the need to both desire andbedesired. By desire, he refers specifically to the human need to berecognized by other self-conscious subjects as a self-conscious subject inhim/herself. It is the phenomenological process, that is, the process by

which we give meaning to subject/objects in this world as a process ofconstant misrecognition and refinement of understanding, of mutual self-recognition between people and their mutual acknowledgment of eachother as part of the social totality which provides the motor of subjectivedevelopment. Consequently, the subject seeks continually his/her senseof self in an Other, an Other, however, who is posited by the subject asan object of their own phenomenological (mis)recognition. To put thismore simply, we all desire to be recognized, to be valued as autonomoussubjects by others that we deem worthy of making this judgment; that is,other autonomous subjects. Our sense of self-worth is deeply embedded

in the approval of others. However, our understanding of the Other isnever complete or accurate and, as such, neither is our sense of subjectivity.Rather, our understanding and valuation of the Other exists in a state ofhistorical flux, impacted upon by the mediating effect of historicallycontingent modes of economic and socio-cultural organization.

The possibility of autonomy is, therefore, to reiterate the point, arelational and historically contingent inter-subjective condition. Assuch, it is only through such recognition that full self-consciousness isattainable. We can only become fully aware of our realized subjectivitythrough the recognition of the Other, for, when we see and understand

the Other as a self-conscious subject, we lose our sense of individualuniqueness which can only be returned by their recognizing gaze. Itmust, that is, be a mutual and equal exchange of recognition between twoequally self-conscious subjects, who can only achieve such a state ofbeing through partaking in this very process. As such:

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it soexists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged. (Hegel,1977: 111)

Subjectivity is, therefore, not simply given in a singular event, but exists

as a potentiality that may only be achieved through what is a pheno-menological journey of inter-subjective recognition, misrecognition andpotential understanding.

Hegel recognized, however, that such a process is based upon far froma freely given exchange of mutual recognition. Rather, it is one that ischaracterized by what he terms a life and death struggle. This is due tothe fact that in the process of social interaction human consciousness isinitially determined to assert and maintain its own uniqueness in the faceof something that is both at one and the same time its Other and itsSelf. This process is, therefore, one that develops through the inter-

relationship between conscious beings who simultaneously view theOther as both different and same. The consequence of this is a state of


571


8/21

conflict whereby each consciousness seeks to destroy the other so as toassert the sovereignty of their own selfhood (a process perhaps mostcommonly recognized by parents of teenage children struggling to asserttheir own sense of self within the previously peaceful household). Yet,

the point is that this is a conflict doomed to failure as, for each indi-vidual, the truth of their consciousness can only lie in their mutual self-recognition as self-conscious subjects. Both must be accorded the statusof self-consciousness if either is to achieve it.

While the subject is directive in its own evolution it is not, then, anisolated and sovereign being but is, as noted above, dependent upon boththe status of the Other and the wider socio-cultural environment that is,in itself, dialectically dependent on the level of subjective developmentof its members. The condition of self-consciousness is, therefore, forHegel, something that must eventually be achieved at both the (onto-

genetic) level of the individual and the (phylogenetic) social totality, forthe conditions for both are mutually inclusive. This is expressed inHegels historical philosophy by the proposition that the struggle forrecognition becomes institutionalized in social and political structures,as well as expressing itself in the phenomenology of everyday experi-ences. The truly self-conscious subject emerges, therefore, as one thatrecognizes the necessary inter-dependence of self and other, subject andobject and subject and subject. Subjectivity, in Hegelian phenomenology,is, therefore, the embodiment of the material, spiritual and psychologicalreconciliation of duality in all its forms. This is not, then, the indi-

vidualized, bourgeois subject that Willmott (1990) rejects. Rather, it existsas an autonomous subject that, at one and the same time, neither desiresnor needs to stand apart from the social totality. Nor does it seek todominate any aspect of it. As Gadamer observed:

When Hegel says that in reaching self-consciousness we have now enteredthe homeland of truth, he means that truth is no longer like the foreigncountry of otherness into which consciousness seeks to penetrate . . . Now,in contrast, consciousness as self-consciousness is a native of the land oftruth and is at home in it . . . it finds all truth in itself . . . it knows that itembraces the entire profusion of life within itself. (Gadamer, 1971: 59)

Such realized subjectivity is not an essential quality, however. With itsroots in desire, it exists in the realm of a potentiality, the realization ofwhich is dependent wholly upon the historical and socio-cultural condi-tions within which it is embedded. It is this realization that is importantin terms of the possibility for a critical theorization of the condition of thesubject within modernity; for it is the socio-economic demands of mod-ernity which mitigate against this process of mutual self-recognition and,as such, result in the crisis of subjectivity with which so many of theaforementioned authors find themselves struggling. The imperativesassociated with capitalist modernity, such as a rationalized mode of

production and consumption, the collapse of mechanical forms of humansolidarity associated with urbanization and the pervasive influence of the


572


9/21

culture industry are all implicated in the constitution of human beings aslittle more than the carriers of legal rational obligations and as thesubject/objects of commodification. This in turn has increasingly resultedin the closure of the available space for mutual self-recognition resulting,

in turn, in a frequent process of misrecognition. By this we mean, ratherthan the mutual self-recognition between evolving subjectivities, whathas come to dominate the modern experience is the misrecognition ofobjectified carriers of instrumentalized social relations. Such misrecogni-tion is the outcome of alienated inter-subjective relations which areintrinsic to the development of modernity and which must be trans-cended for the dialectical development of the subject and, following thisline of reasoning, of history, to continue. Hegelian critical theory repre-sents, therefore, a form of critical humanism in which the arresting of theprocess of human subjectivity by objective forces, which are themselves

misrecognized in their reified form, is viewed as the arresting of histor-ical development in toto.

Yet, despite what Hegel saw as the difficulties inherent within thestruggle for such self-consciousness, the ultimate realization of thispotentiality, he believed, would result in what he understood as thehuman condition of ethical life (Hegel, 1967). Employed in what isgenerally considered to be his most important political work, Philosophyof Right (1821), ethical life refers to the ideal set of social relations inwhich the conditions for mutual self-recognition have become a realityand misrecognition is expunged. This is exemplified (somewhat con-tentiously) for Hegel in the form of the nation-state in which laws andinstitutions are the transparent expression of the freedom of its subjects,where each is free in their mutual duty to respect the freedom of theother. As such, the state is the manifestation of the general will wherebyeach individual concurs with shared cultural values and institutionalpractices, not as subjects of authority but as free, rational agents. Ethicallife, therefore, constitutes a way of life within which individuals arebound together as a community through their shared commitment to eachother. For Hegel, this had, in past history, been illustrated best by the

commitment of the Ancient Greeks to the idea of the community as theplace in which the individual was free to develop and flourish; a freedomwhich was premised upon the principle of universal reason and itsreconciliation with human need. Ethical life represents, therefore, a finalreconciliation of the universal and the particular, of subject and objectand, indeed, of subjects themselves. Hegel himself perhaps best sums upthe inescapable romanticism of this idea when he reflects on such afuture state of affairs:

. . . the eye of the spirit [reason] and the loving eye coincide: according tonature man sees the flesh of his flesh in woman, according to ethical life he

sees the spirit of his spirit in the ethical being and through the same. (Citedin Rose, 1981: 69)


573


10/21

Yet, what has such romantic utopian imagery to do with the domainof the contemporary work organization and what, if anything, can ittell us about managerial intervention into the structuring of workplacesubjectivity?

Organization, Subjectivity and Ethical Life

As noted in the opening of this article, the question of how variousmodes of employee subjectivity are constituted in and through a range ofstrategies of organizational governance appears to represent a majorconcern for many contemporary organization theorists. Townley (1994)for example has argued that human resource management (HRM) com-prises a constellation of techniques, particularly staff appraisal systems,which are primarily designed to manifest a form of employee subjectivity

that identifies with the aims and aspirations of the employing organiza-tion. Casey (1995), in a similar vein, discusses the emergence in oneorganization of a programme of acculturation, which she claims isdesigned to result in a corporate colonization of the self (Casey, 1995:138, original emphasis). Not that such processes or concerns are partic-ularly new or novel. Taska (1992), for example, has argued that it was theintent of Taylor not simply to reduce people to unthinking productiveautomatons, but to instil into employees new subjectively held valuesthat led them to identify with the overall aim of the company and all itsmembers. Both human relations and Marxist writings in the 1920s and

1930s were also acutely aware of the central role human subjectivity wasto play in the expansion of mid-20th-century industrial capitalism.Gramsci, for example, referred to the productive techniques and asso-ciated regimes of social engineering associated with the work of HenryFord as setting out to establish a new kind of worker (Gramsci, 1971:297), while Lukacs saw the emergence of psychological modes ofemployee assessment and human relations strategies during the 1920s asrepresenting an attempt to ensure the rational mechanisms of Taylorismand Fordism were extended right into the workers soul (Lukacs, 1971:88). In all these accounts, however, what is implicit, if not explicit, is the

idea that the successful management of contemporary work organizationsis, in large part, dependent upon the structuring not only of the sub-jectivity of individual employees, but also of the inter-subjective relationsbetween employees, both managerial and non-managerial.

Organizing Inter-subjectivity

The significance of inter-subjectivity within the work organization, is, wewould suggest, inexorably linked with a range of developments withincontemporary accounts of management strategy and organization theory.Perhaps the most obvious of these is the emphasis placed upon the

management of organizational culture and its transmutation into the ideaof corporate culture. That is, the idea that cultural variables can be


574


11/21

consciously and purposefully manipulated so as to establish an organiza-tional environment conducive to the maximization of levels of employeeoutput while, at the same time, minimizing levels of what is viewed asdysfunctional employee resistance as the outcome of what, in most basic

terms, can be described as subjective alienation. Yet, on examination, it isclear that there is no single consensus on the most appropriate means bywhich such strategies should be pursued. One common approach is toutilize corporate cultural strategies in an effort to colonize the process ofinter-subjectivity through stressing the value of individual autonomy.This approach is most clearly visible in the popularist writings of thelikes of Peters and Waterman (1982) who stress the utility of encouraginga greater (albeit illusory) sense of individuality and autonomy amongorganizational employees. This approach is often materialized in the useof highly individualizing reward strategies such as performance-related

pay schemes and the use of performance appraisals to emphasize theunique contribution each individual is able to make to the successfuloperation of the organization. Such strategies, however, from the per-spective employed here remain flawed, as is so amply illustrated in theperceived failure of the Taylorist project, in that, while emphasizing thevalue of individual autonomy, they inevitably result in a hypertrophy ofthe inner life of the subject which eventually mitigates against theirability to engage in the kinds of social cooperation which remains centralto any successful organizational project.

However, a second strand of thought has not only recognized this

potential deficiency within this variant of corporate culturalism, but hasalso attempted to address it at its very roots. This approach, with itshuman relations foundations clear for all to see, views the nurturing ofinter-subjective relations as an essential prerequisite for the efficient andeffective management of an organizations cultural lifeworld. Here, ideasof mutuality and organizational community take centre stage as exempli-fied in Ouchis (1981) model of the clan organization or in the all toocommon language of the corporate mission statements and documentsdeclaring shared values, which, as the likes of Swales and Rogers (1995)have noted, attempt to promote identification among all members of the

organization. While such developments and the techniques deployed topromote them have already come under much critical scrutiny (seeWillmott, 1993; Parker, 1997; Hancock, 1997), what we are concernedwith here is the idea that such cultural interventions into what one canterm the everyday lifeworlds of organizations represent further strategiesfor the (mis)management of this phenomenological process throughwhich subjective self-consciousness may develop.

That is, those concerned with management of corporate culture act soas to impose various strategically driven modes of mediation upon thedialectical interrelationship between self and Other(s) outlined above.

They do this in such a way as to attempt to promote limited levels ofmutual self-recognition, as exemplified in the discourses of corporate


575


12/21

community, so as to mitigate against the worst excesses of individualalienation; while, at one and the same time, ensuring that the self-reflexivity which is associated with emerging self-consciousness is keptat a manageable and therefore productive level. In this sense, they rely

upon a contrived process of misrecognition and in doing so ensure thatthe emergence of the subject through time and space is reconfigured so asto result in a sense of self-consciousness, the attainment of which appearsonly possible through an institutionally mediated relationship. That is,one whose phenomenology is arrested by meanings which are imposedrather than mutually arrived at.2 The result can, therefore, be seen as areified form of ethical life whereby the identity of self and Other isempirically evident, yet the mechanisms by which it has come intobeing are not transparent but are the outcome of the strategic planning ofindividuals (managers, planners and so forth) who exercise power and

authority that lie outside of the ethical sphere they themselves havesought to constitute. As a consequence, we would argue, the critique ofcorporate culturalism becomes inescapably intertwined with a criticalhumanist understanding of modernity, one seeking to explore the restric-tions that our age places upon the emergence of humanity through thecolonization of the process of inter-subjectivity.

In the following section, we try to develop this idea in an attempt tocontribute to the critical theorization of the organizational managementof subjectivity, understood as a series of mediation processes designed toguide and shape the character of inter-subjective relations. We do so with

particular reference to the management of embodiment; that is, theprocess of becoming a subject in and through the body.

The Management of Human Corporeality

We should perhaps note here that our choice of the body as a particularsite of strategic mediation is driven by three main considerations. First,the rationalization and regulation of bodies, especially womens bodies,have clearly been fundamental to both the development of humancivilization in general (Elias, 1991; Turner, 1992; Shilling, 1993) and the

development of industrial capitalism and the organizational processwhich has been so central to it (Hancock and Tyler, 2000a). As Casey(1995: 194) notes, the instrumental control of the body can be seen as afundamental part of the integration of human being and human doing forproduction, and a . . . triumph for instrumental rationality. The rational-ization of labour has been achieved, at least in part, through practices ofdiscipline, diet, training and body regulation (Foucault, 1979; Mauss,1934/1973) which focus on the mutual shaping of the body and sub-jectivity, or the process embodiment. This, albeit sometimes implicit,concern with the body can be observed in the work of management

theorists from a range of traditions who have documented ways in whichthe performance of the human subject might be increased through a focus


576


13/21

on the body, using for example organizational structures (Gilbreth, 1911),ergonomic adjustment (Taylor, 1911) or cultural manipulation and emo-tional control (Mayo, 1933; Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939). Each ofthese approaches shared in common a concern with the reproduction and

regulation of the human body as an instrument of work. More recently,radical organizational theorists have explored how organizational formsand practices have appropriated and diminished the body (Townley,1993; Barry and Hazen, 1996), with a similar critique emerging fromrecent feminist analyses which have focused on gender differences in therole and management of the body at work (Cockburn, 1991; Acker, 1990,1992). In short, that human bodies have to be trained, manipulated,cajoled, coaxed, organized and in general disciplined (Turner, 1992: 15)has emerged as an issue of analytical concern to organization theorists.However, much of this emergent analysis remains firmly embedded

within the idea that the body exists as a pre-social (see Shilling, 1997) orpre-organizational given. The mutual shaping of the body and sub-jectivity, central to the phenomenological tradition, has yet to emerge as amajor concern for critical organizational analysis. Second, research car-ried out by the authors (Hancock and Tyler, 2000b; Tyler and Hancock,2001) has indicated the particular significance of the management of theaesthetic dimension of the body as a medium through which employee(inter-)subjectivity is constituted as congruent with organizational goalsand imperatives. Finally, within Hegels own writings, there is a clear andaccessible understanding of the importance of the body as the primarymedium through which inter-subjective recognition occurs. It is with thisunderstanding in mind that this final section explores one avenue bywhich management is able to intervene in the perpetual process ofsubjectivization, either arresting it or diverting it into instrumentallydetermined forms; namely, the management of the body.

Hegel, Subjectivity and the Body

Hegels account of the relationship between subjectivity and humancorporeity is developed most clearly in Philosophy of Mind (1971:

1407). Here, the body is portrayed as significant to subjectivity in twoways. First, the body is the most basic and immediate sign of humanconsciousness, operating as the medium of inter-subjectivity throughwhich the dialectic of self-consciousness proceeds. In other words, whenhuman beings interact, and construct their sense of identity in relation toeach other, they do so in and through their bodies. Within the dialectic ofself-consciousness the body acts not merely as a vessel, however. Aprecondition of inter-subjective recognition is the reshaping of our per-ception of embodiment so that the physical differences between self andother are transcended. In essence, therefore, the body as the immediate

sign of the self must be manipulated and managed so that it becomes asignifier of the subjective I:


577


14/21

Body is the middle term by which I come together with the external worldas such. Consequently, if I want to realize my aims, I must make my bodycapable of carrying over this subjectivity into the external world. (Hegel,1971: 146)

Thus, the body must be shaped as an external expression of the level ofsubjective development achieved. This expression does not, however,reflect simply the state of individual development. As the point wasmade earlier, the state of subjective self-development is inexorably inter-twined with the social development of human culture. Therefore, it alsoexpresses symbolically the shared values of the community and, as such,serves as a measure of the ethical nature of that community. In represent-ing these shared values, the body becomes more than itself it takes on asignificance that is greater than its own materiality and the immediacy ofits own embodiment. In this respect, for the individual body to reflect theideal condition of ethical life it must transcend the empirical representa-tion of its own individuality. The body becomes the material signifier ofthe final and ideal reconciliation of self and other.

Corporate Culture and the Body

With this phenomenological understanding of embodiment in mind, wecan begin to comprehend the significance of various attempts made toorganize workers bodies as part of a range of managerial interventionsinto the inter-subjective dimension of work. That is, the organizational

bodies of employees may be understood as constituting, at least poten-tially, material signifiers of the organization by which they are employedand which, in turn, can redefine the state of self-consciousness that ispresented and, re-presented, to fellow organizational members. Clear andobvious examples of this can be discerned in the increasingly importantidea of organizational dress codes. While smartness or appropriateness ofattire has traditionally been central to workplace life, this aspect ofmanagerial intervention has increased in significance with the emergenceof various models of corporate culturalism. Often, this can be based upona uniformity of dress as exemplified in various workwear strategies

whereby the interaction of organizational bodies can be seen to bemediated by and through the colours and designs of the corporate image(Rolls Royce, 1995: 29) which, in the words of another major automotivemanufacturer, helps to develop a common sense of identity (Toyota,1997: 28). Hence, while the empirical nature of the inter-subjectiveencounter between individuals appears (quite literally) to be shorn ofmanagerial intervention, the subjective appreciation of this processremains within the realms of an externalized cultural environment.Mediation between subjects, therefore, remains alienated, whileundoubtedly providing scope for greater and, therefore, (in the minds of

management) more instrumentally efficient modes of mutual (mis)recog-nition. Such strategies do not necessarily require such direct attention to


578


15/21

the attire or even appearance of the body, however. The locating of bodieswithin time and space can be utilized to similar ends; for example, theuse of open-plan offices, and regulations (or lack of them) regarding timekeeping, clocking on and off and suchlike serve to establish or decon-

struct hierarchies in how subjects recognize each other within the organ-ization. In all such instances, the temporal and spatial regulation ofbodies can be conceptualized as modes of managerial intervention bywhich organizational employees are, at the very least, guided in theirinter-subjective relations and, as such, in how they (mis)recognize them-selves in relation to other(s).

What we are again suggesting, therefore, is that a Hegelian-inspiredapproach enables us to focus critically on the ways in which it is in andthrough the cultivation of organizational bodies, as one particularstrategy, that organizations seek to mediate inter-subjective relations at alllevels through a technique that may be understood as intercorporation.That is, a (strategically managed) process whereby organizational bodiesare structured to interact and recognize each other as embodying thesame organization and thus come to assume a collective, corporate(corporeal) identity.

From this critical perspective, we would suggest that the embodiedprocess of mutual inter-subjective recognition envisaged by Hegel isreversed, or at least arrested, in that, rather than the state of self-consciousness or subjectivity determining the presentation of the embod-

ied self, it is mediated by an instrumentally imposed state of embodimentwhich constitutes the subject of mutual recognition. This mutually self-recognizing subject no longer encounters other emerging subjects but, inthis example at least, misrecognizes subjects which project a state ofembodiment which has already been colonized. Employee subjectivity is,therefore, neither repressed nor constituted as such, but is directed, andin effect arrested, by the denial of the opportunity for free and consensualengagement with other self-determining subjectivities, in this instancedue to the colonization of the body by management discourses andpractices. At worst, this results in a homogenized state which seeks to

deny the difference between subjects, the very motor of inter-subjectiveexchange and development, as exemplified in the idea of the manage-ment of difference. Of course, it is rare that such closure to difference isever total. As suggested above, the submersion of difference wouldundoubtedly be seen as dysfunctional from an organizational perspec-tive, denying as it would the potential for creativity and dynamismthrough employee relations. However, its management does, we wouldargue, inevitably stagnate the process, failing to recognize, as it does, therequirement of transparency of process and the need for the mutualfreedom of the individual to desire and be desired if the potential for full

mutual recognition, and therefore a realized condition of subjectivity, isto be pursued.


579


16/21

Towards a Conclusion

Within this article, we have attempted to outline what we see as the keycomponents of the Hegelian model of subjectivity as process, and haveattempted to apply this to the development of a critical understanding ofthe management of subjectivity within work organizations. At its heart isthe argument that subjectivity, as the outcome of inter-subjectivity, whileremaining a fragile quality, is neither a passive reflection of socialstructures or discourses of power/knowledge, nor an autonomous crea-tion that transcends its external environment. On the contrary, sub-jectivity can be understood as the outcome of a process of mediationbetween various forces including, for instance, pre-existing culturaldiscourses, the structuring effect of a persons social location, and theindividuals creative use of these resources (Ezzy, 1997: 440) into which

contemporary managerial projects intervene strategically, focusing onvarious sites of mediation such as corporeity.It would seem to us, then, that the Hegelian dialectic of inter-

subjectivity and its attempted mediation (management) might provide auseful framework for analysing the logic of contemporary managerialprojects within the work organization. That is, we have suggested thatHegels phenomenological conception of subjectivity as developedthrough a phenomenologically driven dialectic of self-consciousness, andin particular his account of the significance of corporeity within thisdialectic, provides the potential for a non-reductionist, meta-theoretical

perspective from which to examine the management of the process ofsubjectivity within contemporary work organizations. This is reflected inthe proposition that what we are witnessing in contemporary managerialstrategies associated most notably with corporate culturalism can, poten-tially, be understood as an organizational attempt to realize a Hegelianvision of ethical life within the domain of the organization through themediation of the mutual self-recognition of employees. Yet, insofar as thismerely serves to perpetuate a state of misrecognition through the partialcolonization of the subject by instrumentalist discourses of performativ-ity and managerialism, such an undertaking is viewed as essentially

repressive. As such, whilst we recognize that this ethical project withincontemporary managerialism coincides with a traditionally conservativeHegelian philosophy in which the goal of history becomes the final unitywithin Hegels ethical state, we also believe in the possibility of anequally critical perspective on this ethical project as it is articulated andembodied within the management of organizations

This more critical perspective is based on a recognition of the central-ity of the necessity of process as the ontological principle upon whichreflexively aware self-consciousness may be achieved. This phenomeno-logical, processual conceptualization of the subject is neither imper-

meable nor is it decentred to the point of being so overwhelmed byorganizational discourses that it is incapable of critical reflection. Yet, it


580


17/21

is this process of subjectivity, dependent upon free and unfettered inter-subjectivity, which modes of organizing principled upon the imperativesof the organization of work seek to distort or colonize. That is, they haveincreasingly come to depend upon the goal of an imposedunity a false

reconciliation of corporate identity through the suppression or com-modification of Otherness and its concomitant regimes of conflictthrough the management of, among other things, an ontology of inter-corporation. Difference is thus conflated into an inauthentic and alien-ated subjectivity. It is one that denies the values that may lead to thepossibility of a genuinely just and therefore ethical community, that is,one that, as Rose (1981: 69) noted:

. . . is not dominated by an imposed unity which makes real relationsinvisible, and which prevents empirical consciousness of the isolatedindividual from coinciding with universal consciousness (everyones con-

sciousness and consciousness of everyone) because so many others and somany aspects of oneself are suppressed . . . [but rather one where] . . . theother is seen as different and as the same as oneself, as spirit not as person,as a living totality not as a formal unity.

The ethical life of the contemporary organization is, therefore, a false one,strewn with the contradictions not only of capitalism but also of modern-ity itself. However, managerial attempts to unify the subject as a corpor-ate subject/object represent both an obstacle to the possibility ofsubjectivity as we understand it here and an opportunity. The opportun-ity lies in the continued attempt to develop a reasoned understanding ofthe processes taking place and the continued power of rational critique toexpose and challenge the irrationality of them. This critical humanistproject, which finds voice not only in Hegel but in the tradition ofHegelian critical theory more generally, does not, therefore, abandon thesubject but stands against attempts to mould and direct the emergence ofhuman subjectivity in the name of narrow instrumentalism. It does not,though, we would stress, offer a particular or crude teleology. There is nosingle path of correct development. What it does do, nevertheless, isallow for the freedom of development, be it within the organization or thewider social sphere, a freedom which is closely associated with thecontinued importance of the faculty of critical rationality and the unfet-tered dialectical process of inter-subjectivity. It is this perspective, whichcan be arrived at through a critical reading of Hegel, which, we suggest,may continue to offer up a radical yet non-essentialist understanding ofthe restrictions contemporary modes of workplace organization placeupon the dialectical process of becoming a subject and, as such, a basisfor further research and critique.

Notes

A version of this paper was originally presented to the 1st International Organiza-tion Conference Modes of Organizing: Power/Knowledge Shifts, April 1997,


581


18/21

University of Warwick, UK. Much of this work has subsequently been developedin Hancock and Tyler (2001).

1 We would like to acknowledge here the contribution of Carr and Zanetti(1999), whose work on the relationship between Hegel and organizationtheory has only come to our attention since this paper was written.

2 One notable exception is Pascales (1990: 161) Managing on the Edge in whichhe outlines, with particular reference to changes in management style at Ford,how resolving the Hegelian dialectic facilitates ones ability to manage effec-tively. He notes how fostering a system of collegiality rather than individu-ality means that contention is channelled to the benefit, rather than thedetriment, of the corporation.

References

Acker, J. (1990) Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,Gender and Society4(2): 13958.

Acker, J. (1992) Gendering Organizational Theory, in A.J. Mills and P. Tancred(eds) Gendering Organizational Analysis, pp. 24860. London: Sage.

Barry, D. and Hazen, M.A. (1996) Do You Take Your Body to Work?, in D. Boje,R. Gephart, Jr and T. Thatchenkey (eds) Postmodern Management and Organ-ization Theory, pp. 14053. London: Sage.

Burawoy, M. (1985) The Politics of Production. London: Verso.Carr, A. and Zanetti, L. (1999) Rethinking the Production of Identity in the

Work Context, paper presented to the 1st International Critical ManagementStudies Conference (July), Manchester.

Casey, C. (1995) Work, Self and Society: After Industrialism. London: Routledge.Casey, C. (1996) Corporate Transformations: Designer Culture, Designer Employ-

ees and Post-occupational Solidarity, Organization 3(3): 31739.Cockburn, C. (1991) In the Way of Women: Mens Resistance to Sex Equality in

Organizations. London: Macmillan.Elias, N. (1991) On Human Beings and Their Emotions, in M. Featherstone,

M. Hepworth and B. Turner (eds) The Body: Social Process and CulturalTheory, pp. 10325. London: Sage.

Ezzy, D. (1997) Subjectivity and the Labour Process: Conceptualising GoodWork, Sociology31(3): 42744.

Flecker, J. and Hofbauer, J. (1998) Capitalising on Subjectivity: The New ModelWorker and the Importance of Being Useful, in P. Thompson and C. Warhurst(eds) Workplaces of the Future, pp. 10413. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmonds-worth: Penguin.

Fukuyama, (1992) The End of History and the Last Man. London HamishHamilton.

Gabriel, Y. (1995) The Unmanaged Organization: Stories, Fantasies and Sub-jectivity, in Organization Studies 16(3): 477501.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1971) Hegels Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. (Trans. byP. Christopher Smith.) London: Yale University Press.

Gilbreth, F.B. (1911) Motion Study: A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of theWorkman. New York: D. Van Nostrand.


582


19/21

Gramsci, A. (1971) Americanism and Fordism, in Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith(trans./eds) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, pp. 27599. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Grey, C. (1994) Career as a Project of the Self and Labour Process Discipline,

Sociology28(2): 47997.Hancock, P. (1997) Citizenship or Vassalage? Organizational Membership in theAge of Unreason, Organization 4(1): 93111.

Hancock, P. and Tyler, M. (2000a) Working Bodies, in P. Hancock, B. Hughes,E. Jagger, K. Paterson, R. Russell, E. Tule-Winton and M. Tyler (eds) The Body,Culture and Society: An Introduction. Open University Press.

Hancock, P. and Tyler, M. (2000b) The Look of Love: Gender, Work and theOrganization of Aesthetics, in J. Hassard, R. Holliday and H. Willmott (eds )Body and Organization. pp 10829. London: Sage.

Hancock, P. and Tyler, M. (2001) Work, Postmodernism and Organization: ACritical Introduction. London: Sage.

Harris, J. Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company. New York:AMACOM.Hegel, G.W.F. (1967) Philosophy of Right. (Trans. by T.M. Knox.) Oxford: Oxford

University Press.Hegel, G.W.F. (1971) Philosophy of Mind. (Trans. by W. Wallace and A.V. Miller.)

Oxford: Clarendon.Hegel, G.W.F. (1977) The Phenomenology of Spirit. (Trans. by A.V. Miller.)

Oxford: Clarendon.Knights, D. (1990) Subjectivity, Power and the Labour Process, in D. Knights and

H. Wilmott (eds) Labour Process Theory, pp. 297335. London: Macmillan.Knights, D. (1995) Hanging out the Dirty Washing: Labour Process Theory in the

Age of Deconstruction, paper presented at the 13th annual InternationalLabour Process Conference (April), Blackpool.

Knights, D. (1997) Organization Theory in the Age of Deconstruction: Dualism,Gender and Postmodernism Revisited, Organization Studies 18(1): 119.

Knights, D. and Morgan, G. (1991) Corporate Strategy, Organizations and Sub-jectivity: A Critique, Organization Studies 12(2): 25173.

Knights, D. and Willmott, H. (1989) Power and Subjectivity at Work: FromDegradation to Subjugation in Social Relations, Sociology23(4): 53558.

Lukacs, G. (1971) History and Class Consciousness. London: Merlin.Mauss, M. (1934/1973) Techniques of the Body, Economy and Society 2(1):

7088.

Mayo, E. (1933) The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization. New York:Macmillan.

Newton, T. (1996) Resocializing the Subject? A Re-reading of Greys Career as aProject of the Self, Sociology30(1): 13744.

Ouchi, W. (1981) Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the JapaneseChallenge. New York: Avon.

Parker, M. (1997) Organizations and Citizenship, Organization 4(1): 7592.Parker, M. (1999) Capitalism, Subjectivity and Ethics: Debating Labour Process

Analysis, Organization Studies 20(1): 2445.Pascale, R.T. (1990) Managing on the Edge: How Successful Companies Use

Conflict to Stay Ahead. London: Penguin.

Peters, T.J. and Waterman, R.H. (1982) In Search of Excellence: Lessons fromAmericas Best Run Companies. New York: Harper Row.


583


20/21

Reed, M. (1996) Rediscovering Hegel: The New Historicism in Organizationand Management Studies,Journal of Management Studies 33(2): 13958.

Reed, M. (1997) In Praise of Duality and Dualism: Rethinking Agency andStructure in Organizational Analysis, Organization Studies 18(1): 214.

Roethlisberger, F.J. and Dickson, W.J. (1939) Management and the Worker.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Rolls Royce (1995) Key Goals 1995 Rolls Royce: A Winning Team. Rolls Royce:

internal publication.Rose, G. (1981) Hegel Contra Sociology. London: Athlone Press.Shilling, C. (1993) The Body and Social Theory. London: Sage.Shilling, C. (1997) The Undersocialized Conception of the Embodied Agent in

Modern Sociology, Sociology31(4): 73754.Swales, J. and Rogers, P. (1995) Discourse and the Projection of Corporate

Culture: The Mission Statement, Discourse and Society6(2): 22342.Taska, L. (1992) Scientific Management: Technique or Cultural Ideology?Journal

of Industrial Relations 34(3): 36597.Taylor, F.W. (1911) Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper &Row.

Thompson, P. (1989) The Nature of Work. (2nd edn) London: Macmillan.Thompson, P. and Ackroyd, S. (1995) All Quiet on the Workplace Front? A

Critique of Recent Trends in British Industrial Sociology, Sociology 29(4):61533.

Thompson, P. and Findlay, P. (1996) The Mystery of the Missing Subject, paperpresented at the 14th annual International Labour Process conference (April),Aston, Birmingham.

Toyota (1997) Members Handbook. Toyota Management (UK) Ltd: internal pub-

lication.Townley, B. (1993) Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and its Relevance for Human

Resource Management, Academy of Management Review18(3): 51845.Townley, B. (1994) Reframing Human Resource Management: Power, Ethics and

the Subject at Work. London: Sage.Turner, B. (1992) Regulating Bodies. London: Routledge.Tyler, M. and Hancock, P. (2001) Flight Attendants and the Management of

Gendered Organizational Bodies, in K. Backett-Milburn and L. McKie (eds)Constructing Gendered Bodies, pp. 2538. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Willmott, H. (1990) Subjectivity and the Dialectics of Praxis: Opening up theCore of Labour Process Analysis, in D. Knights and H. Willmott (eds) Labour

Process Theory, pp. 336 78. London: Macmillan.Willmott, H. (1993) Strength is Ignorance; Slavery is Freedom: Managing Culture

in Modern Organizations,Journal of Management Studies 30(4): 51552.Willmott, H. (1994) Theorising Human Agency, Responding to the Crisis of

(Post)Modernity, in M. Parker and J. Hassard (eds) Towards a New Theory ofOrganisations, pp. 87130. London: Routledge.

Willmott, H. (1995) From Bravermania to Schizophrenia: The Diseased Condi-tion of Subjectivity in Labour Process Theory, paper presented at 13th annualInternational Labour Process Conference (April), Blackpool.

Willmott, H. (1997) Management and Organization Studies as Science?, Organ-ization 4(3): 30944.

Willmott, R. (2000) The Place of Culture in Organization Theory: Introducing theMorphogenetic Approach, Organization 7(1): 95128.


584


21/21

Philip Hancock is Lecturer in Sociology and Philosophy at Glasgow Caledonian Uni-versity. He has authored and co-authored a number of journal articles, bookchapters and books around subjects such as organizational citizenship, motiva-tion and the body and organizational theory. His more recent works include: The

Body, Culture and Society: An Introduction (2000, co-edited) and Work,Postmodernism and Organization: A Critical Introduction (2001, co-authored).Currently, he is undertaking research into organizational aesthetics and is work-ing on a forthcoming co-edited collection on the subject entitled Art andAesthetics at Work. Address: School of Social Sciences, Glasgow CaledonianUniversity, City Campus, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA, Scotland. [email:[email protected]]

Melissa Tyler is Lecturer in Sociology at Glasgow Caledonian University. She haspublished in various journals, co-authored books and edited collections ongender, aesthetics, organization and the body. Her current research focuses on themanagement of sexuality in everyday life. Recent publications include The Body,

Culture and Society: An Introduction (2000, co-edited) and Work, Postmodernismand Organization: A Critical Introduction (2001, co-authored). Address: Schoolof Social Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, City Campus, CowcaddensRoad, Glasgow, G4 0BA, Scotland. [email: [email protected]]


585

Hegel and Organization Theory

Documents

Transcript of Hegel and Organization Theory