Performing and agential selves: employees as targets of control, and how we, as academics, theorise about them

Authors

Karin H. Garrety, University of WollongongFollow
Simon Down, University of Newcastle

RIS ID

16037

Publication Details

Garrety, K. H. & Down, S. (2006). Performing and agential selves: employees as targets of control, and how we, as academics, theorise about them. APROS 11: Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation Studies 11th International Colloquium (pp. 107-116). Melbourne: RMIT Publishing.

Abstract

Critical management scholars have noted how contemporary management practices encourage and sometimes require workers to adopt multiple identities, and that cynicism, irony and resistance are often manifested in those identities. In this paper, we explore some attributes of modern selfhood that make these positions possible. We concentrate on two related aspects: (1) the capacity of people to reflect on, and manipulate, the selves that they present to the world, and (2) different forms of agency that actors can effect. We argue that closer attention to these attributes can sharpen our analyses of organisational control and its impacts on the self.

Link to publisher version (URL)

Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organisation Studies International Colloquium