TITLE:
Power and Control in Knowledge-Intensive Firms: Post-Bureaucratic Firms and Enterprise Culture
AUTHORS:
Samuel Osei-Nimo, Imani Silver Kyaruzi
KEYWORDS:
Post-Bureaucratic Firms, Entrepreneurial Culture, Post-Structuralism, Power-Relations, Discourses
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.2 No.10,
October
29,
2015
ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the notions of “entrepreneurialism” and enterprising
culture. In particular, it examines the significance of such discourses on the
contemporary workplace and consequent impact on the individual worker’s
identity and behaviour. Previous studies on Knowledge-Intensive Firms suggest
that organisations are not entirely synonymous with post bureaucratic organisations,
but mainly overlap it. It is revealed that majority of firms rely on “cultural
or professional forms of control”. These forms of control are regarded to have
dependence on an ideology of entrepreneurialism and enterprising culture. Thus,
the issues of power relations and discourses in Knowledge-Intensive firms are
primarily investigated in this study to expose and understand how the drive by organisations for the “enterprising”
individual produces a worker who is self-regulating and
self-disciplined. The paper includes an assessment of discourses from various
organisational actors to shed light on the roles played by “an enterprise” as a
principle of control or government in creating autonomous and productive subjects
in the workplace and wider society.