Critical Approaches, prepared by instructor Wanda J. Barreto for Goodwin College

1. Week 4
Chapter 6

2. Objective
By the end of the class you will be able to…
1. Understand the difference between a critical approach
and other approaches so far considered.
2. Appreciate the centrality of power to the critical
approach.
3. Describe how important the feminist and the concertive
control approaches are to organizational communication.

3. So far…
 Organizations as machines
 The needs of employees and their
contributions to organizational functioning
 Organizations as systems or organisms
(biology)
 Organizations as culture (antropology)
 Organizations as sites of domination

4. Critical Approaches
 This approach is influenced by Karl Marx, a
German intellectual and all critical theorists
Believed that critique would reveal
fundamental truths about human social
condition.
See theory as a force that can
emancipate individuals from dominating
organizations.

5. Critical Approaches
Consider how employees resist
organizational dominance.
Encourage organizational
transformation.

6. Critical Approaches
 Critical theorists agree on the following:
Certain societal structures and processes
lead to imbalances of power.
Imbalances of power lead to alienation and
oppression of certain classes and groups.
Role of critical theorists and students of
critical theories is to explore and uncover
imbalances and bring them to attention of
oppressed.

7. Key Concepts
 Power
 Power relationships
 Emancipation
 Resistance

8. The Pervasiveness
of Power
 The concept of power is typically related
with control and domination.
 Basically, individuals are always conscious
of who has the power and who has control
over whom.

9. The Pervasiveness
of Power
Traditional approach
- Considers power with control over
resources or with hierarchical status
Symbological approach
- Views power as a product of
communicative interactions and
relationships

10. The Pervasiveness
of Power
Radical-critical approach
- Concern with the deep structures that
produce and reproduce relationships in
organizational life.
- There are differences in what is presented
to the outside world and what truly works
inside an organization.
Sources of power
- Table 6.1 (p. 103)

11. 2 Important Sources of
Power
 Control of modes and means of production
 Control of discourse

12. Control of Modes and
Means of Production
 Modes of production
Refers to the economic conditions that
underlie the production process
(capitalism, owners have control in the
workplace)
 Means of production
Actual work processes – how products
are made and services rendered

13. Modes of Production
 According to Marx, the value of labor was
hidden from workers and capitalists
Capitalists – profit comes from
investments in the plant and equipment
and according to the market conditions.
Workers – receive a wage; can not
determine the value of the product result
of his labor

14. Modes of Production
 The hidden imbalances create conflict
between workers and owners.

15. Means of Production
 The division of labor,
 the treatment of labor as a commodity,
 and the separation of the individual from
the product, produced…

16. Means of Production
 A fragmented, lost person, estranged
from his/her own production activities.

17. Means of Production
 As the workplace became more technologically
sophisticated, workers became deskilled and
separated from their work.

18. Means of Production
 Owners and managers
Take control over workplace processes
and technologies.
Replaced workers with robots.
Constantly monitor the behavior of
workers.

19. Results?
 Oppressed Workforce

20. Control of Discourse
 In organizations, who speaks, to whom,
when and what is a reflection of who is in
control and who has power.
 Power relationships are produced and
reproduced through organizational
discourse.
 Organizational reality socially constructed
through communicative interaction.

21. Control of Discourse
 Organization reality is
socially constructed
through
communicative
interaction.
 The use of specific
phrases can be seen as
reinforcing dominant
power structures
- real work
Students jobs

22. Control of Discourse
 Organizational
discourse can be seen
in stories that support
the dominant
organizational coalition.
 Stories serve to
highlight the
importance of
bureaucratic rules and
regulations.

23. Control of Discourse
 Organizational discourse can be seen:
Decision premises - serve as source of
unobtrusive control (bottom-line).
Discursive constructions in regulatory
manuals can influence industries (OSHA
standards support the power of
management).
- accident vs. injury

24. Ideology and Hegemony
 Ideology
Refers to the taken-for-granted
assumptions about reality that influence
perception of situations and events
Shapes our understanding about what
exists, what is good, and what is
possible

25. Ideology and Hegemony
 Ideology
Involves assumptions that are rarely
questioned: hierarchy is necessary &
useful
Can influence our behaviors
Tied to systems of power and
domination

26. Ideology and Hegemony
 Hegemony
Process in which dominant group leads
another group to accept subordination as
the norm
- Workers support hierarchical structures
because that’s the right way to go
- Shapes ideology to achieve acceptance
and participation of the subordinated
group in the control process

27. Ideology and Hegemony
 Hegemony
Manufactured
consent – employees
adopt and reinforce
hierarchical power
structures.
The controlled group
accept and
participate in the
controlling process

28. Emancipation
 Is the goal of the critical model
 Liberation of people from unnecessarily
restrictive traditions, ideologies, assumptions,
power relations, identity formations that
inhibit or distort opportunities for
Autonomy
Clarification of genuine needs and wants
Greater and lasting satisfaction

29. Emancipation
 Similar to role of psychoanalyst
Reveal social structures and processes
that led to ideological hegemony
Find ways people can participate in free
and open communication about power
and control

30. Emancipation
 Giddens‘dialectic of control
Remember how the IBM story helped to
support managerial interests?
- If workers become aware of this
process, they can create their own
stories to balance the power in
organizations

31. Resistance
 Considers how workers can use
counterpressure on exercise of power and
control.
 Is sometimes seen in collective and
organized processes such as employee
unions, strikes, boycotts and social
movements

32. Resistance
 The Norma Rae movie deals with
resistance at a textile mill. She struggles
to start a union in her plant. Along the way
she battles management and her co-
workers.
http://www.videodetective.com/movie_traile

33. Critical Approaches in
Communications
 Some organizations now use team based
structures, instead of strict layered
hierarchy, to distribute participation and
accountability, and more democratic
organization form.
Concertive Control
Feminist Theory

34. Theory of
Concertive Control
 Seeks to explain how power relationships
can be transformed in an era of team-
based and alternative form of organizing.
 3 Concepts help to understand this theory
Control
Identification
Discipline

35. Control
 Simple Control
Involves the direct and authoritarian
exertion of control in the workplace,
often as a result of titles.
 Technological Control
Involves control exerted through
technological workplace processes such
as assembly lines, email surveillance or
computer programs.

36. Control
 Bureaucratic Control
Based on the power of hierarchical
structure and other rational-legal rules
that emerged from bureaucratic
structures as discussed in Chapter 2.

37. Theory of
Concertive Control
 Theorists argue that in team-based
organizations a new type of control called
Concertive Control has emerged.
 Control in organizations shifted from
management to workers, to collaborate to
create rules and norms to govern each
others behavior.

38. Identification
 Perception of oneness with a collective.
 Individual defines self in terms of collective
in which he or she is a member.
 In other words, when you identify with a
group, you take on the concern of the
group or the organization and accept those
concert as your own.

39. Identification
 In a concertive control system and
individual identifies with the team or group
he or she is part of and will act according
to the collective values even in the
absence of other forms of control.
 Even when the supervisor is not looking at
you, you will follow the rules and values
system of the group.

40. Identification
 Discipline
Based on the work of Foucault
- Discipline is embedded within “discursive
formations”of social group
- It is through communicative interaction
that work groups develop techniques to
reward and punish behavior that conforms
or deviates from the values which are
important for a work group.
- In a Concertive Control system, values
may emanate from management, but
discipline is meted out by the group.

41. Identification
 If you are late, is not
the supervisor, but it
is other member of
the group who will
penalize or punish
you.
 As a member of a
group now you are
monitored and
disciplined as many
members as there
are in the group.

42. Identification
 Discipline Techniques
Direct criticism
Silence
Social pressure
Host of other interaction strategies

43. Feminist Theories
 Kanter is one of the first researchers to
approach the issues of gender in
organizational settings.
There are gender issues in organizations
Organizations are inherently patriarchal
Women have distinct ways of viewing work
and creating meaning through interaction
Concepts used to understand organizational
life tend to be male-biased
Very structure of language is patriarchal

44. Feminist Theories
 Traditional views of organization highlight the
importance of individualism, cause and effect
thinking, and autonomy.
 In that bureaucratic workplace, the most
valued commodities are the stereotypical
male characteristics of logic, aggressiveness,
and competitiveness.
 In contrast, stereotypical female
characteristics such as emotion, empathy,
intuition, relational development and
cooperation are criticized in organizational
life.

45. Feminist Theories
 Large feminist movement emphasizes
activism, but not all feminist work in
organizational communication as situated
within critical theory
Liberal feminists – believe that the solutions
for women workplace subordination should
come from within the system and that
woman should work to gain the fair share of
control in institutions currently run by men.

46. Feminist Theories
Radical feminists
- Believe that emancipation from women
can only occur through the destruction
of male-dominated institutions or
through the total separation of women
from those institutions.

47. Feminist Theories
Standpoint feminists
- Work to enhance the voices of
marginalized women within
organization systems
Postmodern feminists
- Attempt to deconstruct male-
dominated meaning systems to
highlight women’s perspective

48. Feminist Theories
Pluralist feminism
- Hybrid form of feminism where one is
encourage to be conscious of
organization constraints in seeking
social change, establishing ideal
practices and in embracing an
antibureacratic structure.

49. Now that you have a
background in critical
theory…

50. Do you really want to
work here?

51. What’s Wrong with That? Would
you love working there?
 The more time you spend in the
workplace, the more time you spend with
Workers
Work groups
Co-workers
 Constantly brainstorming about different
ideas for different aspects of your work

52. Why Leave?
 You are getting all this benefits and services
to add to the organization’s bottom line.
 The idea is motivate you to stay all day and
all night.
 If you stay, you are going to start thinking
different about work and will help the
company meet the goals of making money.
 Your employer is taking control over your life:
SOCIALIZATION