Ilera2013 On the verge of totality- Governmentality and hrm
1. Dr. Oliver Krone MBA & Prof. Dr. Jari Stenvall
On the verge of totality - HRM and
governmentality
ILERA 2013, 19-22nd
of June 2013, Amsterdam
2. Dr. Oliver Krone & Prof. Jari Stenvall
ILERA 2013, On the verge of totality
2
Agenda
∗ Definitions
∗ HRM
∗ Governmentality
∗ What we see
∗ Practices in Organisational reality
∗ The micro-level of operations
∗ Perspectives for innovation?
∗ Uncovering governmentality premises structuring work life
∗ Chances for solidaric collective actions
3. Something to lighten up
Adams, S (1997). Dogbert‘s Top Secret Managment
Handbook.New York:Harper & Collins
4. Definitions
I
HRM
“the management of work and people towards desired ends”
“is a fundamental activity in any organization where human
beings are employed” that “happens in some form or another”
(Boxall, Purcell and Wright 2007).
Governed by business managerial and economical how to
achieve an optimal resource allocation under conditions of
scarcity for goods required to satisfy needs.
5. Definitions
II
Governmentality
Study of how individuals engage in self-regulation across social
contexts
How the conduct of everyday life in the workplace is shaped by
social relations of power (see Holmer, 2008).
Governmentality rests on stable hierarchy and an external
relationship between life and politics. It is not the expression of a
sovereign will
It aims at the administration and regulation of life processes on the
level of populations and individuals as part of this collective
6. What we see?
I
Practices in organisational reality
BPR and the consequent ‘infor-matization’ follow a ‘script’ in which security on the side of
the organisation is achieved by seeking staff that can deal with these shifting work
conditions and work compression,
Employees seek enhancing their own options for job utilization by the organization
Information Systems used by organisations to achieve and maintain a globalisation with a
compression of time and space within and across organisations contributing to a given
process.
IS with infrastructure and software become the technological means to maintain and set-up
organizational production processes (Just-In-Time, Lean Management).
7. What we see?
II
The micro-level of operations
Securitization is identified by employees not reporting heir working times, for feelings of
individual short-comings => individually covering up. Foucault in his lecture described such
behaviour as an internalization of security mechanisms as result of schooling and general
societal disciplinarization.
The individual worker becomes his own object of evaluation that has to render a return on
investment. Employees did not report work issues affecting their relationship with
management. This is regarded as unprofessional work, even if the consequences were
detrimental to the observants’ own interests.
Employees are pressurized working efficient and lean to maintain their job and the
corporation. This causes an increase in organizational tension, and for employees an
increase personal insecurity
Staff in such settings subjected to situations where individually existing short-comings in
knowledge, complemented by highly individualized opaque customer needs become a
measure to control behaviour in corporate favourable ways.
8. Perspectives for innovation
I
Uncovering governmentality premises structuring work life
The “Entrepreneurial Self” plays its central role of being employee of the self, while not allowing the employee to rest.
‘We’ as entrepreneur of ourselves are subjecting ourselves to market fitting behaviour.
The grounds for behaviour are defined in target agreements between employer organisation and myself as entrepreneur
o my self. This means that dissent to work orders is always directed against myself and thus the choice is either to fall out
of the schema of normality, or to play the game and integrate myself into a schema o work in which no true or wrong
exist.
Goal achievement for gratification from employer is an act of courtesy . Planable criteria do not exist that rationally deal
with self given energy resources to achieve these given goals directly. Based on this insecurity of goal achievement the
“entrepreneurial self” takes his shortcomings fo granted, and pays a bonus to his employer HRM under this perspective is
not a neutral, employee friendly role in the organisation.
HRM represents the organisational desire for omnipotence across the employee. HRM has become a “totalitarian” device
that ties the entrepreneurial-self into the organisational design like a component, and rewards benevolent behaviour on
the side of the employee to the organisation.
9. Perspectives for innovation
II
Chances for solidaric collective actions
We need to understanding that neither markets nor organisations serve a purpose on their own.
The question is how to manage skilfully human interactions to prevent Hobbesian state of nature.
Against this background we suggest looking at institutional design with a concern about the purpose of
the organisation or institution at hand.
We agree that human behaviour is subject to deceit, it is subject to cheating. Potentially these patterns
of behaviour occur, because the underlying organisation does not reward sufficiently subjective needs.
We suggest a human centred yardstick for organisational design allowing for solidarity that fosters
social-inclusion. Even under conditions of full market participation humans are not satisfied because
consumption cannot replace joy for satisfaction
