Concertive resistance: how overlapping team identifications enable collective organizational resistance*

ABSTRACT

This study describes how overlapping sources of identification allow organizational members to resist managerial influence collectively in the absence of overt talk or leadership communication – labeled here concertive resistance. Concertive resistance is exercised by organizational members according to a set of core group-level values which challenge, invert, or disrupt top-down control. Concertive resistance extends Barker’s [1993. “Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-managing Teams.” Administrative Science Quarterly 38 (3): 408–437] concept of concertive control by explaining how team-level resistance is also attributable to team-level control. Through an ethnography of an American university football team, this study reveals how multiple and overlapping sources of identification produced a team’s spontaneously and collective resistance, without the aid of overt resistance leadership. The essay contributes to the resistance literature by using Unobtrusive Control Theory to explain how group-level resistance is accomplished through control.     

Moral Reasoning in Violent Contexts: Displaced and Non-displaced Colombian Children's Evaluations of Moral Transgressions, Retaliation, and Reconciliation

In order to assess the effects of displacement and exposure to violence on children's moral reasoning, Colombian children exposed to minimal violence (non-displaced or low risk; N  =  99) and to extreme violence (displaced or high risk; N  =  94), evenly divided by gender at 6, 9, and 12 years of age, were interviewed regarding their evaluation of peer-oriented moral transgressions (hitting and not sharing toys). The vast majority of children evaluated moral transgressions as wrong. Group and age differences were revealed, however, regarding provocation and retaliation. Children who were exposed to violence, in contrast to those with minimum exposure, judged it more legitimate to inflict harm or deny resources when provoked and judged it more reasonable to retaliate for reasons of retribution. Surprisingly, and somewhat hopefully, all children viewed reconciliation as feasible. The results are informative regarding theories of morality, culture, and the effects of violence on children's social development.