Rethinking Management and Managerial Work: Capitalism, Control, and Subjectivity

The paper presents an alternative understandingof managerial work based upon a reconstruction of laborprocess theory. Drawing upon contemporary studies ofmanagement practice, the paper explores the relevance of poststructuralism and an attentiveness tosubjectivity to articulate a view of managerial work asthe subject and object of the contradictory organizationand control of capitalist labor processes. This understanding is illustrated by reference toempirical studies of ICI and is supplemented byinterview material drawn from a study of changingmanagement practices in the U.K.