‘Down with Big Brother!’ The End of ‘Corporate Culturalism’?

Contextualizing the Rise of Corporate Culturalism

It is important for our rereading of Willmott's article to place it in both a historical and a scholarly context. That 20 years ago both academic and practitioner literature was obsessed with culture is no exaggeration. While popular management writers were praising the benefits of transforming the company into a ‘family’ or ‘clan’, academics were also exploring the nature of business cultures. Some were prescriptive in their studies (such as Schein's (1985) influential schema) while others aimed to be more analytical and even anthropological in their investigations of how values affect work (e.g., Smircich, 1983).

As Parker (2000) rightly observes, it is difficult to say whether there was anything overwhelmingly new in corporate culturalism as opposed to earlier attempts to normatively align the psychology of the workforce with the principles of economic rationality. We can see similar efforts to emotionalize the work ethic long before Peters and Waterman arrived on the scene (e.g., the human and neo-human relations movement). According to Barley and Kunda (1992), the rise of corporate culturalism in the USA was the latest surge in ‘normative controls’ that follow broader macro-economic cycles of expansion and contraction. Ramsay (1977) noted similar cycles of control and commitment in the UK, showing that corporations become interested in ‘soft modes’ of management on a periodical basis. And the historical analysis of Bendix (1956) reveals that managerialism has always had an ideological imperative, developing systems of legitimacy that might convince workers to accept their subordinate status.

But for the critics of corporate culturalism, including Willmott, there is something significantly different happening here. As opposed to the human and neo-human relations movement that aimed to have employees discover fulfilment through task management, corporate culturalism is more holistic. It seeks to foster an all-encompassing environment in which our very personhood becomes a loyal reflection of the company. There is something monolithic, totalizing and singular about this method of management, transforming the firm into what other commentators might term a ‘greedy institution’ (Coser, 1974) or ‘total institution’ (Goffman, 1961). As Willmott similarly argues, ‘what is new about corporate culturalism is the systematizing and legitimizing of a mode of control that purposefully seeks to shape and regulate the practical consciousness . . . of employees’ (p. 523, emphasis in original).

Critical Management Studies

This criticism was fairly typical of the way corporate culturalism was received in academic circles by the early 1990s, especially in the growing field of Critical Management Studies (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992b). But corporate culturalism had caught the eye of sociologists earlier. In Edwards' (1979) detailed historical study of ‘regimes of control’ in corporate America, the management of culture was seen as yet another attempt to obfuscate the clash of interests between labour and capital. What Edwards terms the ‘IBM-Family’ approach to business management seeks to wrest loyalty away from unions and reconstitute labour in the image of managerialism itself. Building on Edwards (1979), Barley and Kunda (1992) argue that when this type of control is functioning, workers see little difference between their own wellbeing and that of the enterprise.

It is no coincidence that corporate culturalism came to prominence at the same time a vast recomposition of class relations was taking place under the neo-liberal agenda. Willmott mentions this in passing (p. 519) but it deserves more attention if we are to grasp the political significance of this management tool in its early days. As unions were dismantled and Fordist governance structures rolled back (see Harvey, 2007), corporate culturalism precipitated both an ultra-rationalized ‘economization’ of the employee (we no longer talk about groups, teams or departments, but responsible ‘individuals’) and the simultaneous reconstitution of workers as a reflection of shared norms (‘we are all in this together’); a rather paradoxical premise from the beginning.

This contradiction between the forces of individualization and the injunction to be part of the ‘clan’ or ‘family’ preoccupied the initial criticisms of corporate culturalism. As far as social engineering goes, it is logically irrational. These studies were highly influenced by the emergence of Critical Management Studies (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992b; Grey and Willmott, 2005), a group of scholars who parted ways with the then dominant Labour Process Theory community (inspired by Braverman's (1974) classic study). Evoking Foucault's concern with subjection and self-discipline (often via Laclau and Mouffe, 1985), the tenor of many investigations took a decidedly anti-Marxist flavour. Class, private property, and the economy were out, as identity, subjectivity, and discourse gained traction (Knights and Willmott, 1989). And by the mid-1990s, this particular way of framing corporate culturalism was in full swing, overshadowing the conventional Marxist critique that culture merely mystifies exploitation. For Casey (1995), positing a curious Durkheimian/Foucauldain explanatory admixture, corporate culturalism is problematic because of the myopic ‘designer selves’ it engenders, insidiously inserting the control function in workers' very sense of identity. Focusing more on its self-disciplining effects, Barker (1993) underlines the dark-side of high-commitment teams that frequently galvanize around strong cultural narratives (see also Deetz, 1992). Ray (1986) even predicted that corporate culturalism might allow firms to finally conquer ‘the last frontier of control’– the unconscious political loyalties of workers.

The Specificity of Willmott's Critique

At first glance, it is surprising that Willmott chose Orwell's classic tale of totalitarianism to shed light on the more controversial aspects of corporate culturalism. For all intents and purposes, and like Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four is usually read as a warning about the evils of totalitarian communism. It reveals how power is maintained through pure naked force and violence (or its paranoid anticipation). Can we really draw analogies from this story to garner insights about emergent management fads in liberal democratic societies?

Although the comparison is strained for this reason, Willmott does successfully demonstrate that if we distil this management ideology down to its basic principles, we do find some frightening authoritarian tendencies. Willmott declares right from the beginning that little empirical data will be used in his argument. Instead, the article aims to explore the theoretical (and consequently) moral foundations of corporate culturalism. Two lines of critique are developed. First, and using Orwell's now commonplace terminology, corporate culturalism relies on an untenable ‘Doublethink’ since it paradoxically promises ‘practical autonomy’ (to think or do as we wish) while demanding that this be achieved within a monolithic value-framework. This is an impossible incongruity. As Willmott put its, ‘the benefits of participating in a strong corporate culture (and thereby further strengthening its totalizing effects) are sold by stressing the benefits for the individual employee who, it is claimed, not only enjoys greater practical autonomy but is transformed into a winner’ (p. 526). The real message underlying ‘strong cultures’ might read, ‘you can do what you like, just as long as you do what we tell you’.

The second criticism concerns the conviction that strict adherence to one set of values might be healthy or acceptable, especially in societies defined by pluralism and free thought. Is there not something tyrannical and rather creepy in this method of management? Willmott does not use a Marxian or even Foucauldian framework to develop this line of critique. Instead, the grand theoretician of cold bureaucratic rationality is favoured for the job, Max Weber. The feature of corporate culturalism Willmott finds most disconcerting is its overreliance on instrumental rationality to preclude all other value-standpoints. Indeed, the proponents of corporate culturalism are disingenuousness on this point. They ask us to believe that this warmer method of management mitigates the negative side-effects of instrumental rationality. This is why Peters and Waterman (1982) assert that all of those irrational, uncontrollable, and unmanageable aspects of the workforce can now be sanctioned. Strong corporate cultures create flexible synergies between the emotional needs of employees and the economic aspirations of the firm, effectively rendering obsolete the old divide between the employee and management.

Willmott's counter-argument is unforgiving. Corporate culturalism forcibly binds the sentimental domain of the workforce to a singular set of values in order to deepen instrumental rationality. It renders behaviour even more predictable, calculable, and certain from a one-dimensional economic (or instrumental) viewpoint. This observation confirms the findings of previous studies about the way emotion and rationality can be perversely wedded under authoritarian regimes (e.g., Marcuse, 1964), as well as prefiguring future studies noting the operationalization of love, shame, and commitment within highly administrative settings (e.g., Ilouz, 2007).

This takes us to the real nub of the problem. What truly justifies the evocation of Nineteen Eighty-Four for Willmott is the way corporate culturalism openly prohibits alternative value-standpoints. For Weber (adhering to a neo-Kantian understanding of moral maturity in an enlightened age), the real engine of democracy is substantive rationality or the open evaluation of diverse qualitative ends (i.e., are the broad goals our so-called ‘rational’ societies strive towards rational in themselves?). Substantive rationality requires both an environment that encourages dialogue about diverse value perspectives and the agentic capacity of individuals to reflect and decide. Of course, corporate culturalism is not keen on any of this. Only one set of values is permitted, and if you don't like them, to quote Peters and Waterman (1982, p. 72), ‘you get out’. For Willmott, this must placecorporate culturalism in the worst tradition of anti-democratic thought, reminiscent of fascism and Stalinism since it aspires to:

Corporate culturalism is sold in the garb of freedom, as a method of management that does away with more repressive Fordist controls. But Willmott demonstrates the opposite. It actually increases the level of workplace monitoring. At least in the bureaucratic office of yesteryear we could think what we liked. Now even our thoughts are policed, but perversely in the name of self-expression and autonomy. For Willmott, the autocratic consequences are clear. If you want to subscribe to values dissimilar to the dominant discourse then you are in big trouble, and this prospect encourages a secret life of guilt and fear. As our dependence on these monolithic norms intensifies, we become afraid of real freedom, real choice and ultimately our own existential responsibilities. And in the unlikely event that anyone does openly challenge the company, then to paraphrase Willmott, they soon discover the iron-fist beneath the velvet glove.

Workplace Resistance – the Returned of the Repressed

It is perhaps for the above reason that Willmott's piece is sometimes thought to overlook the many ways employees might oppose, frustrate, or reverse this management practice. While the topic of resistance is now commonplace in Critical Management Studies, earlier research was notorious for its omission. In this sense, Willmott's study is similar to other stories of ‘total control’, including the investigations of Barker (1993), Kunda (1992), and Casey (1995). They too fail to note its inherently contested nature, especially in relation to the stormy decomposition of the Fordist labour process under neo-liberalism. Abrahamson (1997) demonstrates this clearly when he demonstrates how this and other ‘soft management’ strategies are correlated with historical periods of industrial unrest. To speak about corporate culturalism without foregrounding its tumultuous context would be like analysing the rise of Thatcherism without mentioning the miners' strikes.

Having said this, if resistance is everywhere erased in Willmott's article, then its constant and obsessive evocation is equally striking. Upon a close rereading, it seems that every time the totalitarian facets of corporate culturalism are mentioned, the resistant subject also appears, like an inexplicable ghost, literally on every page of the article. For example, survey these random excerpts:

And so on. A generative reading of the article detects an unstable tension at its centre concerning the nature of cultural control. Organizational subversives are anticipated literally everywhere in Willmott's argument, constantly appearing at the most inopportune moment to declare the emperor is wearing no clothes. This refusal to ‘buy in’ is a peripheral yet persistent textual presence, placing non-cooperation, strangely enough, at the heart of the paper. Perhaps the unstated message of the article is that one simply cannot understand corporate culturalism without expecting resistance, like the disloyal Winston who cannot help but commit ‘Thought Crime’. Winston's irrepressible evocation of critical reason (2 + 2 = 4, no matter what anyone says) haunts the pages of Willmott's text too.

This is important to note for two reasons. First, the moral perils of cultural indoctrination only make sense when theorized vis-à-vis its greatest fear – the defiant subject. Any explanation of the negative side of corporate culturalism must therefore presume precisely those qualities that resist brainwashing. Without positing this resistant subject, there would be no moral problem at all, only a mechanical one. For Willmott, the enormity of authoritarian corporate cultures is conveyed precisely when preempted by Winstonian intransigence, whether mental (e.g., cynical and independent reflection) or practical (e.g., openly laughing at it). Like Orwell's novel, the article is implicitly obsessed with these potential moments of subversion. Analogous to the deafening silence of refusal in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is so necessary for the plotline, so too does the resistant employee quietly animate Willmott's study.

And second, if we look more directly at this subversive readiness, we discover that it seems to come from nowhere but the defiant employee himself or herself. This is a fascinating turn, one that runs like a red thread throughout the text. Like Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, we never really find out where this critical awareness regarding corporate culturalism derives from. It is not class based, as Ackroyd and Crowdy (1990) have it. Nor does Willmott have any truck with a humanist ontology that might impute some democratic essence at the centre of our nature. Nevertheless, the rebel still musters their critical judgment, mysteriously appearing out of the blue, discerning the truth about this variant of power.

What made Winston pen those subversive words in his diary? We never find out. It is tempting to say any sane person finding themselves in Orwell's nightmarish world would automatically recoil, since 2 + 2 cannot equal 5. But whence does this kernel of moral sagacity originate? And how or why might it prompt us to speak out? Again, we never find out. And this is why contestation is so central in Willmott's article since its promise is so resolutely guaranteed, without agitation, plotting, or class politicking. It is an auto-politics born ex nihilo, echoing Weber's neo-Kantian faith in our intrinsic knack for critical reflection. Perhaps Willmott's fundamental thesis is not that corporate culturalism will always successfully colonize workers, but that a counter-subject must always be presupposed because 2 + 2 must always equal 4 . . . no matter what.

Enter the Corporate Cynic

That inevitable moment of practical criticism arrives in the figure of the corporate cynic. They see through the hypocritical ‘Doublethink’ of the values, perhaps making fun of the urbane CEO or parodying the Team Development manager. They know the truth behind the veneer of ‘commitment’ and ‘participation’. At first, Willmott seems unsure what to do with the cynic, perhaps because the article itself represents an extended exercise in what the philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk (1987) calls cynical reason. On the one hand Willmott introduces the cynic as a ‘symptom of resistance’ because they refuse to believe 2 + 2 = 5. On the other hand cynicism's practical effects are suspected for unwittingly playing into the hands of the corporation.

Scholarly research noted early on that corporate culturalism might be met with cynical disbelief among the workforce (see Ackroyd and Crowdy, 1990; Collinson, 1988). Not so, however, for the practitioners charged with building ‘strong cultures’ in organizations. The enthusiastic Team Development Manager, for example, views cynicism as evidence of someone who does not belong in the firm. Organizational ‘clans’ demand not only behavioural compliance – going through the motions and appearing as if one loves the firm – but also genuine subjective attachment. And the sincerity and rectitude of one's attitude will be appraised like any other performance indicator. How a manager could ever discern whether the visible dedication displayed by employees was ‘authentic’ or not was never really sorted out in managerial practice (Fleming and Spicer, 2003).

In the end, Willmott decides to treat cynicism as a kind of alluring false criticality. Cynically lambasting the culture might provide some breathing space, an internal sense of freedom, but its concrete outcomes are deeply conservative. Willmott cites Kunda's ethnographic study of a high-commitment firm (later published as Engineering Culture; Kunda, 1992) to back up his case. When we are being cynical it is strangely easier to obey the normative commands of the culture. The feeling of superiority derived from being ‘in the know’ blinds us to the real obedience of our behaviour. The corporate cynic tells herself, ‘I'll play along with this, but I don't really believe in it’. But they also follow the inverted formula: ‘Precisely because I don't believe in this, I can go along with it’.

After a culture of cynicism matures, Willmott continues, a new and even more insidious ideology emerges to entrap workers. If we are free to be cynically aloof, to think what we like, then does this not also demonstrate the corporation's honest commitment to openness and liberty? This is a difficult ideology to escape because it uses its own criticism to justify its continued dominance. While cynicism might look like the ‘intelligence of the oppressed’ (Sloterdijk, 1987) or a ‘weapon of the weak’ (Scott, 1985), under these conditions, it ensnares employees more profoundly than full-blooded identification. Willmott sums up:

And building on Kunda's (1992) study of Tech more directly,

Willmott distrusts cynicism because it looks like a perversion of critical reason. The cynic knows full well that 2 + 2 = 4, but acts as if 2 + 2 = 5. Well, this is one way we might read the corporate cynic. But they might also have some more redeeming features. For example, Criticism 1 treats cynicism as a smug and private moment of knowingness that short-circuits our ability to speak out (what Collinson (1994) calls ‘resistance through distance’). However, cynicism can also be outrageously open, a daring parody flying in the face of power (we must remember that Diogenes the Cynic gained his outlandish reputation for ‘truth telling’ in the agora or public square (Foucault, 2001)). Likewise, cynicism can have some curious transformative effects. For example, its logic can sometimes allow us to criticize authority in a manner that power finds difficult to reject without undermining its own ideological assertions (see Bailey, 1993; Ong, 1987). Criticism 2 seems reasonable, especially when explaining how liberal pluralism can enforce its hegemony via diversity and difference. But is not the argument tautological? How can our refusal of all beliefs erode our ability to refuse?

The Rise and Fall of ‘Micro-Emancipation’ at Work

The ambiguous status of the corporate cynic stems from a broader research tradition that discovered how some types of employee opposition might ironically strengthen social subordination (e.g., Burawoy, 1979; Casey, 1995; Collinson, 1988; Fleming and Spicer, 2003; Willis, 1977). Cynicism could operate as a kind of subjective safety valve, allowing workers to let-off steam in a highly normative context without really changing anything. Having said that, we must not forget the deep ambivalence concerning the cynical employee in Willmott's text. They seem to represent something both hopeful (reminding us that oppressive controls can never completely extinguish our criticality) and deeply disappointing. Are they truly rebellious or just a more perfected instance of corporate conformity?

While this dilemma preoccupied some (especially in the Labour Process Theory tradition), the conceptual terrain was shifting. The appearance of the cynical worker corresponded with a scholarly movement that introduced subjectivity and discourse into the mix of workplace politics. The rise of Critical Management Studies in the early 1990s was refreshing because the conventional Marxian ‘base/superstructure’ analytic was no longer mandatory when assessing the worth of everyday resistance (e.g., cynicism). For these scholars, whether or not an instance of refusal overturned the entire capitalist world ceased to be the sole criterion for gauging its authenticity. Less grandiose gestures might offer equally valid spaces of freedom, what Alvesson and Willmott (1992a) call micro-emancipation, conveyed in anti-authoritarian undercurrents of humour, time wasting, foot-dragging, and alternative gender roles.

As for organizations with ‘strong cultures’, a new critical research question subsequently emerges. If power can incorporate us at the level of identity and discourse, then perhaps resistance too might be seated here, engaging with authority on an alternative register more attuned to subjective colonization. Moreover, the critical awareness signalled by the corporate cynic alerted scholars that even under the most claustrophobic conditions we can still say 2 + 2 = 4. This is significant when studying organizations governed by US-style human resource management that desires nothing short than our entire personhood (Casey, 1995). In this context, less flamboyant political gestures might too be considered resistance. By the late 1990s even the stalwarts of historical materialism (who had once ridiculed anything hinting of non-class politics) were open to the subversive facets of everyday life.

This became a vibrant and prolific research agenda. Critical Management Studies scholars were no longer tied to the rigidities of Marxism, and instead relished in the ‘changing spaces’ (Knights, 1992) opened by new zones of inquiry. The once neglected fabric of everyday, discursive life was reassigned urgent political significance. Not only was cynicism – of which Willmott's text was a formative precursor – analysed afresh (Fleming and Spicer, 2003). A whole raft of other activities also came under the critical spotlight. Subterranean narratives of disidentification were found to be decisive for undermining organizational paternalism (Kondo, 1990). Secretarial bitching proved to be a formidable challenge to bureaucratic rationality (Sotirin and Gottfried, 1999). Disengagement and irony likewise (Prasad and Prasad, 2000). Wearing a necktie incorrectly (Gabriel, 1999) and quietly farting in front of the boss (Mumby, 2005) even emitted subversive potential.

In hindsight, the pitfalls of this research agenda are now apparent. Critical analysis shifted from a paradigm that saw resistance nowhere (especially in high-commitment firms) to an equally untenable one that noticed it everywhere, an exaggeration that soon distorted our understanding of the modern firm. While in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston's seemingly minor act of disobedience spoke volumes because of its totalitarian setting, the same cannot be read into comparable acts in the context of corporate culturalism. Farting or bitching is merely a smelly annoyance (to fellow workers and management alike) and leaves extant power structures intact.

This might be why this once vibrant research agenda now seems to have run out of steam. It reified subjectivity and identity to such an extent that broader flows of power went unobserved. This is all too obvious today in the context of ‘capitalist realism’ (Fisher, 2010) where the cold logic of economic rationality presides largely undisguised, without fear of being upstaged by an alternative. As the polar icecaps melt in front of our very eyes due to the unwillingness of large enterprises to deviate from ‘business as usual’, the spirit of micro-emancipation now looks quaint, if not amusingly feeble. As does the idea that any sensible person might be tempted to ‘love’ their workplace. This begs the question as to whether Willmott's study of corporate culturalism is still meaningful today.

From Conformity to Diversity

It is the suffocating uniformity of corporate cultures that keenly concerns Willmott. As he correctly states, ‘the space within organizations for expressing and developing awareness of, and allegiance to, alternative norms or values is reduced and, ideally, eliminated’ (p. 532). But not long after the appearance of Willmott's article, both popular and academic management commentators had serious reservations about the productiveness of cultural conformity (Deal and Kennedy, 1999; Semler, 1993). Even the original proponents of ‘strong cultures’– including Tom Peters (1994) – were changing their tune, arguing that slavish adherence to a monolithic set of values might actually smother the creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial capabilities of employees. For example, cultural standardization can result in sheepish complacency, something that swiftly changing markets and business environments will surely punish (Foster and Kaplan, 2001). Moreover, with the rise of employment models based upon short-term contracts, the costs of fostering lasting bonds of commitment appear less attractive to firms. Corporate culturalism's aim of treating the employment relation like a long-term ‘marriage’ is ‘replaced by short-term affairs and one-night stands’ (Kunda and Ailon-Souday, 2005, p. 73).

Recent research in Critical Management Studies has also registered this shift in corporate discourse. The closed society in Willmott's piece functioned to depersonalize the worker since any facet of themselves not pertaining to the firm's wellbeing was symbolically castigated as hazardous. In this highly conformist climate, ‘cultural diversity is dissolved in the acid bath of the core corporate values’ (p. 534). Now the opposite seems to be the case. With others, I have proposed that a new kind of ‘neo-normative control’ has emerged in large enterprises where employees are encouraged to exude authenticity, ‘just be themselves’, and display their personal idiosyncrasies (see Fleming, 2009; Fleming and Sturdy, 2011). Instrumental control is achieved through diversity. The celebration of difference manufactures the appearance of autonomy and self-expression, but is used by ‘liberation management’ to render workers more responsive to social settings that increasingly define post-industrial work (Gregg, 2011).

This can be observed in the author's study of a call-centre that encouraged workers to just be themselves (Fleming, 2009). The objective of this management approach was to (a) motivate employees (since they no longer felt obliged to hide their true individuality), and (b) access the tacit social skills of the workforce (e.g. improvising around the call-centre script to deliver a more authentic customer experience). Relaxed attitudes towards lifestyle difference, sexual orientation, and consumer tastes made workers feel freer. But this also allowed the organization to harvest important subjective attributes. In this context, fake allegiance to a set of nonsense values would be counter-productive. And this alters the nature of managerial power. Personal authenticity is no longer a retreat from the influence of subjective domination as in the golden days of corporate culturalism (‘I don't really believe in this, I still know who I really am’) but becomes the very medium through which it is secured.

This has a number of important implications when considering Willmott's study. For him, diverse standpoints are a vital democratic antidote to the totalitarian conformity of culture management. The terrain is different today. Workplace democracy is increasingly shut down precisely by using the language of diversity. Indeed, all manner of assorted views are welcome in the office since what Courpasson (2006) calls ‘soft constraint’ employs the idiom of liberalism (‘be yourself, say what you like, but submit to the demands of economic necessity’). Expressive non-conformity is a key mainstay of corporate domination today, to the point where even anti-authoritarianism ideals are paid lip service by funky CEOs (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005; Brooks, 2000; Ross, 2004). This is one reason why the practical efficacy of micro-emancipation is risky in the ‘just be yourself’ enterprise. Many of the minor transgressions once considered dangerous by management are now openly celebrated by the millionaire CEO who proudly wears his Che Guevara T-shirt and declares ‘capitalism sucks’ (Cremin, 2011).

From Labour to ‘Life Itself’

This change in management ideology is further evidenced in the way it increasingly focuses on moments of non-work as a source of value and inspiration. Contemporary corporate discourse displays characteristics of biopower or ‘biocracy’ (Fleming, 2012) whereby ‘life itself’ (which used to be reserved till the formal workaday was over) is enrolled as a productive force. Critics of corporate culturalism correctly draw parallels with the mind-control tactics usually found in cults (O'Reilly and Chatman, 1996). Such domains are total, monolithic, and distrusting of any foreign agents that might contaminate the official story. As Kunda (1992) and Casey (1995) observe, the diluting influence of non-corporate life (e.g., family, hobbies, leisure, etc.) must be minimized since it can upset the tightly policed normative narrative. One worker interviewed by Kunda (1992) made reference to some personal problems: ‘in the office you keep that kind of shit to yourself’. Pluralistic life-projects pursued beyond work might reduce the desirability of complete allegiance to the firm. This is why, ‘far from enabling the active process of comprehending the possibility and necessity of choosing between competing values and their associated life-projects, identification with a singe set of values is demanded’ (p. 529).

The post-industrial workplace complicates this picture. It has significantly displaced the old boundaries that once delineated work from non-work. If employees in the 1980s and 1990s believed their ‘life projects’ were unwelcome in the organizational sphere, then today they are enthusiastically encouraged and turned to productive ends. This is because many useful qualities desired by the contemporary firm lie beyond its official remit and modern management methods are increasingly designed to tap them (Fleming, 2012). What Kuhn (2006) calls the rise of the ‘life style’ organization seeks to capture creative and co-operative energies, and index them to economic rationality. For example, employees of large music stores are free to wear their own attire. They have a much better fashion-sense than anything prescribed by a dull middle manager (see also Land and Taylor, 2010). Similarly, training in the knowledge industries is almost non-existent since companies know full well that its workforce train themselves, on their own time and expense (Cederström and Fleming, 2012). The closed social system defined by corporate culturalism that Willmott outlined has been partially replaced by the ‘Google-Model’ of production (Hanlon, 2012) whereby the extra (and some times anti) economic qualities of employees' lives are harvested for economic ends. Grassman's (2012) study of a knowledge intensive enterprise in London is illuminating. When asked about the culture of the organization, an employee observed, ‘you are encouraged to be how you want . . . there is no common denominator other than there is no norm, it is almost not like going to work because you do not no when it begins or ends’ (Grassman, 2012, p. 159).

The last part of this quote points to another interesting dynamic. If non-work signifiers are promoted in formal organizational settings, then the converse occurs too. Work (or the mentality of working) starts to permeate evermore areas of life outside of formal paid employment. Organizations today have a heavy reliance on the attributes of ‘life’ developed by its workers beyond the dictates of formal rationality. Some examples will illustrate. Ross's (2004) study at Razorfish found that non-work signifiers were continuously evoked as the firm sought to import ‘lifestyle components back into the workplace’ (Ross, 2004, p. 139). More dynamic team performances are likely if cast in the parlance of artisanal amateurism or a labour of love. But the process flowed the other way. The company realized ‘ideas and creativity were just as likely to surface at home or in other locations, and so employees were encouraged to work elsewhere . . . the goal was to extract every waking instant of an employee's day’ (Ross, 2004, p. 52). To capture this kind of labour power, employees were advised to discard the old distinction between work and non-work, free-time and work-time. The outcome, of course, was not more freedom, but the opposite. All time becomes work-time.

Michel (2012) notes a similar trend in the banks she studied. Unlike the logic of corporate culturalism documented by Willmott, which forbade non-work contaminants to officially enter the workplace, she found managers doing the exact opposite. The corporate rationale for dismantling the work/non-work boundary, however, was not only to tap those creative and innovative moments that might transpire away from the office. Old fashioned labour intensification was also central, as she explains: ‘the bank erased distinctions between work and leisure by providing administrative support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, encouraging leisure at work, and providing free amenities, including childcare, valets, car service and meals’ (Michel, 2012, p. 336). Using the idiom of freedom, flexibility, and increased benefits, every waking hour was lived with reference to the bank.

But even sleep can now be a time of working. This is vividly documented in an autobiographical study by Lucas (2010). The computer programmer described how his life was so integrated with his job that sleeping became a moment of labour, dreaming up solutions to problematic code conundrums in the middle of the night. He explains, ‘dreaming about your work is one thing, but dreaming inside the logic of your work is another . . . in the kind of dream I have been having the very movement of my mind is transformed: it has become that of my job. This is unnerving’ (Lucas, 2010, p. 125). Much of this, as Gregg (2011) observes in yet another study, results in the valorization of unpaid or free labour as employees organize schedules, develop solutions, and prepare for work outside of official hours. Other research has observed a similar trend as companies enlist consumers in the innovation/production process (Arvidsson, 2006) and enclose creativity in the cultural commons (Perelman, 2002). This represents a significant departure from the closed worlds of ‘strong cultures’, since evermore facets of non-work are now integral to many business models.

From Recognition to Post-Recognition Politics

This shifting corporate discourse also has implications for employee contestation and resistance. Recall that Willmott's central criticism concerns the totalitarian manner in which corporate culturalism precludes alternative value-standpoints. Consequently, value diversity might be considered emancipatory given the ‘affinity between the practical realization of autonomy and the development of democratic organizations of social institutions, in which the virtues of competing values are freely debated’ (p. 534). A rather Habermasian solution pertaining to deliberative dialogue is offered as a radical remedy to the totalitarian spirit of corporate culturalism. A truly democratic reconstitution of corporate life would place it in the context of a plural social universe, as one sphere among many others, and thus open up its meaning/organization to multiple points of view. And following Habermas (1987), such democratic consensus requires open debate and discussion, as well as the positive recognition of those who are speaking, no matter their rank (Scherer and Palazzo, 2007). Whether this enabling critical dialogue entails minor modifications in power relations (via micro-emancipation, Alvesson and Willmott, 1992a) or more significant interventions, open and free communicative exchange is a crucial prerequisite (Meyerson, 2001).

In the context of a closed, tightly controlled social institution, one that aims to remain ‘pure’ and ‘untainted’ by outside life projects, this ‘speaking the truth to power’ (Foucault, 2001) certainly holds much democratic promise. But today there seems to be a major world-weariness concerning the idea of speaking to power, asking to be recognized by it and voicing our demands. Why so? No doubt, as Cederström and Fleming (2012) suggest in relation to new attitudes regarding employment, it reflects a pervasive disillusionment with the cultural status of working itself. Compared to yesteryear, in which ‘the worker’ was iconic among our edifying social ideals, recent times have seen a major decline in its legitimacy. The contemporary employee now rarely desires more, less, fairer or better work, but simply some kind of silent and unceremonial escape or exit from the scene of paid employment (Fleming, 2012; Papadopoulos et al., 2008).

Such disaffection may be partially responsible for the turn away from what I term recognition politics in organizations. But it is also indicative of a new kind of resistance among the emergent workforce. We might term this post-recognition politics, because it does not implore to be seen, heard, and counted in corporate-sponsored debates. As Harney (2011) suggests, it is instead defined by the ‘struggle to be left alone’ or exodus (Virno, 2004). The reasons why are twofold. First is the worry that dialogue with power not only fails to curb corporate control (not even millions of citizens taking to the streets of the large metropolises of the West has appeared to do that) but might actually inadvertently justify its continued hegemony. Political liberalism has always relied upon the ruse of ‘inclusion’ and ‘consultation’ to short-circuit more imaginative political alternatives (Fleming, 2012). Think of the bizarre self-referentiality in the reasoning of former USA president George W. Bush when he declared that he was technically vindicated by the millions of protesters opposing his policies since it showed his faithfulness to free-speech. As ‘The Invisible Committee’ (2009) point out, an emergent workers' movement is increasingly aware of this pitfall, resisting the invitation to enter dialogue with corporate officialdom since it may simply reinforce the terms of an unwinnable game: suddenly we are using its language, its expectations, and its political imaginary. This might be why a kind of radical silence has now entered the repertoire of employee resistance, especially in systems of obligatory speech (also see Foucault, 2011).

The metaphor of exit should not be equated with quietism or a retreat into private solitude, which raises the second rationale driving post-recognition politics: if the bio-political corporation is conspicuously over-reliant on human qualities lying beyond its instrumental remit (as the many examples illustrate above), then why not realize this social autonomy towards more progressive, democratic ends? In this sense, the self-determination Willmott champions in his paper is still tremendously relevant. But he assumes it can happen within the confines of the modern firm, through heated dialogue and pluralist debate. Workers are very pessimistic about this possibility today (Gillick, 2009). Resistance inspired by post-recognition politics seeks self-determination outside the corporate project by repossessing the social autonomy that many jobs enclose for capitalistic ends. Gorz (2005) calls it a democratic reclamation of work, whereby ‘social relations, co-operative bonds and the meaning of each life will be mainly produced by activities that do not valorize capital. Working time will cease to be the dominant social time’ (Gorz, 2005, p. 73).

This is the logic behind a whole host of new social movements including independent-media groups (Shukiatis, 2009), precarious worker syndicates (Rogoff, 2009), and co-operative employment communities in the large cities of the West (see Pasquinelli (2008) for an excellent overview). Moreover, we need only look to the multitude of workers who have intentionally departed their jobs to lead less exploited lives. Jones (2012) terms this trend ‘opting out’. Most notable here are the so-called ‘downshift movers’ (see Nelson et al., 2007) and the ‘slow movement’ (van Bommel and Spicer, 2011). Innumerable websites are dedicated to assisting employees to leave their jobs, including leavingacademia.com among others. Some modes of ‘opting out’ might be spectacular (such as the much publicized resignation of Goldman Sachs senior executive Gregg Smith in March 2012) or much more mundane. We might think about the innumerable non-workers that have decided never to enter the corporation in the first place (see Costas and Fleming, 2009). Whether this is a desirable or even tenable way to counteract the ubiquitous nature of the contemporary corporation remains to be seen.

To conclude, these three emergent trends in the nature of power and resistance at work mark a departure from the tenets of corporate culturalism analysed by Willmott (see Table I).

I am certainly not arguing that corporate culturalism is no longer a dominant force in managerial practice and ideology. However, shifts in the nature of employment, the kinds of regulation favoured by large enterprises and changing tactics of resistance invite new conceptualizations that build upon Willmott's observations. In particular the current managerial focus on ‘life itself’ and the resistance it inspires may ultimately reshape the nature of organizations more generally. Here, future research on corporate hegemony needs to expand its scope beyond the focal organization if we are to understand how ‘a job’ is no longer something we do among other things, but is also something we are. And this may considerably transform the perennial political struggle around the meaning and morality of employment (and its management) in the future.