Regulators, Conformers and Cowboys: The Enterprise Discourse, Power and Resistance in the UK Passive Fire Protection Industry
Abstract
This article draws on industry-level research to explore the enterprise discourse in the UK passive fire protection industry. It highlights the theoretical weaknesses of the enterprise discourse by questioning the assumption that employers and managers necessarily support enterprise. It examines how employers, not just employees, may seek to resist or evade enterprise and how, far from offering a united front, employers may oppose each other. The article points towards the need for industry-level studies due to the limitations and potentially misleading insights that can flow from organization-level studies. Overall, it is argued that there may be more common ground between employees and employers in terms of opposition to enterprise than has previously been suggested.
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Biographies
Darren McCabe is a Professor of Organization Studies at Lancaster University Management School. His research has focused on a variety of ‘new’ workplace interventions in both the manufacturing and financial services sectors. He is generally interested in the cultural conditions of work including power, resistance and subjectivity. He is the author of Power at Work: How Employees Reproduce the Corporate Machine, which is available from Routledge.
Stephanie Russell is a Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. Her research interests are in the field of regulation in the construction industry, organizational culture and she has also written about employee branding and HRM practices.
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Article first published online: July 20, 2015
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