Knowledge-sharing, control, compliance and symbolic violence

• Autores: Ken Kamoche, Selvi Kannan, Lisa Qixun Siebers
• Localización: Organization studies, ISSN 0170-8406, Vol. 35, Nº 7, 2014, págs. 989-1012
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Recent developments in control hold that professionals are best managed through normative and concertive as opposed to bureaucratic and coercive mechanisms. This post-structuralist approach appeals to the notion of congruent values and norms and acknowledges the role of individuals� subjectivity in sustaining professional autonomy. Yet, there remains a risk of over-simplifying the manifestations of such control initiatives. By means of an in-depth case study, this article considers the challenge of implementing a knowledge-sharing portal for a community of R&D scientists through management control initiatives that relied on a blend of presumed �peer pressure� and the rhetoric of �facilitation�. Arguing that traditional approaches such as normative/concertive control and soft bureaucracy only partially explain this phenomenon, we draw from Pierre Bourdieu�s concept of �symbolic violence� to interpret a managerial initiative to appropriate knowledge and affirm the structure of social relations through the complicity of R&D scientists. We also examine how the scientists channelled resistance by reconstituting compliance in line with their sense of identity as creators of knowledge.