Consumption and Identity at WorkThe realms of consumption have typically been seen to be distinct from those of work and production. This book examines how contemporary rhetorics and discourses of organizational change are breaking down such distinctions - with significant implications for the construction of subjectivities and identities at work. In particular, Paul du Gay shows how the capacities and predispositions required of consumers and those required of employees are increasingly difficult to distinguish. Both consumers and employees are represented as autonomous, responsible, calculating individuals. They are constituted as such in the language of consumer cultures and the all-pervasive discourses of enterprise whereby persons are required to be |
Contents
The Production of Subjects | 40 |
The Culture of the Customer | 75 |
Part II | 97 |
Reimagining Organizational Identities | 119 |
Consuming Organization | 148 |
Setting Limits to Enterprise | 178 |
Research Details | 194 |
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Common terms and phrases
According action activity Affluent Worker alienation analysis argued articulated Asda attempt autonomous become behaviour Bourdieu Burawoy Central London Certeau Chapter company's concept conduct constituted construction consumer culture contemporary context cultural turn deployed deskilling discourse of enterprise dislocation dominant economic effect employees employment entrepreneurial example excellence existence false consciousness forms God's eye view Goldthorpe Harrods head office human ideology in-store increasingly indicated individual industry interaction interactionism interactionists Interview involved labour Laclau language lifestyle male Marxist meaning neo-liberal objectives objectivist operations organization organizational orthodox Marxism participant observation particular political practices programme rationality reality relationship represented responsibility retail sector role sales assistant Secure Shopping self-actualizing senior management sense shopfloor simply society sociology staff Stanley Fish store managers strategy structure suggests symbolic symbolic interactionism tactics technologies transactional analysis words work-based subject