Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
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involvement will be evaluated as being made or willing to be an accomplice of managerial<br />
practices which preclude emancipati<strong>on</strong>. CMS is a world of stark c<strong>on</strong>trasts (Fleming<br />
and Spicer, 2008): managers versus employees, the powerful versus the powerless,<br />
the clever <strong>on</strong>es against the nitwits. It is as if within CMS existing hegem<strong>on</strong>ial<br />
structures are there and there forever. Also, organizati<strong>on</strong>al members are regarded<br />
most and for all as a compliant species. From a CMS-perspective an organizati<strong>on</strong>al<br />
reality is pictured as if organizati<strong>on</strong>al members passively adjust their mind-sets to<br />
dominant organizati<strong>on</strong>al practices. Apparently fundamentally nothing changes; new<br />
developments like HRM and participatory involvement lock people in instead of emancipating<br />
them. To change their mind-sets towards their emancipati<strong>on</strong> they are in need<br />
of critical experts (Alvess<strong>on</strong> and Willmott, 2012).<br />
Back to my project about dissent<br />
If I look at my project from a CMS-perspective I easily could develop feelings of futility<br />
and suspici<strong>on</strong>. First of all I would have to suppose that during the last <strong>on</strong>e and a half<br />
year I have been kept busy (including payment) by my principals with a subject they<br />
already decided up<strong>on</strong> a l<strong>on</strong>g time before my project even started. Sec<strong>on</strong>dly I would<br />
have to suppose that a lot of people invested time, thoughts and energy but are - including<br />
myself – stupid enough not to see how we are locked into something which<br />
from a CMS-perspective is against our objective, emancipatory interests. And if the<br />
board-members would be the manipulators or the ingenious c<strong>on</strong>spirators I even<br />
would have to c<strong>on</strong>sider that my meetings with them and the meeting of them with<br />
the members of the think-tank are brilliantly arranged performances of play.<br />
If I would take this positi<strong>on</strong> of being manipulated I would have to doubt the intenti<strong>on</strong>s<br />
of all involved or even have to imply that senior managers have unearthly competences<br />
to manage other people. I seriously would have to fall back <strong>on</strong> a sovereignty-interpretati<strong>on</strong><br />
of power, in which is suggested that power is some sort of natural and<br />
exclusive possessi<strong>on</strong> of managers (Clegg et al., 2006; Homan, 2013). For the present I<br />
restrict myself to c<strong>on</strong>clude that CMS-scholars - despite their own intenti<strong>on</strong>s (Alvess<strong>on</strong><br />
and Willmott, 2012) – distrust managers rather deeply.<br />
6.4 A paragrammatical perspective <strong>on</strong> the discussi<strong>on</strong>s<br />
Is an organizati<strong>on</strong>al member a passive uncritical and compliant being? Are these<br />
members <strong>on</strong>ly c<strong>on</strong>sumers instead of producers of an organizati<strong>on</strong>al reality? From a<br />
CMS-perspective the c<strong>on</strong>sumer’s perspective is obvious. Actually CMS departs from a<br />
classic essentialist perspective <strong>on</strong> power in which power bel<strong>on</strong>gs to some<strong>on</strong>e and<br />
which can be deployed. The managers (‘the bad guys’) have the power over employees<br />
and employees need the power of the CMS-experts (‘the good guys’) to free themselves<br />
(Homan, 2013).<br />
6. A case of c<strong>on</strong>sent about dissent | 159