| This dissertation explores questions of control in a modern, high-tech organization. Through an ethnographic field study of an aerospace company, the study examines a dialectic of control among knowledge workers. Specifically, this research documents the existence of a concertive, value-based system of control, and demonstrates how that system is produced, maintained and resisted by organization members. In addition, the study investigates the relationship between bureaucratic and concertive systems of control.; The research suggests that employees of this high-tech company identified strongly with the traditional values of the organization, especially the value of technical excellence. When management attempted to change the values of the company, in response to demands from customers, employees resisted. Three strategies of resistance are described in this thesis: Resistance through devotion, resistance through independence/division, and resistance through ambivalence/ambiguity. Resistance through devotion refers to a persistent conviction amongst employees towards the traditional values of the organization. Resistance through independence/division describes how strong identifications with work groups mitigated the influence of upper level managers to enact cultural change. Finally, resistance through ambivalence and ambiguity evidences the ambivalence of mangers towards changing values that they themselves held in esteem. Because of this ambivalence, managers communicated ambiguously about change and thus, indirectly support employee resistance.; In addition to studying resistance to concertive control, this study also explored the concurrent juxtaposition of bureaucratic and concertive control systems. To counteract a weakness in the control literature, this study attempted to gain further understanding of the complexities related to multiple control systems functioning simultaneously. By looking at the implementation of a new bureaucratic quality-system, complements and contradictions were found between these two forms of control. Overall, the research suggests that elements of the bureaucratic systems were more readily accepted if they were framed as compatible with the traditional values of the company. |
