Corporate restructuring, work intensification and perceptual politics: Exploring the ambiguity of managerial job insecurity

John Hassard and Jonathan Morris
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John Hassard: University of Manchester, UK
Jonathan Morris: Cardiff University, UK

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2020, vol. 41, issue 2, 323-350

Abstract: Whereas social theorists, qualitative investigators and survey-based analysts suggest advanced economies are increasingly characterized by managerial job insecurity, database and questionnaire researchers propose relatively stable tenure rates for managers. This article aims to make sense of this ambiguity. First, following interviews with managers in Japan, the UK and the USA, the authors offer support for the ‘global convergence’ thesis, through data reflecting greater job insecurity generated by comparable and recurrent corporate restructuring. Second, considering research suggesting relative stability in managerial tenure rates, the authors argue that their findings – signifying increased insecurity – can be explained in terms of the ‘perceptual politics’ of US-style shareholder capitalism impinging, hegemonically, upon occupational sensibilities. Third, in conclusion, they suggest that everyday managerial experience can be understood in light of corporations purposively instilling a perceptual ‘insecurity message’ in managers, essentially as part of a tangible control strategy directed at the inexorable ratcheting-up of management productivity demands globally.

Keywords: Corporate restructuring; delayering/downsizing; job insecurity; managerial perception; managerial work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:41:y:2020:i:2:p:323-350

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X17710733

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