Workplace power, control, and resistance

Severin Hornung and Franziska J. Kößler

Chapter 17 in Handbook of Critical Work and Organizational Psychology, 2026, pp 293-309 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Power and resistance fundamentally shape work and employment, but are rarely discussed in work and organizational (W-O) psychology. In contrast, research on job control and various versions thereof is excessive. Observing an unhealthy imbalance, we interrogate this contradiction using a psychoanalytic approach. In the first part, we analyze the relationships between W-O psychology and power, control, and resistance, diagnosing repression in the case of power, a fetishization of job control, and a displacement of resistance. In the second part, we recommend therapeutic interventions to W-O psychology, including confrontation with its denial of power, deliberation of the one-sided fetishization of job control, and reinterpretation of displaced forms of resistance. We conclude with recommendations for integrating suppressed issues, including practicing reflexivity, challenging the unitarist view of harmonious employment relations, and adopting a Labor Process Theory perspective on power, control, and resistance. Importantly, these require W-O psychology to sever its incestuous bondage with managerialism.

Keywords: Power in Organizations; Job Control or Autonomy; Employee Resistance; Repression-Confrontation; Fetishization-Deliberation; Displacement-Reinterpretation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035331055
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