The Empire of Organizations and the Organization of Empires: Postcolonial Considerations on Theorizing Workplace Resistance

Anshuman Prasad and Pushkala Prasad

Chapter Chapter 4 in Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, 2003, pp 95-119 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Recent management and organizational research has frequently noted the complex nature of workplace resistance, and commented upon the difficulties attending scholarly efforts to theorize resistance in organizations (Hodson, 1995; Jermier, Knights, & Nord, 1994a; Prasad & Prasad, 1998, 2000, 2001). The objective of this chapter is to explore the limits/margins of current management scholarship on workplace resistance by means of drawing upon certain aspects of resistance theory that have received attention in postcolonial theory and criticism. In so doing, the chapter seeks to direct scholarly focus toward new—and hitherto relatively unexplored— areas of complexity that may surround management researchers’ endeavors aimed at theorizing resistance in organizations. Toward that end, the chapter especially looks at two features often found in postcolonial theoretic meditations on resistance—(a) the notion of “unconscious resistance,” and (b) ideas of ambivalence, mimicry, hybridity, and so on and their significance for resistance—and examines the questions, issues, concerns, and dilemmas that they seem to raise for organizational scholars engaged in researching workplace resistance.

Keywords: Organizational Scholar; Management Scholar; Work Resistance; Management Researcher; Postcolonial Theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-4039-8229-2_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781403982292

DOI: 10.1057/9781403982292_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().