Proletarianisation of managers in France: an analysis of social class restructuring through the study of work time control tools

Marion Beauvalet
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Marion Beauvalet: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Management tools occupy a central place in the world of work. They constitute"cognitive traps designed by management to produce a univocal representationof the organization and thus order the actions to be undertaken" (Maugeri,Metzger, 2014). While there is certainly a widespread diffusion of these tools, theirusage is less studied (Benedetto-Meyer, 2021). Among these tools, timesheets areused in an increasing number of companies, regardless of their industry or size.They are an "electronic time-tracking sheet" (Linhart, 2015), which is part of a largersystem of control of work time by the employer. They are filled out regularly, often on a weekly basis, although this can vary and are used in consulting and researchprofessions and more broadly must be filled out by a significant proportion ofmanagers in companies. What impact does this have on those who have tocomplete them? We focus on the perceptions of managers, and the impact ofthese tools on their work, both in terms of practices and how they perceive theirwork. We rely on 45 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2022 and 2024.These individuals were recruited on LinkedIn or through referrals. The interviewsreveal tensions related to professional identity issues, work time, and the feeling ofloss of autonomy. In some situations, these timesheets can also have a strongimpact on professional practices by limiting them. In this presentation, we willargue that management tools, exemplified by timesheets, contribute to therestructuring of social classes by proletarianizing managers, increasing their degreeof exploitation, and symbolically degrading their work—something Braverman hadalready analyzed for other professions in Labor and Monopoly Capital. We willpay particular attention to the class consciousness that this tool awakens among theinterviewees and the conflicts it generates within capitalist companies.

Date: 2024-11
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Published in Twenty-first annual conference Historical Materialism : Countering the Plague: Forces of Reaction and War and How to Fight Them, Nov 2024, Londres, United Kingdom

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