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A Simulacrum of Workplace Community: Individualism and Engineered Culture

School of Sociology and Social Work University of Tasmania

This paper focuses on the cultural and social consequences of the new forms of work organisation variously described as engineered workplace culture, flexibilisation, teamwork, employee involvement, quality circles and post-Fordism. Some celebrate the new form of worker this creates as a consumer of organisationally provided meanings. However, the choices are quite limited for workers in engineered cultures, and for the self-discovering subjects of consumer capitalism more generally. The language, norms and values of engineered cultures become internalised and dominate employees' subjectivity. Further, a sociological analysis of institutional structures of consumer capitalism, and engineered cultures in particular, points to how they encourage workers to develop moral frameworks that are individualistic, with little concern for other people. Simone Weil's studies of the workplace are used to argue that a culture that encourages an ethical orientation of respect for the other is at the heart of good work.

Key Words: consumerism • engineered culture • ethics • good work • individualism • post-Fordism

Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 3, 631-650 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/S0038038501000323


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