Knowledge-sharing, control, compliance and symbolic violence

Kamoche, K, Kannan, S and Siebers, LQ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2664-9065, 2014. Knowledge-sharing, control, compliance and symbolic violence. Organization Studies, 35 (7), pp. 989-1012. ISSN 0170-8046

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Abstract

Recent developments in control hold that professionals are best managed through normative and concertive as opposed to bureaucratic and coercive mechanisms. This post-structuralist approach appeals to the notion of congruent values and norms and acknowledges the role of ind ividuals' subjectivity in sustaining professional autonomy. Yet, there remains a risk of over-simplifying the manifestations of such control initiatives. By means of an in-depth case study, this article considers the challenge of implementing a knowledge-sharing portal for a community of R&D scientists through management control initiatives that relied on the rhetoric of a blend of 'facilitation' and presumed 'peer pressure'. Arguing that traditional approaches such as normative/concertive control and soft bureaucracy only partially explain this phenomenon, we draw from Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of 'symbolic violence' to interpret a managerial initiative to appropriate knowledge and affirm the structure of social relations through the complicity of R&D scientists . We also examine how the scientists channelled resistance by reconstituting compliance in line with their sense of identity as creators of knowledge.

Item Type:	Journal article
Alternative Title:	Working title: Knowledge appropriation, compliance and symbolic violence
Publication Title:	Organization Studies
Creators:	Kamoche, K., Kannan, S. and Siebers, L.Q.
Publisher:	Sage
Date:	2014
Volume:	35
Number:	7
ISSN:	0170-8046
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1177/0170840614525325 DOI
Rights:	Copyright © 2014 by SAGE Publications
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	EPrints Services
Date Added:	09 Oct 2015 09:57
Last Modified:	09 Jun 2017 13:15
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5289

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