Knowledge-sharing, control, compliance and symbolic violence

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Kamoche, K., Kannan, S. and Siebers, L.Q. ORCID: 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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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840614525325

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