Content area
Full Text
This article proposes a new model of industrial labor process control that maintains discipline under conditions of teamwork. The model draws on theoretical and empirical studies to examine how work monitoring undertaken using management information systems interacts with the peer-group scrutiny that goes on in teams. These represent "vertical" and "horizontal" forms of surveillance, respectively, creating the conditions for a hybrid or "chimerical" mode of workplace control to operate. The article concludes by assessing the practical and theoretical implications that the model holds for further studies of the labor process.
PERSPECTIVES ON THE LABOR PROCESS
Surveillance and Teamwork: An Unexpected Combination
Surveillance in the workplace, previously a relatively neglected issue in organizational theory, is becoming the focus of much attention. New information technologies have increased the scope and reach of workplace surveillance, and never before have employees been subjected to such intense scrutiny and monitoring. Using the word surveillance to describe a feature of the contemporary workplace courts controversy, as it tends to convey negative images of suspicion, distrust, and disobedience. This is ironic, as we now celebrate positive images at work like empowerment, trust, and increased discretion. Teamwork, another feature of many contemporary workplaces and an intense focus of attention from practitioners and theorists alike, is strongly associated with these positive images. This article undertakes a critical analysis that advances our understanding of the perhaps unexpected relationship between surveillance and teamwork.
Numerous theorists (e.g., Poster, 1990; Lyon, 1994; Bogard, 1996) have provided disturbing visions of the way in which surveillance is displacing bureaucracy as the principal mode of rationalization and control in contemporary life, particularly in the workplace. This pessimism stands in sharp contrast, then, with the messages of empowerment, devolved responsibility, and the widespread reversal of repressive workplace control structures that are now commonly found in popular management books. A recurrent theme in these books is their emphasis on replacing the individual with teams as the basic unit of work organization (Barley, 1990). For its advocates, this change represents a reversal of the rationalization of Taylorism and holds a promise of mutual gain. Teams provide a means of working "smarter, not harder," and work itself becomes more effective and more fulfilling.
Given that the two positions outlined above appear antithetical, the contention...