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Journal of Business Ethics (2005) 62: 1324 Springer 2005
DOI 10.1007/s10551-005-8710-0Paradoxes from the Individualizationof Human Resource Management:The Case of TeleworkLaurent TaskinValerie DevosABSTRACT. In the context of change to the newmodernity described in Becks work, companies developmanagement modes and methods that focus more andmore on individuals. Constitutive of the individualizationprocess, human resources practices have become ambivalent as the process itself. This contribution examines howa managerial and organizational innovation as teleworkcontributes to the process of individualization, and theparadoxes it addresses to management. At the interface ofthe social and the technical, teleworking appears as aflexible arrangement, meeting employees and employersdemands which is a characteristic of the process ofindividualization by simultaneously fragmenting collectivity, exposing individuals to social risk, and producing exclusion. The authors focus on two consecutiveparadoxes of such individualized managerial practices: theindividualcollective dilemma and the autonomycontrolparadox. Finally, the paper reveals HRM as a new institution of individualization in a world where regulationfunctions are more and more transferred to individualsthemselves.KEY WORDS: flexibility, human resource management, ICT, individualization, organization, telework,workIn recent years, the organizational world has beenaffected by major changes in economical as well as inpolitical, social, and technological fields. This phenomenon is often described as the age of modernity, by reference to both a well-tried reality and aperiod of history. The analysis of modernity refers toseveral breakings but overall to an acceleration ofrhythms. Many factors lead modern societies totransform themselves at more and more acceleratedcadences. Among them, Giddens quotes globalization, information economy, and democratization.1The way how individuals free themselves from thesocial frames that structured industrial societies playsa major role in the Giddens and Becks analysis oftransformations of advanced modern societies(Vendramin, 2004). Actually, according to Beck(2001), the current acceleration of the individualization process constitutes the key element of themodernity radicalization.Facing this modern context of change,companies suggest innovations to manage peopleat work that integrate business needs for adaptability and flexibility in a rather mechanistic andcontingent way. Moreover, human resourcemanagement (HRM) is promoted to a strategicissue with a double objective: trying to integratepeople into a modern company as well asanswering the needs of employees concerningautonomy and responsibilities (Le Goff, 2000). Defacto, some management tools seem to supportvisions of a fragmented society and a segmentedemployment market. As part of this individualization process, HR practices tend to partlyLaurent Taskin is a Doctoral Candidate in...