Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour

It started with an article with the ingenious title ‘All quiet on the workplace front?’. Here, Paul Thompson and Stephen Ackroyd (1995) criticized the dominant types of analyses of work organizations in British working life studies of that time. In these studies, they pointed out that workers had d...

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Main Author: Jan Ch. Karlsson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Aalborg University 2022-07-01
Series:Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies
Online Access:https://tidsskrift.dk/njwls/article/view/133479
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author Jan Ch. Karlsson
author_facet Jan Ch. Karlsson
author_sort Jan Ch. Karlsson
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description It started with an article with the ingenious title ‘All quiet on the workplace front?’. Here, Paul Thompson and Stephen Ackroyd (1995) criticized the dominant types of analyses of work organizations in British working life studies of that time. In these studies, they pointed out that workers had disappeared as agents of workplace life, which was the quiet to which they alluded. According to much of the sociology of work, management had succeeded not only in subjecting workers to total control, but also in turning them into self-controlling dopes of company cultures. Already in Thompson and Ackroyd’s critique, we find concepts such as misbehavior, recalcitrance, and appropriation of time and products – concepts that are further theorized in the first edition of their book Organisational Misbehaviour (OMB, Ackroyd & Thompson 1999). Throughout, the authors emphasized the importance in workplace life of employees’ collective agency through informal self-organization. Undoubtedly, this is the most important book in the field in the beginning of the 2000s and it had a huge influence on working life studies. The success of the book meant that many have been waiting for a long time for a second edition – and now it is here.
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spelling doaj.art-782e0c0ea5554073b227c85aea5a10282022-12-22T02:29:45ZengAalborg UniversityNordic Journal of Working Life Studies2245-01572022-07-0110.18291/njwls.133479Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational MisbehaviourJan Ch. Karlsson0Karlstad University It started with an article with the ingenious title ‘All quiet on the workplace front?’. Here, Paul Thompson and Stephen Ackroyd (1995) criticized the dominant types of analyses of work organizations in British working life studies of that time. In these studies, they pointed out that workers had disappeared as agents of workplace life, which was the quiet to which they alluded. According to much of the sociology of work, management had succeeded not only in subjecting workers to total control, but also in turning them into self-controlling dopes of company cultures. Already in Thompson and Ackroyd’s critique, we find concepts such as misbehavior, recalcitrance, and appropriation of time and products – concepts that are further theorized in the first edition of their book Organisational Misbehaviour (OMB, Ackroyd & Thompson 1999). Throughout, the authors emphasized the importance in workplace life of employees’ collective agency through informal self-organization. Undoubtedly, this is the most important book in the field in the beginning of the 2000s and it had a huge influence on working life studies. The success of the book meant that many have been waiting for a long time for a second edition – and now it is here. https://tidsskrift.dk/njwls/article/view/133479
spellingShingle Jan Ch. Karlsson
Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour
Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies
title Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour
title_full Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour
title_fullStr Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour
title_full_unstemmed Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour
title_short Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson (2022). Organisational Misbehaviour
title_sort stephen ackroyd and paul thompson 2022 organisational misbehaviour
url https://tidsskrift.dk/njwls/article/view/133479
work_keys_str_mv AT janchkarlsson stephenackroydandpaulthompson2022organisationalmisbehaviour