http://ephemeraweb.org/journal/11-2/11-2editorial.

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. Is*- 'self management' a form of control in work organisation?

Discussions around idea of being managed by values- internalized form of control. Prescribes behaviour through values. Role of surveillance. Distinguish between external surveillance and internalized surveillance-use panopticon as a metaphor for internalized surveillance- what do they entail in the workplace today? Role of IT. Erasing of distinction between 'work' and 'leisure' Example- Dragons Den, culture of entrepreneurship Find ways in which self management is being existed among employees, growing cynicism, see Fleming and Spicer 'Working at a Cynical Edge'

In order to respond to both change and complexity, most organisations are turning to new, more adaptive ways of doing their work, such as flatter organisational structures, more team orientated environments and greater support from technology. Indeed, much transition has occurred from early manufacturing to modern factory systems. For example, in a modern factory system, workers are less powerful, workers are usually told how, when and where to work, there is more of an emphasis on efficiency there are many more management positions, the machines arent owned by the workers, and production is internalized. Furthermore higher organisational performance is being gained from empowered individuals working together jointly to contribute the best of their knowledge, skills and capabilities. Work-teams are said to be a defining feature of the post bureaucratic organisation, in which horizontal networks replace vertical hierarchies, and control is vested in groups of employees . The logic of team work is similar to that of Total Quality Management, being based on the belief that employees who are granted some degree of autonomy over their work will use their expertise to devise new and improved ways of producing goods are services, thereby improving organisational efficiency and productivity. Most businesses are based on hierarchy and individualism; teams, by definition, are based on dynamically shifting leadership and a shared aim. In a real team, even one where there is a nominated leader, real leadership will shift automatically and dynamically around the group. As particular strengths or attributes - skills, knowledge, relationships or location - become important leadership shifts to where it is most relevant. In this way a real team has the most appropriate leader for the task most of the time. Con-versely in a hierarchy where there is a single leader most of the time the "team" +does not have the most appropriate leader. Extreme hierarchies can be efficient when they do the same things over an over again, but they run into serious problems when the organization's products and responses to customers have to change fairly rapidly. For one thing, the movement of information up and down the hierarchy tends to be slow and distorting. By the time information.

Friedmand identifies that there is confusion in the use of the word control between an absolute sense, to identify those in control, and in a relative sense, to signify the degree of power people have to direct work.(Thompson, 1983, p124) The main distinction between early manufacturing and modern factory systems is the transfer of control over work from the workers to the factory owners. This appears to leads to a form of contradiction, we are asked how control over work had facilitated the main distinctions, yet at the same time, a main distinction between early manufacturing and modern factory systems is just that, those who had control over work. In order to judge the significance of how control over work actually facilitated this change, its therefore necessary to examine how control over work was brought about in different forms and methods, this is to say how control over work was a stimulant for change which led to the main distinctions. Its also necessary to evaluate how control over work wasnt necessarily significant in facilitating the distinctions, but being the resultant from other stimulants. It could be argued that a feature of the early manufacturing system was that jobs were specialised. Once the owners and managers came to have the knowledge and could implement Taylorism, work became more standardised, described as the growing homogenisation of labour. (McHugh.2009, p26) Taylorism entailed a massive transfer of power from workers to managers (Grey, 2009, p40) as the capital now had the use of this monopoly of knowledge to control each step of the labour process and its mode of execution. (Thompson, 1983, p75) However, this may be only to a limited extent as it was still up to the workers to show initiative and knowledge to keep the production going. With the introduction of Fordism, it allowed for great mechanical control by management. (Thompson, 1983, p75) Gartman states that Fords mass production methods rendered workers largely powerless and hence gave capital a free hand to step up exploitation. (Thompson, 1983, p94) It was also simultaneously decreasing the level of skill in production tasks and increasing managerial control over their execution. (Thompson, 1983, p72) Therefore, perhaps the idea of control over work wasnt actually significant in facilitating the main distinctions, but was a consequence of increased demand. Arguably, labour transformed from supplying skills and knowledge to that of machine operatives. This has then led to the argument that there was a degradation of work, which is also a distinction between early manufacturing and modern factories. However, More argues that it is possible to overestimate the actual degree of craft or skill rather than dexterity, of such workers. (Thompson, 1983, p96) Furthermore, Fordism may not have exercised as much control as Gartman believes. For example, its described how workers at a Ford plant there was still a very high degree of workers control over the process of production since they knew the machine better than Ford knew it and were able to use their knowledge in order to block Fords repression by the machine.(Thompson, 1983, p99) Other commentators have argued that no amount of deskilling or mechanisation can lead to complete domination of capital over labour (Thompson, 1983, p107) even though others have argued that the reorganisation of the labour process entailed a persistent onslaught on the workers control embodied in craft skills. (Storey, 1983, p37) Considering

these arguments, the consensus is that technological advance is a form of control and thus may be in some degree significant in facilitating the main distinctions; however it is not possible for total control to be transferred by machinery. Furthermore, technical control only emerges when the entire production process or large segments of it are based on a technology that paces and directs the labour process. (Thompson, 1983, p147) Perhaps therefore, machinery had the potential to transfer control, but perhaps it wasnt as significant in facilitating the main distinctions as it could have been. The fact that the workers no longer owned their own machinery in a modern factory marked a great distinction between early and modern methods. This then allowed the factory owners to start having more influence over when, where and how production would take place as the relationship was now direct. Whereas the putting-out system had allowed workers a great deal of control over their hours, rhythm, intensity and quality of work, (Littler, 1982, p67) the situation changed with the rise of the factory. Marglin and Clawson claim that the mechanisation process was not necessarily a reason that control transferred, and that neither was machinery alone a reliable means of control over labour.(Thompson, 1983, p74) Braverman argues that long before mechanisation capital had been groping towards a theory and practice of management. The manufacturing systems gradually transformed to early forms of bureaucracy. For Edwards, bureaucratic control constitutes the most important change wrought by the modern corporation in the labour process. (Thompson, 1983, p148) Furthermore, Thompson states that control implies hierarchy. (Thompson, 1983, p150) The general transition to a bureaucratic system perhaps signifies therefore that it was control over work that facilitated the transition from the putting out system and a bureaucracy. If control is taken to imply hierarchy then its directly what facilitated the distinctions. However, it could arguably be the other way around and that its hierarchy that implies control. The hierarchy could have been implemented for logistical reasons or, as argued by Thompson, for profitability. Therefore, the control gained is the resultant from the bureaucratic system rather than the facilitator. Many companies merged in order to become more efficient. There was therefore an impetus for the companies to introduce managers to coordinate large-scale activity as well as implementing uniform practices. The increased scale of operations led to an advancement in administration techniques. When bosses started to relate direct costs and the labour process this prompted the moves towards an intensification of working practices which led to Taylorism and Fordism. This further suggests that the transfer of control over work from the workers to the owners was a resultant rather than a facilitator. However this assumption depends upon the purpose of the implementation of Taylorism. It could be to respond to the increased demand, or according to Braverman, the essence of Taylorism is actually the transfer of job knowledge from crafts and its monopolization of management which carries the explicit purpose of management acting to take control over work. However even though it may have the purpose of Taylorism, it has been argued that as a practical tool of increasing capitalist control, Taylorism was a failure.

(Thompson, 1983,p127) This suggests that control over work through Taylorism was not very significant. In conclusion, it can be assumed that self management has become a predominant factor of control within work with the transformation from early manufacturing to modern industries being fairly high, facilitating the main distinctions such as centralised organisations, machinery, the implementation of Forsism and the method of how work was completed. The significance of control over work in the sense of whether it was the reason for the main distinctions becoming apparent is fairly low, as even though it is argued it was the desire for the factory owners to have control over work and to reduce the foremens power, it is likely that there were many other more important and fundamental reasons that facilitated the main distinctions between early manufacturing and modern factory systems. These include the factory owners desire for capital accumulation, an increase in aggregate demand, mergers, and the increasing availability of machinery. Furthermore, Thompson states the common theme is a rejection of the view that the capitalist development of the labour process is accompanied by the growth of the authority of the management and employers. (Thompson, 1983, p122) However, there is the argument that it is difficult to fairly compare early manufacturing and modern factory systems as these terms are just too broad to be able to encompass all forms of systems that have existed under one title as there was a differing degree of direct authority and form of control and organisation throughout all industries.(Thompson, 1983, p94) There are also a variety of forms of control within capitalism (Littler,1982,p192)

Emerging as a form of management, self-management can therefore be said to involve both, forms of task empowerment and existential empowerment (Fleming and Sturdy, 2009). While employees formerly were expected to comply with the standards dictating how the task should be performed, self-managing employees are today given a level of self-determination but are also expected to display an appropriate amount of enjoyment, since their productivity is viewed as critically dependent upon this. Employee selfexpression and passion thus become signs of a convergence between the employees concern for their own interest, well-being, career, and self-actualization, at the same time that they embody the organizations desire for productivity, performance, cost and risk minimization (Kelly et al., 2007: 269)

The introduction of self-management to the field of management within an organization seems to begin with something like a replacement of the long, historically established, superior rank accorded to managers with a more widespread and fair distribution of management among empowered employees (Shipper and Manz, 1992). On closer inspection, however, this progress comes at a rather high price (Grey, 1999). While selfmanagement has been pushed as an emancipatory and glorious conception, downsizing, short-term employment contracts, and increased job insecurity have followed in its footsteps (Parker, 2002), all of which have apparently been intensified with the advent of the projective logic of the new spirit of capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005). Contemporary discussions on control and resistance in forms of management, centred areound the subjectivity of employees, affirm the cost of self-management: questions regarding the production of the

appropriate individual (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002), normative control (Kunda, 1992), neo-normative control (Fleming, 2009), and issues such as cynicism (Fleming and Spicer, 2007) or decaf resistance in liberal workplaces (Contu, 2008), all indicate how self-management is a way of governing the behaviour of workers through their self-understanding and identity. As suggested by Costea, Crump and Amiridis (2008: 673), the preferred site of intervention is the subjectivity of workers due to the fact that the significant displacement of the objects of organizational control in the end of the 20th century has been from external to inner attributes of the subject who is urged to self-manage. In light of the discussions available in the present special issue, it may be helpful to consider this displacement of managerial control with reference to three different but interrelated aspects, which we here, heuristically, designate: Managing by yourself, Managing your own self, and Managing through passions. Managing by yourself The first aspect of managing by yourself has to do with the capacity among employees to manage their own job-tasks, to coordinate these tasks with co-workers, and to take responsibility for the success (or failure) of these tasks (see also Manz, 1992). Here self-management denotes the employee as a subject capable of and willing to take responsibility for finding the best way to solve the task (Manz and Sims, 1989). Moreover, such faculties of judgment, decision-making and selfcontrol are considered more efficient if they are unburdened by supervision and the meticulous outlining of task-prescriptions (Manz and Sims, 1989; Willmott, 1993). As summarized by Thomas (2002: 4): instead of complying with detailed rules, workers are now asked to be proactive problem solvers. Or put more bluntly, being a self-managing employee implies that you manage by way of yourself. In the present special issue, this first aspect of self-management is discussed in the Paulsson paper, critically examining not only what self-management entails as a form of management but also how employees in fastfood restaurants try to cope with and resist the call to manage by way of themselves. Managing your own self The second aspect of managing your own self is to be seen in continuation of the first. In so far as self-management relies on proactive problem solving, it is also often stated that successful management by yourself implies involvement of the subjectivity that characterizes this self (Costea et al. 2008). To be able to manage yourself necessitates an investment of the individuals unique desires, ephemera 11(2): 97-104 Governing work through self-management editorial Thomas Lopdrup-Hjorth et al. 99 feelings, cognitive capacities, aspirations and creativity into the work-process (Neck and Houghton, 2006; Pedersen, 2008). Efficient selfmanagement therefore includes a level of existential exposure at work (Fleming and Sturdy, 2009: 574). In this issue, the call to manage your own self in relation to existential exposure is reflected in the Bjerg and Stauns analysis of how appreciative management practices presuppose and require not only the utilization of positive but also negative affects (such as shame), which come to partake in a demand for existential self-management. Managing through passions Besides managing your own self and by way of yourself, self-management also comes with attempts to identify the very want to self-manage. From a managerial perspective, self-management implies that employees are given a space to do the task at hand. However, to ensure that they fully engage in this task and maximize their productive potential, they are also expected to have a passion for the work they do (Fleming, 2009). Indeed, it is the passion, either for the purpose of the work-task, for doing the task well, or for receiving the status and recognition that the accomplishment of the work task might culminate in, that guarantees and mediates successful performance (Neck and Houghton, 2006). As a form of governing, then, selfmanagement involves more than giving the employee increased influence over, and responsibility for, task-performance. It also involves the expectation that the employees are inherently passionate about their work, publically display this passion, and that they are able to manage this passion in ways that connect personal desires with organizational interests. This third aspect of self-management is investigated in Maravelias paper, demonstrating how health promotion programs are significant in this regard, since they come to serve as the authority that help decide to what degree employees are in fact able to manage themselves passionately. Emerging as a form of management, self-management can therefore be said to involve both, forms of task empowerment and existential empowerment (Fleming and Sturdy, 2009). While employees formerly were expected to comply with the standards dictating how the task should be performed, self-managing employees are today given a level of self-determination but are also expected to display an appropriate amount of enjoyment, since their productivity is viewed as critically dependent upon this. Employee selfexpression and passion thus become signs of a convergence between the employees concern for their own interest, well-being, career, and selfactualization, at the same time that they embody the organizations desire for productivity, performance, cost and risk minimization (Kelly et al., 2007: 269)