11

From Life in Cages to Life in

Projects: Metaphors for Moderns1
Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler

Summary
Historically, the metaphor of the iron cage, as a key component of Weber’s
(1978) sociological imagination has played a central role in organization
studies. It did so both in its initial role in the sociology of bureaucracy and
in its reinterpretation in institutional terms by subsequent theorists such
as DiMaggio and Powell (1983). More recently, iron bars have given way to
transparent liquidity as a dominant metaphor. The implications of this shift
for the analysis of organization are the subjects of this chapter. We argue that
a key technology of the liquidly modern organizational self is that of emo-
tional intelligence and that, while this subject has been much written about,
it has not been addressed in terms of its organizational effects on subjects.
Technologies of the self are increasingly being developed that represent the
possibility of a fusion of effective computing and emotional intelligence that
generate new issues for research.

Keywords: iron cage, liquid modernity, sociological imagination, emotional

intelligence, affective computing, technologies of the self.

Imagine the most important interview of your life, with the head of
the company that you have always wanted to work for. He asks you
tough questions about problems you have solved, challenges you
have faced, and why you want to leave your present job. At the end
of this grueling meeting, he tells you that you were too nervous-
sounding, had unusually short pauses in your speech, were evasive
with eye contact, and had cold clammy hands. This was not the real
thing, fortunately, but a practice session in front of your trusted com-
puter. Your computer interviewing agent, displaying the face of the
CEO, asked you questions while listening to changes in your voice
and discourse parameters. It watched your facial expressions and

185
186 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

body language, sensing changes in physiological parameters such as

your skin conductivity and temperature. It watched your affective
responses to see where they differed from what it usually senses from
you in day-to-day interaction.
Rosalind Picard (1998: 86)

Introduction

One of Weber’s (1978) most pervasive metaphors for organization stud-

ies has been the ‘iron cage’ (Clegg and Lounsbury, 2009: 118). It framed
the sociology of bureaucracy for much of the twentieth century (Clegg
and Dunkerley, 1980), playing a central role in the sociology of bureauc-
racy (Merton, 1957). Bureaucracy caged The Organization Man (Whyte,
1956). In more contemporary institutional terms, subsequent theorists
such as DiMaggio and Powell (1983) kick-started the inexorable rise of
institutional theory by referring to the iron cage. Within the metaphor,
bureaucratic organizations were represented initially as highly techni-
cally rational, and later as efficient, solutions to organizing; however,
they had the unfortunate consequence of transforming human rela-
tions into dreary quasi-mechanized routines bereft of sensuality, spirit
and culture (Gouldner, 1955). More recently the functional efficiency
of iron cages has been bracketed by institutional theory to express their
merits largely in terms of cultural values. Even culture could be a cage.
Irrespective of how they were glossed, these cages were seen to ‘fully
and truly leave the endemically whimsical and erratic passions strictly
out of bounds and leave no room for any irrationality, that of human
wishes included’ (Bauman, 2001: 15). That was then – Weber’s time, the
turn of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
One hundred years later Power et al. (2009: 231) note that ‘consensus
about the nature of late modernity … refers to increased ambiguity and
uncertainty at the level of individuals and a problematization of trust
in, and legitimacy of, institutions and experts in an interconnected
world’ (also see Shapiro, 1987; Mörth, 2004; Drori, 2006). As times
change so do metaphors: recently the cage has become transparent,
but still rigid, glass (Gabriel, 2005), transmogrified into a mental cage
(Courpasson, 2000/2002), or become composed of velvet or rubber – the
former promising subjects the fulfilment of dreams and the latter being
capable of being ‘stretched to allow adequate means for escape‘ (Ritzer,
1996: 177).
Of these changing metaphors, perhaps the glass cage is the most inter-
esting for two reasons, one of which we disagree with, one of which we
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 187

agree with. First, its progenitor, Gabriel (2008: 312), explicitly links
the metaphor to that of the Panopticon; however, as we shall go on to
argue, the characteristic of liquid modernity may be less the singularity
of panoptical practices and more their supplementation by those that
we may term ‘synoptical’ – the experience of watching the watchers as
much as being watched by them. Second, Gabriel explicitly links the
metaphor to the importance of emotional displays and management
of the conflicted, contradictory and ambivalent self-seeking to keep
‘some sense of order in potentially chaotic emotional states’ (Gabriel,
2008: 313). We wish to focus on this element also but shall argue that
the appropriate metaphors for doing so are more viscous than rigid;
nonetheless, the contours of containment are clearly changing and
with them, the metaphors.
Unlike an iron cage, which frustrates all attempts at escape with its
brutish and inflexible force, a glass cage is discreet, unobtrusive, at
times even invisible – it seeks to hide the reality of entrapment rather
than display it, always inviting the idea or the fantasy that it may be
breached, even if at the cost of serious potential injury. The image of
such a cage suggests that it may not be a cage at all, but a wrapping
box, a glass palace, a container aimed at highlighting the uniqueness of
what it contains rather than constraining or oppressing it. Glass, then,
is a medium perfectly suited to a society of spectacle, just as steel was
perfectly suited to a society of mechanism (Gabriel, 2008: 314).
The glass cage metaphor is still too rigid, we would suggest, to capture
the sense of liquidity: while glass can hold liquid, it is not viscous –
which is the central power of the liquid metaphor. Glass is not shape-
shifting but containing; moreover, it is not necessarily transparent.
Liquidity coats, smears and makes the subject slippery but still visible
beneath the surface and so for that reason – the creation of slippery
and elusive rather than transparent subjectivity – we prefer to explore
the viscous metaphor rather than that of the container – whether
glass or iron. The contemporary metaphor of liquid modernity seeks
to capture fluid representations much as the iron cage represented the
age of rationalization and the glass cage the era of the Panopticon.2 We
propose to replace the metaphor of cages with one that is increasingly,
soft, fluid and liquid (Turner, 2003).
The liquid metaphor has been used principally to refer to a society
of consumers. The shift in focus to consumption rightly corrected the
past overemphasis on relations of production of many Marxian and
other accounts. However, what happens to the consumers of liquid
modernity when they go to work? In the remainder of this chapter we
188 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

will investigate the implications of the historical shift from the meta-
phor of the iron cage to transparent liquidity as a dominant metaphor
in social theory. We will reorient the social theory of liquidity from
consumption to organization. With the decline of the iron cage meta-
phor and the rise of that of liquid modernity, a gap has arisen between
an extensive interest in the liquid conditions of consumer culture and
relative lack of concern with what shapes the consumers of this culture
in their working and organizational lives. We aim to fill this gap by
redirecting concerns with liquidity to organizations.
The implications of this shift for the analysis of organization are the
subjects of this chapter. We argue that a key zone in which the liquidly
modern organizational self will be working is in project teams. In
these teams, employees have to adjust to others with whom they are
not necessarily familiar, yet are called on to develop swift trust. As the
economic conditions of Anglo-Saxon economic liberalism produced
an increase in the number of contingent employees from the 1980s
onwards, not only has such contingency increasingly become a Gen Y
employment norm (Hill, 2002; Hill and Stephens, 2005) but it is also
accompanied by ‘the idea of mixing personal and professional roles
throughout the day, rather than assigning them to discrete blocks of
time’ (Hill and Stephens, 2005: 132). We ask what the effects are of
an increasingly liquid modernity on organizations and managers and
what are the means by which they are implemented. In addressing this
question we consider a specific technology of the self (Foucault, 1988) –
emotional intelligence, which is both widely used in contemporary
organizations and has found its way, rather unproblematically, into the
annals of scholarship and the curricula of business schools. Rather than
look at this technology as a technical tool, its efficacy and instrumental
quality, we are concerned with analysing its effects. In doing so we seek
to use a sociological imagination in the classical way that Mills (1959: 1)
suggested: as a way of understanding ‘the larger historical scene in terms
of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of
individuals’.
Sociologically, the idea of ‘emotional intelligence’, as a hallmark of
those able to move swiftly from project to project, able to build ‘swift
trust’, has been developed as both an intellectual but more especially
a practical tool. While the subject of emotional intelligence has been
much written about, the focus, on the whole, has not been on its
organizational affects on subjects. We see these affects as changing
organization relations through the development of technologies of the
self that represent the possibility of a fusion of effective computing and
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 189

emotional intelligence. There are ethical and power implications of

these tendencies, which we address in conclusion.

Liquidity

Bauman describes the metaphor of liquid modernity in terms of an ‘era

of deregulation, individualization, frailty of human bonds, of fluidity of
solidarities and of seduction replacing normative regulation’ (Bauman
in Jacobsen and Tester, 2007: 313). Bauman’s emphasis is largely on
consumption and he tends to leave the sphere of production and
organization to one side, only occasionally touching on organizations.
For Bauman, we increasingly live in a ‘society in which the conditions
under which its members act change faster than it takes the ways of act-
ing to consolidate into habits and routines’ (Bauman, 2005: 1). Bryant
(2007: 127) suggests that the key meaning of the liquid metaphor is
‘the idea of flow, constant movement, of change’, yet, as critics suggest,
the condition of liquidity that Bauman describes is hardly likely to be
totalizing, universal or one-dimensional (Elliott, 2007; Atkinson, 2008).
The characteristics of this era are not, however, without organizational
ramifications because the changes registered do not stop at the
organization’s door: they are sedimented, organizationally, on all the
structuring and actions of past organization (Clegg, 1981).
Haugaard (in Bauman and Haugaard, 2008) suggests that the dual-
ism between ‘rationality’ on the one side and ‘liquidity’ on the other is
actually relatively more continuous than Bauman allows. It is a duality
less of epochalism and more of structure. Du Gay (2003: 670) notes of the
‘tyranny of the epochal’ that it creates ‘sets of dualities and oppositions
in which the discontinuity between past and future is highlighted’.
Bauman sought to escape these charges by seeing the direction in which
liquidity takes us in terms of a ‘question that cannot be answered and
should not even be posed’ (Bryant, 2007: 127). Thus, the essence of
liquidity is positioned as openness to the future rather than as a specific
future. We shall follow Bauman in this agnosticism while at the same
time suggesting that the duality is one more of structural co-presence
and social segmentation rather than one of temporal succession:

Decentralization and segmentation of the organization … autono-

mization of its unities and marketization of their internal relations,
increased self-organization of the unities and of the sub-unities,
introduction of modes of financial calculation and budgetary obliga-
tions, translation of programmes into costs and benefits that can be
190 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

given an accounting value, orientation towards shareholders’ value,

all those structural transformations that accompany the introduction
of the principles of exchange, competition and calculation in what
was heretofore a hierarchical-monocratic-bureaucratic organization
effectively convert the organization into a flexible and profitable
network of enterprises pursuing a common project of sustainable
capitalization.
Vandenberghe (2008: 882)

We can illuminate the liquid metaphor further by borrowing from

finance and accounting, where more liquid organizations are those that
have the greater share of their assets in the form of short-term, current
or fluid assets. They have few long-term investments that are difficult to
disinvest. Hence, liquid organizations in Bauman’s sense will be those in
which investments in people are very largely liquid, easily liquidated and
carry no long-term investment implications. There are dysfunctional
consequences of such liquidity: emotional and psychological well-
being is undermined by what Odih (2003: 306) refers to as ‘a seemingly
irascible presentism, which steadily erodes narrative meaning and
value’ as narrative time is ‘sliced into episodes dealt with one at a time’
(Bauman, 2000: 137), a process of liquid differentiation.3
Liquid differentiation applies selectively to certain spheres of organi-
zational life in the advanced societies, especially those that are the
spheres of young urban professionals, working in the new organizations
of the creative and knowledge-based industries, involved in innova-
tion and creative projects (Palmer, Benveniste and Dunford, 2007). In
part, generational effects are overlain on organizational changes (Hill
and Stephens, 2005). The consequence is a particular sedimentation of
organizations: the upper echelons still present characteristics familiar
from the older metaphors while the younger and lower ranks seem alto-
gether closer to Bauman’s liquid condition not only in their consump-
tion but also in the everyday production of their working lives. Their
liquidity is framed by the managerialism of the structures designed by
the upper echelons: individualistic self-maximizing budgeting and per-
formance systems constituting the core of contemporary managerialism
(see Parker, 2009).

Liquid life in projects

As Humphreys and Brown (2002) suggest, identity, both individual

and collective, and the processes of identification which bind people to
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 191

organizations are constituted in both personal and shared narratives and

those ‘other’ narratives that they create. Contemporary managers are
encouraged to embrace narratives that ‘dream of making uncertainty less
daunting and happiness more plausible’. Such narrative dreams promise
‘the “utopia” of liquid modern times; the “deregulated”, “privatized”
and “individualized” version of the old-style visions of good society,
society hospitable to the humanity of its members’ (Bauman in Jacobsen
and Tester, 2007: 319). Modern managers are expected – and expect to
be – entrepreneurs of their selves that manage with enthusiasm and pas-
sion and expect to share an ethos of immediacy, playfulness, subjectivity
and performativity (Hjorth and Kostera, 2007; Bauman and Haugaard,
2008), ‘switching from “normative regulation” to “seduction”, from
day-to-day policing to PR, and from the stolid, overregulated, routine-
based panoptical mode of power to domination through diffuse, unfo-
cused, uncertainty, précaritéé and a ceaseless haphazard disruption of
routines’ (Bauman, 2005: 57).
The major organizational mechanism for delivering more flexible
organization is the project-based organization (Clegg and Courpasson,
2004). Projects are bid for, worked on, negotiated and shared with others
who are similarly highly organizationally mobile, flexible, working on
temporary assignments with high levels of self-responsibility, unclear
boundaries, and insecure incomes. Routines do not cease to exist but are
subject to reorganization around time-bound and specific disaggregated
projects creating fragmented lives that require individual managers to
be flexible and adaptable – to be constantly ready and willing to change
tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without
regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability
(see Courpasson and Dany, 2009). In such circumstances it has been
suggested that ‘swift trust’ comes into play.
The idea of swift trust was conceived by Meyerson, Weick and Kramer
(1996) and refers to virtual teams formed around a clear project purpose,
common task and a finite lifespan. An essential aspect of swift trust in
such project teams is the necessity for member to suspend doubt about
others in the team. For swift trust to work in ensuring that members
remain part of the team, the expectation that the outcomes will be
beneficial to the members and that members are active and responsive
are key requirements. To maintain their involvement, community
members will need some emotional rational reassurance as members of
the community, which can be thought of as the emotional investment
made by the member in the projective identification process. Fellow
travellers on a bureaucratic career escalator or as colleagues in a
192 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

traditional organization, such as an Oxbridge college of old, have no

need for swift trust. As many traditional organizations declined and
bureaucratic careers morphed into self-managed projects, the conditions
of existence for the containment and d assertion of individual autonomy,
as well as the trust and commitment contingent on it, changed.
Contemporary organizations increasingly adopt project forms for the
delivery of innovation in which managers shift focus from project to
project, in which the criteria of success and failure become very much
project-based, with the project leader serving as an emblematic figure.
The project leader is expected to plan actions and calculate the likely
gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic
uncertainty and they must do so with minimal ‘baggage’ that ties them
to previous social investments – the Silicon Valley phenomena of ‘zero
drag’ that Hochschild (1997) identifies. Being ready to move on and
take on new projects is a preferred state of being. While zero drag is a
frictionless freedom, it is hardly a noble human condition: it is, in fact,
a sign of being inhumane. To be frictionless and free is to touch noth-
ing, an impossible human condition. Emotional investment incorporates
projective identification that organizations can exploit by positioning
their self as a Gemeinschaftt in which people are invited to invest emotion-
ally in order to overcome perceived risk and uncertainty, whether real or
imagined. As such, a person will invest part of themselves emotionally in
the community of practice at work and will maintain membership of that
community if it provides emotional ‘value’, an idea that resonates with
Knights and Willmott’s (1989) treatment of subjectivity, in which modern
discourse and practice produce fragile, sovereign, individualized selves.
In the past these effects were achieved through discursive practices that
allowed hierarchical observation and normalization (Foucault, 1979). In
liquid conditions, the self is less observed and more observing of their
self and others observing self, as we shall see.
Both project managers and team members live in extreme contin-
gency. Extreme organizational transparency, subjection to performance
measures, and an expectation of predictability characterize the project
manager’s life world. For his team members, however, if shielded from
the demands of the organization in order to shape a ‘creative compart-
ment’ (Fairtlough, 1993), there will be greatly increased indeterminacy.
Team discipline has been identified as in many ways more demanding
on members than hierarchical controls (Barker, 1993). Patterned behav-
iour in the team is less subject to external management and is more
an act of ‘choice’ by self-managing subjects faced with a precarious
world of projects for whose continuing flow there are no guarantees
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 193

(Willmott, 1993). Team members will not be told what to do or how to

do it but they are expected to perform, despite whatever insecurities,
anxiety or fearfulness they might experience as subjects liberated from
rules ( Jackall, 1988). In a project-based organization team members are
less subject to external discipline and control, which is absorbed by the
project leader, and more engaged in observing fellow members as sig-
nificant others with whom to emotionally engage, emulate and accord,
in a form of ‘reverse panopticism’.4
Typically, there is an organizational market in projects: projects become
testing grounds for the organizational elites, relatively remote from these
scenes of everyday organizational activity, to test the mettle of the aspir-
ants (Clegg and Courpasson, 2004), mediated by project managers who
are both expected to shelter their team from the imperatives of organi-
zation as well as answer to them. The proponents of projects and the
project-based organization expect members and managers in projects to
identify themselves with the project during its unfolding while at the
same time expecting them to move on as soon as the project is finished
to new opportunities, new projects and new markets.
The autonomous subjects engaged in projects are still governed at
work. Organizational behavioural technologies allow them to reflect
on possibilities and opportunities, doing so in terms of the discursive
categories provided by expert-designed systems of monitoring and
reporting, as well as in terms of locally embedded myths and narratives
(Alvesson and Karreman, 2000). Their freedom to choose from within
these is, in fact, an obligation. We have to manage our self and our
career as a series of projects in which we can only blame our self for any
failure or disappointments (Grey, 2001). While the bureaucratic subject
was dominated by the rules of the bureau, the new post-bureaucratic
subject’s organizational behaviour will be dominated by no one but
their self and those locally scripted narratives that are institutionally
valued.
External management does not melt away, however. Above the project
teams sit the upper echelons, those who have made their way to the
gilded cages of modernity, the boardrooms with a view and directorships
with stock options, those who frame the strategies and reporting
schedules and police the projects in terms of their contribution to overall
organizational value. Beneath these elites are the aspirants, those who
are persuaded that they live in a world not of cages but of boundless
opportunities as the media tell us in pages such as My Careerr on www.
smh.com.au For the aspirants, careers can be reinvented, constraints
overcome and organizations moved in and out fluidly rather than in a
194 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

mechanical cage, escalating slowly from one floor of opportunities to

the next in an orderly manner. For the youthful targets of My Career, r the
world must appear as if it is increasingly liquid, a life project with them-
selves as the stars and directors of the scripts they write.5
‘Must’ implies an imperative that is voluntarist: for those who wish
to see the world as increasingly liquid it must appear as if it is in accord
with these precepts; these precepts should be formed to accommodate
to what the world must be. Where then, amidst all the still dominant
ordering and organizing of the world as a bureaucratic ensemble, should
one look for this liquidity? Bauman finds it, overwhelmingly, in the
world of consumption. For organization scholars, there is a fundamen-
tal paradox in Bauman’s proposal: how is organization possible if the
conditions under which its members act are not themselves subject to
organization – ways of acting consolidated into habits and routines?
Taken literally, Bauman’s thesis might be seen to imply an end of
organization; however, seen in the broader context it should be seen to
recognize a certain change in the organization condition. If the classical
organization gave us the character of a bureaucrat secure in routines,
imbued in the spirit of living an ethos, the liquidly modern organiza-
tion is embedded not in such a stable character but in one more mutat-
ing, one capable of changing through the various projects in which it
is engaged.
On the basis of a content analysis of French management literature,
Boltanski and Chiapello (2007; see also Sennett, 1998) identified that
contemporary employees, liberated from rules, are expected to be
multitaskers, innovative, mobile, venturesome and have the ability to
cooperate with people of various backgrounds and cultures. They are
autonomous, informed, spontaneous, creative and able to adapt to
different work tasks. Additionally, they have a talent for communica-
tion and are capable of relating to others. Moreover, ideal productive
subjects are active in continuing education and enthusiastic. Because
of rising job insecurity, they accumulate social capital and cultivate
expanding contact networks, which help secure continuing employ-
ment in changing fields of work. They are capable of building and
switching emotional investments in a mode of swift trust as they move
from project to project. In the words of pop psychology, they learn how
to become ‘emotionally intelligent’ by being trained to attend not only
to the emotionality of self but also that of others.
Foucault (1988: 18) developed the concept of technologies of the
self on the basis of his analysis of religious confessions (see also Given,
1997). These confessions, as technologies of the self, permit ‘individuals
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 195

to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number
of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and
way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain
state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’. Just as
believers are actively and voluntarily involved in their own emotional
refashioning, so are workers, managing their selves as they do their jobs.
As such they are engaged in what Foucault would term ‘a technique
of subjectification’. Individuals perform transformations upon them-
selves in order to facilitate success at work; the autonomous person is
seemingly acting freely even as they are free only within the govern-
mental logics of prevailing political rationalities (Clegg et al., 2002).
The government of individuals, as a mentality that defines the logic
of desired action and thought, leads groups of people towards certain
aims shaped by specific programmes, strategies, and tactics (Foucault,
1979). One such programme is that of emotional intelligence, a concept
that has become widely used in the last decade. Emotional intelligence
is especially suited to the conditions of liquid modernity, just as, during
the Second World War, the measurement of intelligence quotients was
widely used by psychologists to slot troops into appropriate combat and
administrative slots in the US armed forces, a formidable bureaucracy.
Today, emotional intelligence has become a widely popular technology
designed as appropriate for choosing and training individuals to cope
with situations of swift trust in an uncertain and insecure world of
projects in which rapid accommodations to environments, issues and
others have to be made.

Emotional intelligence: A technology of the self for liquidly

modern organization

The concept of emotional intelligence (EI) was introduced by Salovey

and Mayer (1990) and has been popularized by Goleman (1995). It was
developed to match the types of conditions that Boltanski and Chiapello
(2007) identify, as Baumeler (2008) suggests. However, while EI has been
questioned widely in psychological literature, it has not been subject to
systematic scrutiny in terms of its effects as an organizational practice,
as a technology of the self. EI has become a common phrase in the
vocabularies of organizational leaders and managers. Few seem aware
that it is a highly contested construct (Dasborough and Ashkanasy,
2002; Zeidner, Matthews and Roberts, 2004; Murphy, 2006).
Goleman argues that, nowadays, skill and expertise are not the only
yardsticks that individuals are judged by. Increasingly important is
196 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

‘how we handle ourselves and each other’ (Goleman, 1998: 3), espe-
cially in uncertain and insecure situations. Being able to present with
positive EI becomes the corollary of organizational success in liquidly
modern organizations, multiplying uncertain and insecure situations
for their lower echelons, situations in which the positivity of power
is overwhelmingly stressed and not its negativity. Managed emotions
guarantee a seductive and appealing persona. If enterprising, flexible
commitment is what organizations require, then a well-developed emo-
tional intelligence helps one to present it.
According to Goleman (1998: 3), EI is especially important for on-
the-job success. At first sight, EI seems to be a value-free mental train-
ing technique; however, Goleman’s transformation of the concept into
emotional competencies in the workplace sheds light on its normative
construction. Emotional competence is defined as a learned capabil-
ity for outstanding work performance derived from the analysis of
EI (Goleman, 1998: 24). It includes traits that match the analysis of
Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) such as innovation (being open to new
ideas, approaches and information), commitment (readily making sac-
rifices to meet a larger organizational goal), adaptability (flexibility in
handling change), and achievement drive (striving to meet or improve
a standard of excellence). In particular, Goleman related the aptitude
for leadership directly to the emotional management of others. In his
view, the leader should act as an emotional guide: ‘Quite simply, in any
human group the leader has maximal power to sway everyone’s emo-
tions’ (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2002: 5).6
The control of individual emotions to achieve organization-level
goals that may or may not benefit the worker is one way EI can be seen
as management seeking to manipulate employees. Having emotions,
and expressing them at work, as long as they are the right, approved
emotions, is no longer seen as a barrier to rational decision-making as
might have been the case in the iron cage. The committed employee is
an enthusiastic employee, a person in whom the passion of (the) enter-
prise is expected to run deep. The management of emotions has become
a symbol of a new kind of rationality in the work place (Fineman, 2004)
but it is one that does not range freely. Openly demonstrated anger about
an incompetent manager is hardly seen as ‘emotional intelligence’, for
example; also, ‘love’ or warm feelings or empathy for a colleague who
doesn’t perform as expected would be regarded as unprofessional.
However, these emotions must be disciplined: expressions of fear,
anger or anxiety, and other disruptive emotions are much less accept-
able. In fact, they have to be controlled in the service of organizational
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 197

needs. The regulation of emotions in the self includes the channelling

of negative emotions and the intentional activation of pleasant (e.g.
enthusiastic) and unpleasant (e.g. angry) feelings (Matthews, Zeidner
and Roberts, 2002: 472); however, it is difficult to separate positive and
negative emotions as they are ‘two sides of the same coin, inextricably
welded and mutually informative’ (Fineman, 2006a: 274).
The consequences of liquid modernity – increased workloads com-
bined with increased job uncertainty – result in the widespread pres-
sure of rising performance expectations. Stress threatens not only the
individual’s health but also organizational success. Emotionally intel-
ligent individuals are said to be especially effective in responding to
stress (Goleman, 1998: 82). Not for them, lives of occupational stress,
frequently described as the Black Plague of the post-industrial era
(Matthews, Zeidner and Roberts, 2002: 489), but instead a happy adjust-
ment to the prevailing realities of acute insecurity and uncertainty. The
perceptive emotionally intelligent self that EI seeks to craft is supposed
to create a persona within the organization that is required, not just in
a happy, rational, productive way, but in a way that seeks recognition
and acknowledgement of their intelligence and allows them to survive
as successful, although critics see it more likely striving to create hollow
shells and surface appearances, which will, in all probability, gener-
ate resistance to the denials of authenticity required (Fineman, 2004;
Hughes, 2005; Fineman, 2006b: 681).
Liquid modernity poses a new challenge to management: if direct
hierarchical supervision is reduced to promote creativity and individual
entrepreneurship, how can management be sure that the employee is
committed? Practices such as EI seek to endow subjects with a certain
shape and with a certain psychological state, which results in personal
aspirations and desires appropriate to the contemporary political ration-
ality. EI is not simply a psychological programme of self-transformation,
however. The successfully merchandized and popularized concept has
also gained ground in computer science. Since the mid-1990s, the top-
ranking engineering university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
has been working on the construction of devices through which
the human body is supposed to connect, intimately, to computers.
A wearable computer should know the situation the user is in (context
sensitivity), should enhance the user’s perception (augmented reality)
and act according to the user’s anticipated wishes without having to
ask (proactive acting). Affective computing (Picard, 2007) proposes the
construction of a computer that directly supports the user in emotion
management. Sensors worn in long-term physical contact are supposed
198 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

to recognize the user’s emotions via physiological parameters of the

human body such as respiration, heart rate, pulse, temperature, electro-
dermal response, perspiration and blood pressure.
Because new technological ideas need high investment and the enrol-
ment of a sufficient body of allies to get realized (in the field of computer
science: the military, enterprises, scientists at other universities, funding
agencies, etc.) (Latour, 2005), computer scientists often act as engineer-
sociologists (Callon, 1987) and write user scenarios as projections of
the future in order to clarify the (economic) benefit of their project – as
we see with the scenario from Picard that headed this chapter. Future
projections are infused with values, norms and knowledge of the con-
temporary cultural and economic environment and have to be con-
sidered as interpretations of future needs that the new technology will
meet. Picard and Du (2002: 14) argue that because many people do not
recognize their stress levels or emotional states, affective computing is
useful in helping humans ‘manage difficult events, thereby rendering
day-to-day existence less stressful and perhaps, more productive and
pleasurable’ (Picard and Klein, 2002: 157). While Goleman focused on
the understanding and labelling of emotions as a task that the indi-
vidual has to fulfil, affective computing delegates the recognition and
identification of emotions to the computer. From this perspective, the
original concept of EI is redefined to be based upon a flow of biometric
data and an adaptation of normative behaviour and accounts of social
action.
While there are approaches to EI that claim to address it critically,
such as Lindebaum (2009), the critique is not of its sociological signifi-
cance so much as its implementation to date. A critical approach should
seek to deconstruct, destabilize and disinter the self-evident ‘truths’
embedded in EI as its everyday common sense. When organizations
apply and use theory, such as EI, they are doing something in the world.
Sociologically, the key question is not how to do it more effectively or
better but what are the effects of its being done. This means, essentially,
exercising a sociological imagination rather than merely contributing
to the accumulation of more useful knowledge of applied technologies,
such as EI. By connecting the social theory discourse of Bauman with
consideration of the techniques of EI, we have sought to address ele-
ments of Mills’ (1959) sociological imagination. For Mills, an important
element of this imagination is to ask what varieties of men and women
prevail in society and what varieties are coming to prevail; to consider
how they are selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made
sensitive and blunted; to ask what is the ‘human nature’ revealed in
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 199

the conduct and character observed as well as the meaning for ‘human
nature’ of the society framing it.
Bauman has largely concentrated on the impact of liquid modernity
on a society of consumers; however, a society of consumers requires a
society of organizations and a society of organizations requires a society
of managers and their employees. Bringing Goleman’s EI into the ambit
of liquid modernity’s organizational consequences as a technology of
the self, serves to demonstrate that, considered apart from EI’s individu-
alistic rhetoric of freedom, a dystopian world of new stresses, anxieties
and uncertainties may be unfolding. Looking at liquid modernity alone,
because of the emphasis on consumption, we would miss these implica-
tions; similarly, looking at EI alone, we would miss its synergy with the
likely organizational projects of this liquid modernity. It would appear
to be merely another piece of popular psychology. Its elective affinity
with affective computing, however, points to other, even more socially
dystopian projects that aim to render human perceptual reflexivity
more complete than any amount of ‘normal’ human empathy, sympa-
thy and sensitivity would allow.

Conclusion

Liquidly modern managers (of the self) have to be perpetually con-

structing and reconstructing themselves; they are forever reassembling
the pieces of their own identity, redefining themselves day after day
(Bauman, 2005). Inadequacy in this new liquidity involves inability to
acquire the desired image aspired to. The ability required is to be, at the
same time, both the plastic subject, sculptor and object of one’s self.
At best, the person is both the onlooker of their own self-work and the
teacher of that self; at worst, bearers of the deceit of being inauthentic.
Mills (1959: 1) suggested the sociological imagination as a way of
understanding ‘the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for
the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals’. While
the external career may seem one of unbounded opportunity, the inner
life seems significantly different. Actions which effectively convey some
disdainful detachment of the performer from a role being performed
(Goffman, 1961: 110) will certainly be minimized by actors skilled and
capable in the dissimulation and dissembling that liquid selves require
for liquid modernity.
Liquidly modern subjects may become superior organization actors,
with more flexible scripts than their bureaucratic forebears and superiors,
yet the most acute and stubborn worries haunting truly liquid subjects
200 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

remain the fear of not being in the moment. Organizationally, liquid

life is a mess of contradiction: it proposes a series of new beginnings, yet
is full of worries about swift and painless endings as this project fails to
morph into another, as this contract expires (Bauman, 2005). Becoming
liquid means taking on that shape that the other is assumed to desire,
require or need in the here-and-now of presence. The skills needed to
move freely and liquidly require an understanding of dramaturgy as not
merely a theatrical technique but as a survival tool (Cohen, 2004).
What are the ethical implications of liquidity in the modern world?
Liquidly modern productive subjects know to avoid long-term commit-
ments even as they are committed in the presence of the moment. They
refuse to settle down in one way or another. They don’t commit their
life to following a single vocation. They do whatever they can so that
the consequences of the game don’t go beyond the game itself. They
do not control the future and refuse to mortgage it. They block the past
from interfering with the present. Their past is reconfigured constantly
as the career resume is honed to today’s opportunities for tomorrow.
They minimize any form of time other than as an arbitrary sequence of
present moments oriented to idealized futures in which their self will
have a starring role in a drama of calculative achievement. They aim
for an ongoing present with an emphasis on the person’s public image
rather than moral feeling. They seek the approval of others, rather than
feeling a sense of duty. They are a voyeuristic self, watching self watch-
ing other watching self (after Stanghellini, 2004).
For future research agendas, we would suggest that there is a great
deal of work to be done that connects the claims made by consulting,
coaching and other organizations offering EI training, with analysis of
the sociological effects of this training, in terms of its affects not only on
subjects but also on organizations. What are the ethical implications of
making each member a personal Pygmalion-project through EI training
in which self-management and the display of appropriate commitment
cues are rehearsed, practiced and enacted as authentic? In particular,
what changes in the expression of power relations occurs when EI is
introduced to make workplaces more ‘positive’? Is there a decline in
the use of negative forms of panoptical, surveillance power and a shift
to more positive regimes of power? Will liquidly modern organization
become less normalized, less hierarchical and less tightly governed by
surveillance and more a zone of synoptical power (Mathiesen, 1997) in
supplementation of panoptical power?
In panoptical power it is apparent that the few watch the many. In
synoptical power, it is suggested (Mathiesen, 1997), the many watch
 Stewart Clegg and Carmen Baumeler 201

the few watching them, and constantly adjust their self accordingly.
Mathiesen uses examples of the mass media and notes that businesses
today routinely employ more information specialists than do many
newspapers. Their job is to not only package images of leadership but also
to manufacture images of appropriate followership, to stifle heterodox
debate in the interstices of everyday organizational life and to coach
expressions of emotion. The authentic self becomes viscous, coated in
imagery transferred to the surface of subjectivity. While, as Mathiesen
suggests, panoptical pressures make us afraid to break with that which
is taken for granted, synoptical pressures narrow down the terms with
which a break from that which we see the significant others as desiring
might be made. Life in projects makes us particularly susceptible because
not only is one acutely panoptically visible in a project but one is also
striving to conform to the emergent norms of becoming that which
project practice encourages (Bjørkeng, Clegg and Pitsis, 2009). While
EI coupled with affective computing makes this scenario more possible
than ever, it also raises the possibilities of renewed resistance grounded
in the ethical contradictions between subjects’ sense of their authenticity
and the synoptically induced authenticity generated.
In conclusion, this chapter has interrogated the nature of liquid moder-
nity; related the specificity of this society to the transformation of a main
theme in the sociology of organizations – the iron (and other) cages – and
sought to show what the ethical and power effects are of technologies of
liquidity, such as EI, on the men and women who inhabit the organiza-
tions in which these technologies of the self are practiced. Finally, we
have proposed an agenda for further sociological enquiry.

Notes
1. We would like to thank Martin Kornberger, Judy Johnson and Edward Wray-
Bliss for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this chapter, as well
as Zygmunt Bauman. In addition, Alison Pullen, Carl Rhodes, Mark Haugaard,
Thomas Diefenbach, John Sillince, Andrew Brown, and Michael Nollert.
Finally, the participants in Management Accounting Research Collaboration
(MARC) at the University of Technology, Sydney, provided invaluable feed-
back on a penultimate draft of the chapter. A later draft of this chapter was
eventually published as Clegg, S. R. and Baumeler, C. (2010) ‘Essai: From
iron cages to liquid modernity in organization analysis’, Organization Studies,
31(12), 1713–33.
2. In one of those ironical moments in the history of ideas the dominant criti-
cal social scientific imagination could be seen to be tracing a developmental
logic that was already fading into the dusk of history. Such moments are
often described as being Minerva moments: Minerva, the Roman goddess
202 From Life in Cages to Life in Projects

of wisdom, was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena. She was associ-
ated with the owl, traditionally regarded as wise, and hence a metaphor for
philosophy. Hegel (1967) wrote, in the preface to his Philosophy of Right: ‘The
owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.’ He meant
that philosophy understands reality only after the event. Foucault’s analysis
of panoptical power’s gaze became dominant precisely at that moment when
the solid modernity in which it sought to fix the individual employee was
liquefying. In other words, the Panopticon as a device, although still evident,
was fading in analytic significance even as the glass cage contained it.
3. Turner (2003) analyses liquid differentiation as a societal level process in
dialectical tension with regulation, standardization and linearity. The latter
produce predictability and routine while deregulation, differentiation and
liquidity produce flexibility, uncertainty and undecidability.
4. Something of the sort was also identified by Gordon, Clegg and Kornberger
(2009) in their analysis of the Operations Control and Review meeting’s role
in the NSW Police Service, in which the many police personnel watched the
few senior commanders dispense judgement, justice and example through
closed-circuit TV in a ‘reverse panopticon’.
5. Projects are not everywhere, however. For the vast majority of humankind
living outside privileged spaces, liquid differentiation through projects is not
an option as they scramble to survive. For those in the advanced societies
still consigned to the state bureaucracies of schools, hospitals and the welfare
sector, the private sector bureaucracies of the call centre, or the declining
branches of industrial capitalism, there is far more regulation, standardization
and linearity on offer than project flexibility, uncertainty and undecidability.
The new rhetoric about liquidity repeats old societal divides such as capitalist
and worker, white collar and blue collar, the haves and have-nots but focuses
only on one side of the divide.
6. There are an increasing number of EI intervention schemes that seek to ‘train’
employees in these competencies so that they can be seen by their leaders to
be emotionally intelligent (see http://www.australianbusinesstraining.com.
au/; Lindebaum, 2009; Jordan et al., 2002). As Lindebaum (2009) argues, the
validity of these claims to be able to ‘train’ the emotions is dubious indeed. As
Fineman (2004: 729) observes, ‘measuring emotional intelligence, and assign-
ing people an ordinal value of their worth, is no neutral act, unverified and
unverifiable claims are routinely recycled as if they were scientifically credible
(http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=1121).

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Index
absorptive capacity
building, 114–16
agent-assisted, 116, 124
broadcast modes, 116, 124
peer-assisted, 116, 124
case studies (in Australia), 116
Advanced Manufacturing
Australia (AMAus), 120–1
Australian Beef Cooperative
Research Centre, 117–18
CRC for Intelligent
Manufacturing Systems and
Technologies (CRC-IMST), 117
Rural Industries Research and
Development Corporation
(RIRDC), 118–19
Western Sydney Information
Technology Cluster (WSITC),
119–20
development archetypes, 115
‘potential’, 111
‘realized’, 111–12
of small businesses, 111–12
abstraction, 19, 24
achievement drive, 196
‘action void’, 15
activism, 5, 45, 46
shareholder, seee shareholder activism
actors, organizational, 1, 6, 15–17, 18,
19, 22, 23, 27, 28, 32, 34, 35,
36, 38
cognitive and relational complexity
as a challenge to, 20–1
adaptability, 196
Adding value, 72
Advanced Manufacturing Australia
(AMAus), 120–1, 123, 124, 125
Advanced Manufacturing Cooperative
Research Centre, 120
Advanced Metal Products, 94–5, 102
elemental business system influence
factors, 99–100
instruments used in, 97–8
207
affective computing, 197–8, 199, 201
‘agent-assisted’ mechanisms, 109,
116, 124
Amabile, T. M., 146
aptitude, 196
Archer, N., 131
Asia Pacific Researchers in
Organization Studies (APROS)
conference 2009, 3
Athena, 201–2n2
attitudes, 89, 131, 134
Australia, 57
Advanced Metal Products in, 94
embed environment-friendly
practices in, 89
environmental management
practices in, 84, 86, 89
network-based organizations in
(case studies), 116
Advanced Manufacturing
Australia (AMAus), 120–1
Australian Beef Cooperative
Research Centre, 117–18
CRC for Intelligent
Manufacturing Systems and
Technologies (CRC-IMST), 117
Rural Industries Research and
Development Corporation
(RIRDC), 118–19
Western Sydney Information
Technology Cluster (WSITC),
119–20
R&D clubs, 112–14
small businesses in, 110
sustainability initiatives in, 88
Australian Beef Cooperative Research
Centre, 116, 117–18, 122, 123,
124
authentic alignment, creating, 182
authentic leader, 74
B2B e-commerce environments, trust
in, 133
208 Index
Baker, K., 158
Barber, B., 131
Barsoux, J. L., 146, 149
Bauman, Z., 189, 190, 194, 198, 199,
201n1
Bauman’s thesis, 189, 194
Baumard, P., 29
Baumeler, C., 195
behaviour, 37, 172, 173, 175, 177, 193
entrepreneurial, 73
in local business organizations, 4
and motivation, 171–2
of organizational actors, 17
patterned, 192
of Prima Donna, 177, 178
risk-taking, 74, 75
workplace, 28
behavioural trust, 134
Benn, S., 101
Bennis, W. G., 75
Bessant, J., 115, 116, 122
Birkinshaw, J., 145, 146, 147, 148,
149
Bismarck, O. Von, 17
Block, Z., 147
Blomqvist, K., 129, 139
board capital, 59
board leadership and strategy, 73,
76–7, 78
boards of directors, 48, 58
in better corporate governance, 45
boundary-spanning role of, 58
in Carver model, 59
and CEO, 74
common interest, serving, 49–50
importance of, 58
as mediator, 55
multiple principal agency theory,
47–8
and multiple interests, 48–9
role in governance and leadership,
71
and shareholder activism, 50
governance gap, 50–2
impact of, on monitoring and
control mechanisms, 53–4
multiple stakeholders, obligations
to, 54–5
negative effects of, 52–3
and shareholders, 55–6
board composition and selection
process improving, 57–9
board’s perspective, expanding,
59–60
communication and engagement,
improving, 60–1
independence, improving, 56–7
leadership from, 61
Boisot, M., 19, 23
Boltanski, L., 194, 195, 196
Bouquet, C., 146, 149
BP, 31–2
Braun, P., 132
Brazil, 2, 7, 23, 24, 31
oil and gas in, 31
Broens Industries, 95–6, 101, 102
elemental business system influence
factors, 99–100
instruments used in, 97–8
Bronze-level recognition, 91, 92
Brown, A., 190
Brunetto, Y., 132, 137
Bryant, A., 189
bureaucracy and ‘iron cage’, 186, 195
business customers, 88
business organizations and
complexity, 4, 17
business system
and environmental sustainability
factors, 90
functions, 90
influence factors, 99
calling, 176–7
capacity-building mechanisms, 119
agent-assisted, 116, 124
broadcast, 116, 124
peer-assisted, 116, 124
Carver model, 59
CEO, 58, 72, 73, 90, 95
and boards of directors, 74
chairperson, 73
in governance and leadership, 73–4
leadership of board, 73–6, 78
Chait, R. P., 70, 71, 76
Chandy, R. B., 147
Channel 4, 35
chaos theory, 13

Chiapello, E., 194, 195, 196
Child, J., 19, 23, 30, 38
China, 2, 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 35, 38
Christensen, C. M., 147
Clark, G., 51
classic motivation theories, 173, 175,
179, 180, 181, 183
Clegg, S. R., 202n4
Climate Ready programme, 95
codification, 19, 24, 26
co-evolution, 38
cognitive and relational complexity, 24
as challenge to organizational
actors, 20–1
cognitive complexity, 36
assessment, 19
see also complexity
definition, 19
cognitive tools, 159
Cohen, W. M., 121
co-leadership, 74
definition of, 75
Upper Echelons Theory on, 75
collaborative innovation
capability-building, 114
collaborative SME environments, trust
in, 129
economic dimension, 138
ICTs, role of, 130
individual/interpersonal dimension,
137
method, 134–5
qualitative analysis, 135
system dimension, 137–8
technology dimension, 138–9
theoretical background, 131–4
commitment, 70, 91, 93, 196
common agency, see multiple
principal agency theory
companies, 53, 59, 73, 76, 80, 148
in Brazil, 31
in China, 35, 38
communication mechanisms in,
162–3, 164
in emergent economies, 4
innovation in, 144, 147
and stakeholders, 60
company law, in Commonwealth
jurisdictions, 63n1
Index 209
company stakeholder, 60
complex adaptive systems, 13, 14
complex environments, 3, 18–20
leaders, responsibility of, 75
organizations, 1
adaptation to, 14–15
engagement with, 22–4
shortcomings in, 14
pragmatism to, 5–6
complexity leadership, 15
complexity mediation, 23, 32
cognitive complexity, 32–3
relational complexity, 33–5
complexity penetration, 23, 28–9,
37, 39
cognitive complexity, 29–30
relational complexity, 30–2
complexity reduction, 23, 24, 28
ability of pursuing, 26
cognitive complexity, 24–6
relational complexity, 26–8
computer science and emotional
intelligence, 197–8
contemporary cultural environment,
198
contemporary managers, 191, 194
contemporary organizations, 188,
192
external management in, 193
contribution-reward ratio, 180
Cooperative Venture for Capacity
Building (CVCB), 118–19
Corbett, C. J., 89
corporate boards, 46, 47
alternative to shareholder activism,
55
as mediator, 55
corporate decision-making process,
47, 50, 60, 62
corporate engagement, 45, 47, 55
corporate environment, 60
corporate governance, 45
board’s role, social dimension of, 45
board as mediator, 55–61
common interest, serving,
49–50
in multiple principals, 47–9
shareholder activism, 50–5
definition of, 70
210 Index
corporate social responsibility (CSR),
50
funds, 48
governance and, 46
Coulter, K. S., 132
Coulter, R. A., 132
CRC for Intelligent Manufacturing
Systems and Technologies
(CRC-IMST), 117, 122, 123, 124
creative approach to innovation, 115
creative employees, highly
specialized, 167
archetypes of, 173–5
frustration regression, 175–6
Pay Check Worker, 174, 179–80
Performance Addict, 174, 176,
178–9
Pragmatist, 174, 179
Prima Donna, 175, 176–8, 180–3
motivation and management, 167
in future economy, 167–9
motivation and leadership lab,
theatre as, 169–71
overarching model of, 171–3
profession theory, 168
cross-pollination among businesses,
152
cultural hybridism, 2, 3–4
Cummings, J. N., 155, 158, 162
customers, and ‘green’ suppliers, 88, 94
data analysis
grounded theory approach to, 135
databases, 162, 163
De Boer, J., 102
decision-makers, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22,
27, 28, 30, 35, 37, 39, 49
decision-making, 53, 54
corporate, 47, 60, 62
rational, 21, 39, 196
strategic, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33, 35,
37
Department of Environment and
Climate Change (DECC), 91–3
elemental business system influence
factors, 99–100
instruments used in, 97–8
developing countries
lower class workers in, 5
DiMaggio, P. J., 185, 186
dissipative structures, study of, 13
diverse stakeholders, 5
document management systems, 159
dominant firms and cognitive
complexity, 24
Du, C. Q., 198
Du Gay, P., 189
Dunphy, D., 101
e-Collaboration, 7, 109, 115, 120,
125–6
definition of, 130
e-commerce, 94, 130, 133
economic environment, 3, 86, 198
economic trust, 133–4, 136
Edvardsson, B., 147, 148
Eisenhardt, K., 146
Elbanna, S., 29
Elkington, J., 85
email, 8, 125, 159, 162, 163, 164
emergent environment, 2, 3
emerging economy, 8, 143
Emirbayer, M., 22
emotional competence, 196
emotional intelligence (EI), 185, 188,
194, 202n6
and liquid modernity, 195–6
management of emotions, 196–7
emotional investment, 191, 192, 194
employment issues, 5
entrepreneurial behaviour, 73
environment, 4, 7, 14, 16, 17
actors of, 23
complex, see complex environments
emergent, see emergent
environment
organizational, see organizational
environments
physical, see physical environment
standards, 102
sustainability, 95
into SMEs, 89, 90
uncertain, see uncertain
environment
environmental management system,
86, 88
customers’ role in, 88
ISO 14000 implementations, 89

esoteric knowledge, obtaining, 168
ethical dilemmas, 5
in complex organizational
environments, 5
Evans, P., 146
executive directors, 58, 59
exploitation, 114–15, 122, 123
in board-chair-CEO relationship,
74–5
exploration, 7, 74, 75, 114, 115, 123,
125, 150
in board-chair-CEO relationship,
75
of determinants and dimensionality
of SME e-Collaboration trust, 129
of managerial perceptions of
innovation, 143
external complexity, 13, 38, 39
‘action void’, 15
business organizations and
complexity, 17
cognitive complexity, 20–1, 24,
28–9
see also complexity
coping of organizations with, 16
environmental complexity, 18–20
organizational engagement with,
22–4
institutional environment, 16
internationalizing firms, complexity
for, 17
leadership, 15
market environment, 16
modern society, complexity of, 16
multiple environmental actors, 16
‘organizations as actors’, 17
political action perspective and
complexity, 17
political science, 16
power of action of organization,
16–17
problem, 13–18
relational complexity, 20–1
see also complexity
strategy analysis, 15
three modes of organizational
engagement with, 25
turbulent environments,
evolutionary processes in, 14
Index 211
external management, 192, 193
external stakeholders, 48, 91
Extroverted Performance Addict, 174,
176, 178, 181
face-to-face communication, 8, 93,
115, 132, 155, 159, 162, 163
Farr-Wharton, R., 132, 137
feedback skills, 182, 183
Fels Inquiry, 54
Ferri, F., 63n2
Fiddler, L., 163
‘field of forces’, 36
financial resourcing, 146
Fineman, S., 202n6
firms and institutional authorities,
power relations between, 18
5-point Likert-type scale, 160, 161
flexible organization, 191
focal organization, 23, 24, 28, 32
focused work, engaging in, 177–8
Forbes, D., 71
foreign direct investment (FDI),
2, 4
formal communication, 162, 163
Foucault, M., 194, 195, 202n2
Franke, N., 146
Frantz, P., 53
Freidson, E., 168
French management literature,
content analysis of, 194
frustration regression, 175–6, 183
Frynas, J. G., 27
Gabriel, Y., 187
García-Falcón, J. M., 163
Gemeinschaft,t 192
George, G., 111, 112
George, J., 133
Germany, 57, 144
Ghauri, P. N., 33
Ghoshal, S., 121
glass cage, 186–7
global financial crisis, 50, 54, 56, 95,
96
Global Trends 2025, 20
Gold-level recognition, 91, 93
Goleman, D., 195–6, 198, 199
Gordon, R., 202n4
212 Index

governance, 7 Pay Check Worker, 174, 179–80

corporate, see corporate governance Performance Addict, 174, 176,
and CSR, 50 178–9
governance gap, 50–2 Pragmatist, 174, 179
importance of, 77 Prima Donna, 175, 176–8, 180–3
and leadership, 68 motivation and management of, 167
board leadership and strategy, in future economy, 167–9
76–7 motivation and leadership lab,
chair’s leadership of board, 73–6 theatre as, 169–71
common nature of, 70 overarching model of, 171–3
discovering, 70 profession theory, 168
intersecting, 71 high-performing companies, 76
key conceptual linkages between, Hill, C. W., 147
78 Hochschild, A. R., 192
scope of work, 79 Hong Kong-based leadership, 30
splendid isolation of, 69 human resource management (HRM),
team leadership on board, 71–3 90, 99, 112
and shareholder activism, 46 for human development within
government bureaucracy, 48 organizations, 4–5
Gray, J., 72 in US, 2
Grayson, C. J., 159, 163 human responses, types of, 158
‘green tape’ bureaucracy, 84, 86, 95, human responsive design, 158
104 Humphreys, M. D., 190
Griffith, A., 101 Huse, M., 74
grounded theory approach (GTA), Huston, L., 146
171, 173 hybrid dynamic process, culture as, 3–4
to data analysis, 135
Guba, E. G., 135 ICTs (information and
Guillani, E, 125 communication technologies),
Gulati, R., 113 130, 154, 155, 156, 162
idea conversion, 146, 147, 148, 149,
Hadjikhani, A., 33 153
Hambrick, D. C., 75 idea diffusion, 148, 149, 153
Hamel, G., 147 idea generation, 146
Hansen, M. T., 145, 146, 147, 148 culture in, 149
Hatch, M. J., 18 in-house, 152
Haugaard, M., 189 IMD, 144
Head, M. M., 131 individual/interpersonal trust, 7–8,
Hebb, T., 51 136, 137
Hedge fund, 53 informal media, 155, 162, 163
investors of, 48, 50 information and communication
Heenan, D. A., 75 technology (ICT), 154, 157,
Hendrikse, G., 132, 134 160–1
Henttonen, K., 129, 139 in knowledge-transfer processes
Hermes fund, 52–3 within SMEs, 154, 156, 162, 163
highly specialized creative employees, Ingham, M., 111
167 innovation, 110, 124, 190, 196
archetypes of, 173–5 barriers to, 118
frustration regression, 175–6 benefits of, 118

capabilities, 109, 121
facilitation of, 120
facilitators, 148
focused partnering, 113
inhibitors, 147
managerial perceptions of, in
Mexico, 143
idea conversion, 147
idea diffusion, 148
idea generation, 146
limitations and further research,
150–1
research design, 148–9
research question, 148
results and discussion, 149–50
theoretical framework, 145–6
promotion of, 143
regional level, in Mexico, 145
stages of, 143
technological, 116
Innovation Forum, 120, 121
Instefjord, N., 53
institutional environment, 16
Intelligent Manufacturing Systems
(IMS) programme, 120–1
internal economic liberalization, 2
international competitiveness, 144
internationalization of powerful firm,
24
internationalization of small- and
medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), 34
internationalizing firms, complexity
for, 17
International Monetary Fund (IMF),
54, 57, 58
inter-organizational collaboration,
110, 133, 134, 138
inter-organizational trust, 133
intranet, 162, 163, 164
Introverted Performance Addict, 174,
175, 178, 179, 181
investment, emotional, see emotional
investment
investments, 32, 198
MNC for, 38
in people, 190
investors, see shareholders
‘iron cage’, 185, 186, 196
Index 213
ISO 14000, 7, 84, 86, 88, 103
accreditation, 89, 92, 96
stages of maturity, 101
implementations, 89
ISO 9000 certification, 88, 89, 94, 96,
103
IT companies
in Australia, 119
knowledge transfer in SMEs,
162–3
Jagdev, H. S., 130
Jarvenpaa, S. L., 132, 133
Jones, G., 133
Kao, J., 146
Kemp, J. M., 158
Kim, W. C., 148
Kirsch, D. A., 89
Knights, D., 192
knowledge, 29, 33, 34, 101, 110, 113,
131, 154, 164
of applied technologies, 198
management, 154, 156–7
technical, 36
knowledge-transfer processes within
SMEs, 154, 157–8
exploratory research, 159–60
in Barcelona, Spain, 160
formal media, 163
ICT, use of, 155, 159
informal media, 155, 163
physical space, attributes and
conditions of, 155, 158–9
Kornberger, M., 202n4
Kostant P. C., 54, 60
Kramer, R. M., 191
Krishnan, R., 133
labelling schemes, 102
labour (trade) union pension funds,
51
labour market, 167
Laminex, Sustainability Advantage
programme in, 92
large-scale enterprises (LSEs), 130
Latin America, 2, 4, 6, 149, 150
management practices in, 3
Lawrence, S. R., 85
214 Index
leader, 75
as emotional guide, 196
for value creation, 73
see also leadership; organizational
leaders; project leader
leadership, 15, 55, 92
from board, 61
board leadership and strategy, 76–7
chair’s leadership of board, 73–6
commitment, 92
definition of, 70
in governance, 68
common nature of, 70
intersecting, 71
key conceptual linkages between,
78
scope of work, 79
splendid isolation of, 69
importance of, 77
and motivation, 169–71
of Performance Addict, 180–1
team leadership on board, 71–3
virtues, 181, 182–3
lead-user’ methodology, 146
learning-by-doing, 114
learning process, 22–3, 130
learning space, 104
Leidner, D. E., 132, 133
Levinthal, D. A., 121
Lewin, K., 36
liability of smallness, 33, 34
Lincoln, Y. S., 135
Lindebaum, D., 198
liquid differentiation, 190, 202n3
liquid metaphor, 187, 189–90
liquid modernity, 187, 188, 189,
201n1
and computer science, 197–8
consequences of, 197
dysfunctional consequences of, 190
and emotional intelligence, 195–9
ethical implications in, 200
and rationality, 189
Lorsch, J. W., 76
lower class workers, in developing
countries, 5
Macarthur Business Enterprise
Centre, 93
Macarthur Centre for Sustainable
Living, 93
MacIver, E. A., 76
MacMillan, I. C., 147
MACROC, 93
Mair, J., 85
managerial perceptions of innovation
process, in Mexico, 143
limitations and further research,
150–1
research design, 148–9
research question, 148
results and discussion, 149–50
theoretical framework, 145–6
idea conversion, 147
idea diffusion, 148
idea generation, 146
maquila, 5, 9
market environment, 16
Marquis bathroom products,
Sustainability Advantage
programme in, 92
Martin, X., 133
Maslow, A. H., 181
Mason, P. A., 75
Mathiesen, T., 201
Mati, I., 85
Matthews, L., 5
Mauborgne, R., 148
Mayer, J. D., 195
Mayer, R. C., 132
McKelvey, B., 36
mediation, 32, 33, 36
meetings, 155, 159, 162, 163, 170
Mellahi, K., 27
Mexico, innovation process in, 5,
143
competitiveness in small- and
mid-sized firms in, 145
governmental and business
investments in R&D, 144
innovation patterns, 145
managerial perceptions, 143
idea conversion, 147
idea diffusion, 148
idea generation, 146
limitations and further research,
150–1
research design, 148–9

research question, 148
results and discussion, 149–50
theoretical framework, 145–6
Meyerson, D., 191
Milliken, F., 71
Mills, C. W., 188, 198, 199
Minerva, 201–2n2
Mische, A., 22
modern managers, 191, 199
modern society, complexity of, 16
Mothe, C., 111
motivation, 8, 167, 169, 180, 181,
183
behaviour and, 171–2
definition of, 171–2
overarching model of, 172–3
multinational corporations (MNCs),
31, 35, 38–9
and cognitive complexity, 24
and complexity reduction policy,
26–7
in manufacturing sector, 5
and relational complexity, 27
multinationals, in manufacturing
sector, 5
multiple environmental actors, 16
multiple principal agency theory, 7,
45, 46, 47–8, 63
common interests, 49–50
divergent interests, 49
and multiple interests, 48–9
multiple stakeholders, obligations to,
54–5
mutual fund investors, 48
My Career,r 193–4
Nahapiet, J., 121
National Association of Securities
Dealers (NASDAQ), 57
National Intelligence Council, 20
National Petroleum Agency (ANP), 31
‘nesting’ software, 94–5
networks, 21, 34, 116, 164, 194
benefits of, for small business, 110
between independent
organizations, 113
in building absorptive capacity,
114, 115, 122
and e-Collaboration, 130
Index 215
learning through, 33
network-based organizations in
Australia (case studies), 116
Advanced Manufacturing
Australia (AMAus), 120–1
Australian Beef Cooperative
Research Centre, 117–18
CRC for Intelligent
Manufacturing Systems and
Technologies (CRC-IMST), 117
Rural Industries Research and
Development Corporation
(RIRDC), 118–19
Western Sydney Information
Technology Cluster (WSITC),
119–20
relationships, 113, 125
strategic, 113
and sustainability practices, 87
value, 118
web-based tools, 111
new humanism, 2, 4–5
new knowledge, 109, 111, 113, 114,
125, 154
new offerings, creation of, 147
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), 57
New Zealand
sustainability practices in, 87, 102
team leadership on board, 73
Nohria, N., 113
non-executive directors, 54, 56, 59
non-government organizations
(NGOs), 51
non-institutional investment
funds, 51
Noorderhaven, N. G., 133
Nooteboom, B., 134
NVivo, 135
O’Dell, C., 159, 163
Odih, P., 190
OECD Principles of Corporate
Governance, 54
Ollivier Fierro, J. O., 145
Onterra, Sustainability Advantage
programme in, 92
‘On the Fast Track’, 119
open innovation, 110
open systems theory, 1
216 Index
Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development
(OECD), 130
organizational actors, 1, 15, 17, 36, 38
ability to learn, 22, 23
capacity to learn, 22
cognitive/relational complexity as a
challenge to, 20–1
and complexity penetration, 28–9
organizational behavioural
technologies, 193
organizational ecology, 17
organizational environments, 2, 19
co-evolution in, 38
cognitive complexity in, 20
organizational leaders, 15, 35, 70
responsibility of, 75
organizational power
complex environments,
organizational engagement
with, 23, 35, 37
to reduce cognitive complexity,
26–7
organizational trust, 134
organizations, environmental
uncertainty and complexity in, 1
employment issues, 5
ethical dilemmas, 5
lower class workers, 5
novel concepts, 2–6
quality spark, 5
unfair worker treatment, 5
work design, 5
‘organizations as actors’, 17, 23
Owners, see shareholders
Palazzo, G., 15
panoptical power, 200
Panopticon, 187, 202n2
patterned behaviour, in team, 192
Pay Check Worker, 173, 174, 175,
176, 179–80, 181
‘peer-assisted’ capacity-building
approaches, 116, 124, 125
Penrose, E. T., 157
pension fund, 53
activist organizations, 51
growth and positive outcomes, 51–2
investors, 48, 50–1
Pérez Hernández, M. P. M., 145
Performance Addict, 173, 174, 175,
176, 178–9, 180
Extroverted Performance Addict,
178
Introverted Performance Addict,
178, 179
personal information-management
tools, 159
personal trust, 132
Petrobras, 31
physical environment, 20–1
physical space, 155, 160–1
attributes and conditions of,
158–9
frequency of, 162
human responsive design, 158
in knowledge-transfer processes
within SMEs, 154
Picard, R. W., 198
Pigman, G. A., 27
Platinum-level recognition, 91
Policy Governance model, 59
political action perspective, 22
political capital, developing, 27
political environment, 27, 28
political science, 16
potential absorptive capacity, 111
Powell, W. W., 185, 186
Power, M., 186
powerful organizations, in new
environment, 26
powerless organizational actors,
intention of, 33–4
power symmetry between
organization and environment,
24, 25
power, 18, 37
balance of, between organization
and other parties, 22
in complexity reduction, 24, 26–7
concept of, 17
of focal organization, 23
organizational engagement with
external complexity, 25
political options, 23
pragmatism, 2, 5–6
Pragmatist, 173, 174, 175, 176, 179,
180–1

Prima Donna, 8, 173, 174, 175, 176–8
management of, implications for,
180–3
manager’s tasks, 181
motivational profile, 181–3
profession theory, 168
project-based organization, 191
team members in, 193
project leader, 192
project managers, 192, 193
purposive sampling technique, 134
quality spark, 5
R&D clubs, 109, 112–14
case studies of, in Australia, 116
Advanced Manufacturing
Australia (AMAus), 120–1
Australian Beef Cooperative
Research Centre, 117–18
CRC for Intelligent
Manufacturing Systems and
Technologies (CRC-IMST),
117
Rural Industries Research and
Development Corporation
(RIRDC), 118–19
Western Sydney Information
Technology Cluster (WSITC),
119–20
rationality and liquidity, 189
Ratnasingam, P., 133, 134, 138
Raynor, M. E., 147
reactive approach to innovation,
115
realized absorptive capacity, 111
Redding, G., 21
relational complexity, 19, 20–1, 23,
27
see also complexity
religious confessions, 194–5
research and development (R&D)
governmental and business
investments in, 144
resource dependence theory, 1
resource-rich firm, 28
reverse panopticism, 193
risk-taking behaviour, 74, 75
Rodrigues, S. B., 38
Index 217
The Royal Danish Theatre in
Copenhagen, 167, 169–71, 172,
173
Rural Industries Research and
Development Corporation
(RIRDC), 118–19, 123, 124
Rush, H., 115, 116, 122
Ryan, W. P., 70, 71, 76
Sakkab, N., 146
salient stakeholders management, 2
diversity in, 3
Salovey, P., 195
Sandino, T., 63n2
Santiso, J., 5
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), 57
Sargent, J., 5
Scherer, A. G., 15, 26, 29, 39
Schilling, M. A., 147
Schmidt, T., 111–12
Schreier, M., 146
‘science-driven anticipatory’
innovation, 121
Seidl, D., 15
self-transformations, 195, 197
senior leadership, collaboration at, 75
service concept, 147
Shackley, S., 14
shareholder activism, 7, 50, 62
definition, 50
governance gap, 50–2
and governance mechanisms, 46
impact of, on monitoring and
control mechanisms, 53–4
influence on direction of the
company, 53, 61
labour (trade) union pension funds,
51
multiple stakeholders, obligations
to, 54–5
negative effects of, 52–3
negotiation with management/
board, 51
non-government organizations, 51
non-institutional investment funds,
51
positive outcomes of, 51–2
response to corporate/board
underperformance, 47
218 Index
shareholders, 46, 54, 77
and board, 55–6
communication and engagement,
improving, 60–1
composition and selection
process improving, 57–9
independence, improving, 56–7
leadership from, 61
perspective, expanding, 59–60
influence in corporate
decision-making process, 50
Sheedy, C., 85
shielding leadership, practicing,
181–2
Silver-level recognition, 91, 93
Singapore, 57
Sjostrom, E., 50, 51
small and medium enterprises (SMEs),
6, 7, 32
complexity mediation, 32
e-Collaboration trust, 130, 135–6
dimensions and indicators, 136
economic dimension of, 138
individual/interpersonal
dimension of, 137
method, 134–5
qualitative analysis, 135
results and discussion, 135–6
system dimension of, 137–8
technology dimension of, 138–9
theoretical background, 131–4
environmental management
practices, adoption of, 84
Advanced Metal Products
(case study), 94–5
background, 86–9
Broens Industries (case study),
95–6
cross-case comparisons, 96–102
DECC case (case study), 91–3
research approach, 89–90
Symmetry Sustainable Business
(case study), 93–4
and EU provisions, 33
information and communication
technology (ICT), 154, 160–1
intention of, 33
internationalization of, 34
knowledge transfer in, 154
exploratory research, in
Barcelona, Spain, 156–60
formal media, 163
ICT, use of, 155, 159
informal media, 155, 163
information and communication
technologies, use of, 159
in IT sector, 160
physical space, attributes and
conditions of, 155, 158–9
knowledge-transfer processes
within, 154
learning challenge for these, 33
liability of smallness, 34
and local partners, 35
in new environment, 34
physical space, conditions of,
154
protection and information-sharing
in, 34
in secure protection and
information-sharing, 34
strategic decision-making in, 33, 35
small businesses, 7
absorptive capacity, 111–12
building, 114–16
Australia, R&D and innovation in,
109
social capital, 113, 120, 121–2, 125
social capital theory, 113
social institutions, 2, 3, 15, 60
socially responsible investment (SRI)
funds, 48
sociological imagination, 185, 188,
198, 199
sociology of bureaucracy, 186
Sohal, A. S., 89, 101
Spain, 57
knowledge management in
organizations (case study),
156–60
stakeholders, 47, 56
communication and engagement
with, 60–1
corporate engagement with, 55
demands, 5
diversity in, 4
interests of, 56, 59
obligations to, 54–5

and shareholder activism, 50
silent stakeholders, 5
strategic approach to innovation,
115
strategic decision-making, 26, 29, 30,
37
organizational engagement with
external complexity, 25
in small- and medium-sized
enterprises, 33, 35
strategic leadership, 75
by board of directors, 76–7, 78
strategic manipulation, 26
strategic network, 113
strategy analysis, 15
supra-government organizations, 48
sustainability, 84–6
bearable outcomes, 85
business systems and, 90
environmental perspectives, 85
equitable outcomes, 85
initiatives, in Australia, 88
of ‘labelling schemes’, 102
strategies, 86–7
sustainable outcomes, 85
Sustainability Advantage programme,
91–3
challenges for, 92–3
in Laminex, 92
in Marquis bathroom products, 92
in Onterra, 92
swift trust, 188, 191–2
Symmetry Sustainable Business, 93–4
elemental business system influence
factors, 99–100
instruments used in, 97–8
synoptical power, 197, 200–1
systematic empirical investigation, 37
system trust, 132, 136, 137–8
Tainter, J. A., 86, 87
Taylor, B. E., 70, 71, 76
team discipline, 192
team leadership on board, 71–3, 78
team members, in project-based
organization, 192, 193
team production model, 73
technological environment, 20
technological trust, 133
Index 219
technologies of the self, 188–9, 194–5
for liquid modernity, 195–9
technology trust, 8, 136, 138
Terreberry, S., 14
theatre as a motivation and leadership
lab, 169–71
Thoben, K. D., 130
Thompson Gutiérrez, P. I., 145
time, timing and resources, 112–13
Tkac, P., 51
transactional leadership, 74–5
transformational leadership, 73
‘triple bottom-line’ reporting, 85
trust, in collaborative SME
environments, 129
among alliance forms, 133
in B2B e-commerce environments,
133
behavioural, 134
calculative, 132
definition, 131
determinants, 131
dimensions and indicators, 136
economic dimension, 133, 138
economic trust, 133–4, 136
individual/interpersonal dimension
of, 137
inter-organizational, 133
online versus offline environment,
131
organizational perspective, 134
personal trust, 132
as reflection of two constructs,
132
system dimension, 137–8
system trust, 132
technological perspective of,
133
technology dimension of, 138–9
technology trust, 8, 136, 138
theoretical background, 131–4
Tse, K., 30
Tsekouras, G., 115, 116, 122
Tsoukas, H., 18
turbulent environments, evolutionary
processes in, 14
Turner, B. S., 202n3
Turner Review, in UK, 54, 57
Tyson, L. D., 58
220 Index

UK Stewardship Code, 64n3 Western Sydney Information

unaware/passive approach to Technology Cluster (WSITC),
innovation, 115 119–20, 123, 124
uncertain environment, 3 Willmott, H., 192
multiple and diverse stakeholders, Witt, M. A., 21
inclusion of, 5 Wolf, B., 146
unfair worker treatment, 5 workplace behaviour, 28
University of Western Sydney (UWS), workspace environment, 158
93 World Bank, 21, 54
US Securities and Exchange ‘world class port’, 31
Commission (SEC), 57 Worthington, J., 155

Vandenberghe, F., 190 Yin, R. K., 89

‘vision’, 182 Yuan, Y., 131
Von Hippel, E., 146
Zágarra, C., 163
waste minimization and Zaheer, A., 113
management, 95, 103 Zahra, S. A., 111, 112
Weber, M., 185, 186 Zapata, L., 162
‘iron cage’, 185, 186 zero drag, 192
Weick, K., 15 Silicon Valley phenomena of, 192
Weick, K. E., 191 Zutshi, A., 89, 101