Power and Control in Knowledge-Intensive Firms: Post-Bureaucratic Firms and Enterprise Culture

Abstract

This paper discusses the notions of “entrepreneurialism” and enterprising culture. In particular, it examines the significance of such discourses on the contemporary workplace and consequent impact on the individual worker’s identity and behaviour. Previous studies on Knowledge-Intensive Firms suggest that organisations are not entirely synonymous with post bureaucratic organisations, but mainly overlap it. It is revealed that majority of firms rely on “cultural or professional forms of control”. These forms of control are regarded to have dependence on an ideology of entrepreneurialism and enterprising culture. Thus, the issues of power relations and discourses in Knowledge-Intensive firms are primarily investigated in this study to expose and understand how the drive by organisations for the “enterprising” individual produces a worker who is self-regulating and self-disciplined. The paper includes an assessment of discourses from various organisational actors to shed light on the roles played by “an enterprise” as a principle of control or government in creating autonomous and productive subjects in the workplace and wider society.