Domination Perspective Lecture 2 (of 2) 2014

• Takes story to the banks but not interested • Develops concept of ‘microcredit’ and tests • Takes story to Government who take stake in bank
“The challenge is to innovate business models and apply them to produce desired social results cost-effectively and efficiently”
Does Domination occur by Default?
Drawing on Systems Thinking from the Change and
Organic perspectives, Morgan (2006, p. 332) argues that:
“Organisations’ actions and decisions promoting structural inequalities, industrial accidents, occupational disease, environmental pollution or exploitation in the Third World may all result from the way systemic forces dictate that business be done.”
Identity crises when ‘let go early’
A valuable resource or a number on a spreadsheet?
Perpetuation of class structures and mistrust
Secondary Labour Market
behaviours
Source: Bakan (2004) – based on World Health Organization ICD–10, Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV
Primary labour market
Committed Career: Stress related illnesses; sacrifice of personal life
The only way out is to reframe our thinking of
organisations and ultimately influence these systemic forces
Grameen Bank: A Relational Approach in Action
domination of control systems; nowhere to hide?
Secondary Workforce for production of merchandise -
Ignores laws of countries it is in –contract with the organisation overrides all
• Founder - Muhammud Yunus, Economist and Professor at Chittagong University • Grew out of an action research initiative:
– Yunus shocked by interest rates charged to poor – Lent $27 to 42 women to enable them to buy raw materials – Loans repaid promptly
(Yunus, 2006)
Grameen Bank now has almost 7 million borrowers in Bangladesh,



97% of them women Form small, local groups (c10 people), together responsible for making repayments System based on trust – repayment rates 99% - and the “Sixteen Decisions” (values-based, developed by borrowers) Borrowers own bank 2006 - awarded Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Grameen Bank The 9 female directors who represented Grameen at the Nobel ceremony all borrowers Source: /bank In February 2008 Grameen Bank expanded into America
Application to Disney
Primary Workforce at Pixar Studios - Issues of stress, fixed
contracts
Secondary Workforce at Disneyland – Class structures and
Environment and Society
Vulnerability and dependency – 0 hour contracts; poor working conditions; low wages
MNCs: Resource depletion, destruction of communities – unintended consequence of rational cost-benefit analysis
The Organisation as Psychopath
(Bakan, 2004)
Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships Reckless disregard for the safety of others
Lecture 2: Domination, Power and the need to reframe The Organisation as Psychopath Four Dimensional View of Power Does Domination happen by default? Grameen Bank
Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit
Incapacity to experience guilt Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful
Strengths & Limitations of the Instruments of Domination metaphor
Strengths:
Recognises rationality is double-edged – “rational for whom?”
Realises domination is intrinsic to organisations
Power and the Quality of Relationship
(Linstterests of power are thwarted precisely because the powerless would need more information in order to perform more effectively, which would entail the revelation of motives the powerful would rather suppress. If power is a relational flow, then the medium through which it flows may be more or less conducive, and that medium is collective consciousness shaped by the history of past actions and past decisions, patterned practices and previous instances of making sense of how things fit together.” (p.200)
Four Dimensional View of Power
(Linstead et al, 2004)
• Relational or resistance view, where power is a quality of relationship • Organisations as complex, conscious and unconscious networks of relations and tactics where resistance always present • Not only the dominant are powerful • Power is everywhere, in everything we do • Discourse is locally variable • E.g. Foucault
Influencing Power Differentials Through Relationship (Adapted from Stacey, 2000)