For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

"All I want to do is get that check and get drunk"

by Rhodes, Carl (2009)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the themes of resistance to organizations in Charles Bukowski’s novel Factotum in relation to contemporary theory in organization studies, and to consider the ways in which the literary depiction of resistance can be used to extend theoretical debates on the subject.

Key Passage

In the terms of the debate outlined above, resistance within organizations is cast along a continuum of two opposing possibilities – that of overt forms of “organized non-compliance” (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999, p. 21) on the one side, and “subtle forms of subversion” (Fleming and Sewell, 2002, p. 859) on the other. With the former seen as a remnant of bygone era of capitalism, much focus is placed on the latter as the manifestation of anti-managerialism within organizations in the days of corporate culturalism. (p.389)

Keywords

Bukowski, Anti Work, Against Work, Resistance, Organisational Studies, Organisation Theory, Alcohol, Alienation, Literature, Fiction

Themes

Resistance to/at Work

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