Abstract

In the analysis of the sustainability of knowledge work environments, the intensification of work has emerged as probably the single most important contradiction. We argue that the process of knowledge work intensification is increasingly self-driven and influenced by subjectification processes in the context of trends of individualisation and self-management. We use a qualitative case study of a leading multinational company in the information and communications technology sector (considered to be ‘best-in-class’) to discuss this intensification and its linkage with self-disciplining mechanisms. The workers studied seem to enjoy a number of resources that current psychosocial risk models identify as health promoting (e.g. autonomy, learning, career development and other material and symbolic rewards). We discuss the validity of these models to assess the increasingly boundaryless and self-managed knowledge work contexts characterised by internalisation of demands and resources and paradoxical feelings of autonomy. Knowledge work intensification increases health and social vulnerabilities directly and through two-way interactions with, first, the autonomy paradox and new modes of subjection at the workplace; second, atomisation and lack of social support; third, permanent accountability and insecurity; and finally, newer difficulties in setting boundaries.

Introduction

While knowledge work expands, European trends in job quality remain ambiguous. In the last two decades, evidence has accumulated that highlights the fact that European economies have been experiencing a process of work intensification (i.e. increased effort at work1) (Burchell, Ladipo & Wilkinson, 2002; Green & Mostafa, 2012)2, that has also affected knowledge workers, no longer safe from potentially harmful working conditions (Green, 2006; Pérez-Zapata, 2015; Worrall, Mather & Cooper, 2016). Although many scholars have pointed out that higher socioeconomic status provides better working conditions and health protection (e.g. Siegrist & Marmot, 2004; Tausig, 2013), emergent trends, in line with the so-called ‘stress of higher status’ concept, suggest that higher level occupations might have started to suffer increased stress because of additional job demands, work-family conflicts and exposure to resources that might exacerbate demands (Damaske, Zawadzki & Smyth, 2016; Koltai & Schieman, 2015; Schieman, 2013; Schieman & Glavin, 2016; Schieman & Reid, 2009; Schieman, Whitestone & Van Gundy, 2006). The results from European Labour Force Surveys (ad hoc modules in 2007 and 2013) have also confirmed that work intensity (measured by time pressures and overload) is a risk for mental well-being3 according to approximately 85% of the workers surveyed (Eurostat: European Commission, 2012). This ‘increased effort’ trend that we term ‘work intensification’ could be interpreted according to two different analytical frames: one focusing on the individual level and one concentrating on the organisational management level. Mainstream discourses and scholars in the fields of psychology of work/organisations tend to neglect the political dimension and have focused on either individual work engagement (i.e. a healthy and passionate effort4) or workaholism (i.e. an unhealthy and obsessive effort). In both cases, they implicitly promote the idea that increased effort results mainly from individual choices, motivations and dispositions5 (Schaufeli, Taris & Van Rhenen, 2008; van Beek et al., 2012). Other scholars (for example, from the fields of sociology of work and critical management studies) have concentrated on the political dimension of this increased effort and have traditionally used the term ‘work intensification’, a classical construct associated with the struggles for control/resources in the workplace, explicitly arguing that increased effort results mainly from organisational/social power conflicts (e.g. Braverman, 1974; McCann, Morris & Hassard, 2008). In practice, organisational practitioners and psychology of work/organisations scholars are winning the interpretation battle, and organisations are increasingly focused on promoting work engagement, positioned as the key strategy for productivity, well-being and aligning organisational interests with those of workers6.

Consistent with the ‘stress of higher status’ hypothesis, Michel (2012; 2014) and Lupu and Empson (2015) have recently highlighted how very qualified knowledge workers with apparent high levels of autonomy work beyond their limits, burning out and severely harming their health and personal relationships. When questioned, these workers frequently refer to their activities and efforts as self-chosen7, an emerging contradiction that is beginning to be known as the ‘autonomy paradox’ (Lupu & Empson, 2015; Mazmanian, Orlikowski & Yates, 2013). From a psychology of work/ organisations perspective, this self-chosen perception would be consistent with an attribution of work engagement (that it is considered to be a discretionary effort produced in the context of a passionate and enjoyable job). However, work engagement is expected to protect health, so if we had to interpret these findings from an individual psychosocial risks perspective, it would be more appropriate to regard it as workaholism, which, with obsessive and addictive components, is expected to have negative impacts on health and other aspects of life (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Classic critical literature at the organisational level has addressed similar paradoxes in the past. Particularly well known is Burawoy’s (1979) Manufacturing Consent, where workers treat the labour process and its piece rate system as a shop floor ‘game’8, which, in turn, generates feelings of being in control that ended up contributing to an intensification of work (Burawoy, 1979). Moving towards a knowledge work context, the seminal ethnographic study by Kunda (1992) published as Engineering Culture discusses the so-called normative controls and how maintaining/engineering a corporate culture was the way to get workers to want what the organisation wanted them to want (i.e. full commitment and sustained effort). This is also in line with Bunting’s (2004) ‘willing slaves’ thesis. These landmark studies, carried out in different contexts, suggest that it is not autonomy9, but a perception of autonomy in the workplace that seems to be the critical factor that shapes workers’ attitudes and sustains work intensification, an assumption that has long been core in the movement towards building strong corporate cultures (Peters, Waterman & Jones, 1982; Willmott, 1993). More recent organisational studies are retaking this route with the aim of better understanding how to explain the increasingly prevalent practices of overworking in knowledge work contexts and the associated ‘autonomy paradox’, and have proposed expanded explanations referring to self-entrapment (Michel, 2012; 2014) or illusio (Lupu & Empson, 2015) that connect back to Bourdieu’s habitus (e.g. 2008) to frame the partially unconscious processes involved in the intensification of knowledge work (or overworking).

Discussion

We started our article by highlighting the relevance of the knowledge work intensification process and pointing to the emerging ‘stress of higher status’ that suggests that increasing job demands, together with some types of control/resources in the workplace, might have the counterintuitive effect of exacerbating demands, challenging current psychosocial risk models. Our article has tried to contribute to a better understanding of this dynamic by reflecting on its connections with selfmanagement trends, using a case study of a leading American multinational in the ICT sector in Spain. We have referred to critical research that draws on the work of Foucault, and particularly on his work on subjectification processes, to better understand the connection between self-management and knowledge intensification and their implications for psychosocial risk models. We have discussed how self-management implies the mobilisation of subjectivity together with its subjugation and have analysed some of the complex dynamics involved. More specifically, we have detailed how the turn to self-management in our knowledge-intensive and boundaryless environment is parallel to a shift involving the internalisation of the external environment (with its uncertainties, complexities, dilemmas) and a change from a worker that used to be involved in coping with external demands towards one who actively participates in generating them. We have further argued that self-management also involves generating the right type of personal and organisational resources in the workplace and the mandatory internalisation of responsibility. The shift towards self-management also implies the internalisation of organisational control, discipline and self-monitoring, in line with the organisation’s expectations, goals and culture. The self-managed worker enjoys only a partial and instrumental autonomy, consistent with what has been termed ‘caged discretion’ (Muhr, Pedersen & Alvesson, 2012) or ‘practical autonomy’ (Willmott, 1993). We analysed the connections between self-management trends and subjectification processes in order to explain the intensification of knowledge work and discussed four specific dynamics that interact with this intensification to affect workers’ vulnerabilities: 1. The autonomy paradox; 2. Atomisation and lack of social support; 3. Permanent accountability and insecurity; 4. Newer difficulties in setting boundaries. We have paid special attention to the so-called ‘autonomy paradox’, that refers to the paradoxical trend that high-level knowledge workers with apparent high levels of autonomy seem to end up not using their supposed autonomy, reviewing previous explanations that use terms such as ‘self-entrapment’ (Michel, 2014), ‘illusio’ (Lupu & Empson, 2015) and ‘win-win fantasies’ (Ekman, 2015) to describe the features that drive the overworking and intensification trends that endanger health and personal relations. The core of this autonomy paradox is that workers defend it as their own choice, or in other words blame themselves, even though some research has found that employees seem to gain an expanded perspective retrospectively (for example, after breakdowns or having children …)31. We have tried to contribute to this debate, revisiting the subjectification process, and have suggested that double thinking mechanisms may play a part, together with partial autonomy and the partially unconscious drives to defend/ develop their material and symbolic positions. More generally, this autonomy paradox cannot be understood without referring to more general trends towards the ‘enterprising self’ and managerialism (Costea, Crump & Amiridis, 2008; Du Gay, 1995; Rose, 1990). The autonomy paradox is a good example of the ongoing success of normative and neo-normative controls to drive the knowledge work intensification process. It has the additionally insidious and worrying effect of enforcing organisational controls without leaving marks, because it is workers themselves who self-control, a dynamic they perceive as their own choice. We have also discussed the implications for psychosocial risk models of the blurring and internalisation of demands and resources in the self-management and boundaryless contexts, leading to two conclusions: that knowledge workers not only need to cope with demands but also participate in their generation; and that resources are not only helpful for coping with demands but also generate additional demands. From a psychosocial risks perspective, these trends imply a need to rethink current models that could benefit from a dialogue between psychology of work and more socio-political perspectives. There are some threads that seem worthwhile to explore to advance such a dialogue between psychology of work and organisations and critical research. In particular, the recent ‘heavy work investment’ literature, with its increased focus on situational elements, is being connected with the antecedents of the workaholism and work engagement phenomena32, and more specifically with the self-determination theory of Deci and Ryan (2000). This could have synergies with more critical organisational control literature (e.g. linking ‘introjected’ and ‘internalised’ motivations in self determination theory with the normative controls posited in the more critical literature). Another promising element to further increase dialogue among mainstream and critical literatures would be the linkage between the subjectification process associated with intensification and so-called ‘performance-based self-esteem’. It is also relevant to explore the potential implications of our analysis for wider society. Our case study explicitly articulates the interplay between the so-called ‘enterprising self ’ dynamics with the intensification of knowledge work in an advanced workplace that might anticipate future trends. Our findings are consistent with what Byung-Chul (2012) has asserted as societal trends: a subject that has internalised the pressures and the controls, that is driven by fantasies of ‘yes, you can’, by self exhortations to performance that ends up as self-exploitation but, nevertheless, perceives these as free choices. In this context, if we assume that our research can inform wider trends, we might have reasons to worry, since the knowledge work intensification processes that developed economies are experiencing seem to bring newer and more insidious risks for health and personal relations. Finally, assessing and regulating these dynamics can become trickier than in the past because of the complexities and blurred character of the responsibilities that are being internalised. On the surface, it might seem that it is up to individuals to ‘decide when to stop’, more so when many workers seem to perceive it that way (another instance of the autonomy paradox). At the workplace, their decisions are conditioned by organisational goals and expectations, incentives, punishments and controls that have been internalised and are then difficult to observe or question. The regulation of this intensification, overworking and/or workaholism in a boundaryless environment that promotes self-management, is then left to individual choices that are conditioned by many social forces (consciously and unconsciously). It is not the individual choices that we should focus on, but on the social process that drive subjectification and make workers perceive the intensification as their own choice, in workplaces and beyond.33

Key Words

Autom

Subjectification

Since subjectivity now plays an essential role in organisations (Edwards & Nicoll, 2007; Miller & Rose, 1990; Tracy & Trethewey, 2005), organisational controls have had to evolve accordingly: from the Tayloristic so-called ‘hard’ controls with the worker as an appendix of the machine17 to softer controls that operate in tandem with the hard ones (Karreman & Alvesson, 2004) and redesign the moral contract between workers and organisations (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992; E. Crespo, Prieto & Serrano, 2009; Lahera Sánchez, 2004; Willmott, 1993).

Power and control are internalised and the subject becomes intensively involved in his or her own vigilance/ monitoring and performance evaluation in a form of self-subjugation (Amigot Leache & Martínez, 2013; Muhr, Pedersen & Alvesson, 2012). In order to cope with external demands, self-managed individuals internalise them in a way that merges structure and agency, removing the marks of explicit controls in the process. This is a requirement for the quick adaptation and innovation that organisations need, but also a dynamic that leaves subjects/workers as the main actors in their oppression (Alaluf & Rolle, 2003).

We argue that understanding this growing sophistication of the normative controls, connected with subjectification processes is critical for explaining the trends of work intensification and overworking that impel knowledge workers to use autonomy to self-intensify and perceive their efforts as self-chosen.

The new developments in self-management do not only ensure discipline and normalisation, but also render their oppressive dimensions invisible, shifting conflicts into a sphere of productive complicity and consent. From this perspective, self-management becomes an increasingly insidious way for organisations to exercise a more intense and invasive power.

Employees also experience a great deal of ambiguity in relation to the sense-making processes, similar to those found in double bind environments (Bateson, Jackson, Haley & Weakland, 1963). They seem to experience intrinsic satisfaction with the content and self-managed organisation of work (in theory and in their discourses), but, at the same time, they have to deal with a highly demanding context they do not seem to be able to control (in terms of practice and behaviours). The final outcome is an enormous pressure, driving the intensification of work, a dynamic with risks for health and personal relations at the workplace and beyond.

On the one hand, workers have to self-develop and self-actualise as competent and individual subjects managing their own subjectivity; on the other hand, it is demanded that they internalise the organisational objectives as their own (‘either you move, or you are dead’). The exhortations to take personal responsibility imply that external risks and contradictions are transferred to the realm of self-regulation, becoming a problem of engineering the self (Lemke, 2001) with contradictory demands. In summary, freedom and autonomy also become mechanisms of self-submission, heightening subjugation and fragility in a new nexus and microphysics of power that contribute to the intensification of knowledge work. In a post-regulatory era, normative/neo-normative controls operate through the encouragement of freedom, the injunction to ‘just be yourself ’ (Fleming & Sturdy, 2009) and the promotion of self-governing capabilities. In terms of psychosocial risks, self-management and autonomy become resources that generate additional demands and, more importantly, are used to legitimise demands, because they are perceived as self-chosen. In this way, intensification becomes self-intensification.

Heavy work investment
‘performance-based self-esteem’ (Hjarsbech et al., 2015; Löve, Hagberg & Dellve, 2011; Verdonk, de Rijk, Klinge & de Vries, 2008), a
Enterprising self
Managerialism
Self-Entrapment

‘false consciousness’, ‘self-entrapment’, or an ‘ìllusio’ linked to a specific habitus (Bourdieu, 2008; Lupu & Empson, 2015; Michel, 2012, 2014; Muhr, Pedersen & Alvesson, 2012).
Double Thinking

First, workers probably experience this condition as freedom because of subjectification processes that activate doublethinking (El-Sawad, Arnold & Cohen, 2004; Orwell, 1949; Willmott, 1993). For example, the interviewee is able to say that a core organisational expectation is ‘working long hours’, implicitly suggesting that there is no alternative to long working hours (‘I would not be in a company like this one ...’), but at the same time he or she is able to contradict him or herself affirming that he or she has ‘absolute freedom’. In practice, doublethinking refers to being able to hold and articulate contradictory arguments and beliefs, without being fully aware, as if it is possible to forget what needs to be forgotten, at a given moment, to present a certain account, and even to forget what has been forgotten (El-Sawad, Arnold & Cohen, 2004). This could be regarded as an intentional lack of reflexivity, partially unconscious. El-Sawad et al also refer to Giddens (1991) concept of ‘bracketing’ between practical consciousness (what can be done) and discursive consciousness (what can be said) as a helpful concept for understanding the doublethinking process.

Fake autonomy

Second, we might also argue that this doublethinking is supported by some real autonomy around the hows and means of the work (though not about its whats and goals). This real scope for individual decision making might produce a kind of ‘halo effect’ (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) that might help to sustain contradictory discourses.

Goal
What
How

public autonomy

Third, it can also be argued that such doublethinking and discourses about autonomy are also useful to defend, secure and develop workers’ personal and social identities: to be able to say to themselves and their significant others that they have a choice, at least in comparison with the material and symbolic alternatives that are available elsewhere in the labour market. Furthermore, it enables them to develop the win-win fantasy of an imaginary limitless personhood that ‘assumes responsibility, develops personally, thrives in intensity and successfully fuses private and public life’ (Ekman, 2015).

performance-based self-esteem
Manufacturing Consent (Burawoy)
Willig slaves hypothesis (Bunting - 2004)
Work intensification

Boundaryless work

Context as one in which there is a blurring or breaking of traditional regulations/boundaries around work. Boundaries between control/resources and demands also blur, and it is no longer clear where control lies, whether resources help to cope and/or generate demands, what is personal and what is organisational and even what is labour and what is capital, in line with the neoliberal governmentality thesis (Lemke, 2001). One critical implication is that boundaries between manager and employees in knowledge work also become increasingly blurred and management becomes more and more self-management12, something that complicates assessments of demands and different types of controls and resources, the essential dimensions of psychosocial risk models. More specifically, two trends can be observed.. [...] In summary, the transition towards self-management in a boundaryless knowledge work context challenges current psychosocial risk models that need to be re-invented in line with a more complex approach that, on the one hand, unpacks demands and control/resources and, on the other hand, considers the mechanisms involved in their formation (influenced by blurring and internalisation forces) and their interactions. In such environments, it becomes more and more difficult to attribute responsibilities and assess psychosocial risks, since experienced demands and control/resources (specifically, autonomy) are increasingly fused and perceived as an individual free choice, the core of the ‘autonomy paradox’, something we turn to discuss now, following the subjectification literature.

Summary: Knowledge work intensification and self-management: the autonomy paradox

Abstract

Introduction

Discussion

Key Words

Autom

Subjectification

Boundaryless work

Models

Mini Mental Model Encyclopedia

Keywords

Highlights

Conclusion