Abstract
Recent management and organizational research has frequently noted the complex nature of workplace resistance, and commented upon the difficulties attending scholarly efforts to theorize resistance in organizations (Hodson, 1995; Jermier, Knights, & Nord, 1994a; Prasad & Prasad, 1998, 2000, 2001). The objective of this chapter is to explore the limits/margins of current management scholarship on workplace resistance by means of drawing upon certain aspects of resistance theory that have received attention in postcolonial theory and criticism. In so doing, the chapter seeks to direct scholarly focus toward new—and hitherto relatively unexplored— areas of complexity that may surround management researchers’ endeavors aimed at theorizing resistance in organizations. Toward that end, the chapter especially looks at two features often found in postcolonial theoretic meditations on resistance—(a) the notion of “unconscious resistance,” and (b) ideas of ambivalence, mimicry, hybridity, and so on and their significance for resistance—and examines the questions, issues, concerns, and dilemmas that they seem to raise for organizational scholars engaged in researching workplace resistance.
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
When the sign ceases the synchronous flow of the symbol, it also seizes the power to elaborate … new and hybrid agencies and articulations.
Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, Birmingham, U.K. (June 2000), and the International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester, U.K. (July 2001).
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© 2003 Anshuman Prasad and Pushkala Prasad
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Prasad, A., Prasad, P. (2003). The Empire of Organizations and the Organization of Empires: Postcolonial Considerations on Theorizing Workplace Resistance. In: Prasad, A. (eds) Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982292_4
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