Company

LOGO

Glass Cages and Glass Palaces

Images of Organization in Image Conscious Times

JANN TEOJACQUELINE TAN

QUN YAO YINRUIXIAN ZHANG

Weber and Bureaucracy

1. Iron Cage 1. Iron Cage

2. Glass Cage2. Glass Cage

3. Glass Palace3. Glass Palace

BUREAUCRACY-IRON CAGE

• Metaphor of modernity• Bureaucratically organized social order • Colonized Bodies• Highly rational

• Metaphor of modernity• Bureaucratically organized social order • Colonized Bodies• Highly rational

BUREAUCRACY-IRON CAGE

E.g EDUCATION McDONALDIZATION

E.g EDUCATION McDONALDIZATION

GLASS CAGE

•Shifting of Western society from concrete organization to fragile work arrangement/ organization•Mechanism and production driven to spectacle, image and consumption driven

•Shifting of Western society from concrete organization to fragile work arrangement/ organization•Mechanism and production driven to spectacle, image and consumption driven

GLASS CAGE

•Transparency =Surveillance•Employee/ Colleagues•Manager•Image-Critical gaze of Consumers•Fragile•Brand easily tainted•Highlights on importance of emotional displays and appearances

•Transparency =Surveillance•Employee/ Colleagues•Manager•Image-Critical gaze of Consumers•Fragile•Brand easily tainted•Highlights on importance of emotional displays and appearances

GLASS CAGE

•Deeper controls•Cultural•Ideological•Structural •Technological•Spatial

•Deeper controls•Cultural•Ideological•Structural •Technological•Spatial

GLASS PALACE

•Container of highlighting its distinctive features•Hide the reality of entrapment•Fantasy•Emphasize on what it has rather than the constraints

•Container of highlighting its distinctive features•Hide the reality of entrapment•Fantasy•Emphasize on what it has rather than the constraints

Flexibility vs. Rigidity

Flexibility applies to individual, organizations and entire society

Antidote to Weberian Bureaucracy.Consumption: mass forms vs. niches;

technological determinism vs possible technological choice; differentiated, de-skilled jobs vs. de-differentiated, multiskilled jobs; fundamental relation vs. complex and fragmentary relations

Whether Weber’s and Freud’s analyses apply to our time?

Problems with Flexibility

Flexibility promotes short-term, opportunistic outlook among employees.

Undermines trust and loyalty insecurity and fearSpasmodic and fragmented careersEmployees lose and confuse on the goals

and direction

STRENGTHS

1. 2. 3. 4.

Efficient Systematic set of rules,Control

Vertical chain of command,Unity form of direction

Fixed Monetary SalariesFairness

WEAKNESSES

1. 2. 3. 4.

Oligarchy-Iron Cage

Inflexibility,Internalization

De-Humanization

•Irrationality

Weakening of

Traditional &

Religious Moral

Authority – Values

Of Efficiency

Pre-dominate

Critics on glass cage/palace

Controls operating through language, emotion, space and exposure (Same efficient as iron cage?)

New forms of entrapment and opposition Intrude into people’s privacy (Enclosure to customer, fellow

employee and managers) Does transparency imply fair and just? Any cultural conflict? Bureaucracy still in the glass cage? Aesthetic labor: value added or dehumanization? Glass cage: a real transparency and openness? Fragility of contemporary control system? Is it applicable to the whole world?