The Power of Corporate Management: The Powerlessness of the Manager

Whereas the power of management as a labour process has greatly increased, the power of the individual manager as a participant in this process has diminished to an equal extent. The power of management as a whole is expressed both in an erosion of the classical market system (its functional substitute) as in the capacity to restore market relations by 'organized markets'. The power of management occurs side by side with the powerlessness of managers when we consider the relations between and within various levels of the labour process of management: institutional, strategic, structuring and operational management. Increasing rationality of the labour process of management is achieved by this differentiation and separation of functions, but also creates separate and contradictory logics of action. These inner contradictions result in a politicization of the relations between levels of management. As a consequence, individual managers have to cope increasingly with processes of political bargaining. The rules of rationality guiding their own labour process no longer appear to work in the process of accommodation with other levels of management. In this respect the managing of organizations is a form of alienating labour.