Work, Self and Society

Through an extensive review of data from field work in a multi-national corporation, Casey analyses the transformations occurring in the world of work and explores the effects of contemporary practices of work on the self.
Changes currently occuring in the world of work are large-scale, affecting what people do everyday and altering relations among ourselves and with the physical world. There is a shift in the nature of industrial work, from a materiality of labour and product, and specialization of function, to forms of production that are discursive, or symbolic, and highly integrated. Among the far reaching implications of a postindustrial condition is a dissolution of traditional and modern bonds of social solidarity and a metamorphosis of the character of the modern self. This text examines the relationships between the institutional practices of work under post-industrial conditions and the formation of the self. Drawing on data from field work in a multi-national corporation, the book critically analyzes organizations and cultural practices in contemporary corporate work. The author interprets the deliberate construction of "designer cultures" as a response to the broad crisis in industrial production, work and culture. The book also develops a critical social psychology of corporate work.