Foucault CONTRIBUTIONS to Management and Subjectivity: An Analysis of Power.
Name: ELOÍSIO MOULIN DE SOUZA
Publication date: 20/12/2004
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| MÔNICA DE FÁTIMA BIANCO | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| MÔNICA DE FÁTIMA BIANCO | Advisor * |
Summary: Critical management studies (CMS) or the critical theory in administration has been utilized by many organizational researchers. Inside the critical theory there are Marxists, neo-Marxists and Foucaultian chains. Foucaultian analysis appears in this context as an alternative for studies that involve power theme. Therefore, analyses is made, by a bibliographical study, what is power in Michel Foucaults work and bring a contribution from his thoughts to contra pose to the predominant literature in the organizational area, mainly with the works by Mintzberg, Crozier, Crozier and Friedberg that studied power within organizations. To Foucault, power is microphysical, is not fixed in any point of the whole social structure because it constitute itself from social practices. For the philosopher there is no origin, source or essence of power, because power is something that cannot be possessed, constituting itself as a relation, being able to be executed only by social relations. In this manner, when Foucault utilizes the word power, this must be understood as power relationships. Foucault does not try to construct a theory on power and his work has as a main goal to analyze subjective processes that constitute human subjectivity. For Mintzberg, Crozier, Crozier and Friedberg, power has a source and origin, and they try to construct a theory on power by the ways of organizational analysis and its structures. Foucault thought opens new perspectives for several fields of organizational studies, not restricting itself only to studies on power, expanding and helping the way to analyze organizational management as a whole.
