Authority and Autonomy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Desire, Discovery, and Disillusionment in Modern Working Life

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 1-6

3. Affective Labor and Post-Bureaucracy

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 7-42

4. Setting the Scene — Analytics of Compassion

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 43-62

5. Methods — The Solidarity of Detachment

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 63-81

6. Contractuality and Authenticity — The Dual Discourses about Work

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 82-113

7. Captain or Comrade — What Employees Expect from their Managers

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 114-157

8. Predictable or Pioneering — What Managers Expect of Employees

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 158-200

9. Coping with Contradictions — Tensions, Double Binds, and Hybrids

   • Susanne Ekman

   Pages 201-225

10. Conclusion: Shaking Analytical Habits — An Empirical Quest for Compassion

    • Susanne Ekman

    Pages 226-230

11. Back Matter

    Pages 231-253

    PDF

Offers a detailed and entertaining analysis of the daily interactions between managers and employees in creative knowledge intensive organizations. Based on vivid examples, the book shows how both managers and employees entertain contradictory understandings of their mutual commitment.

• interaction
• methods
• organization
• organizations

• Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Lund University, Sweden

  Susanne Ekman

SUSANNE EKMAN is Assistant Professor at the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. She holds an MA in Anthropology and a PhD in Management. She is primarily interested in the complex relationship between freedom and ethics and has recently pursued this issue ethnographically in the context of contemporary knowledge work.

Policies and ethics