The DOI matches its Crossref record; 36 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-Managing Teams
Abstract
In this paper, I provide an ethnographic account of how an organization’s control system evolved in response to a managerial change from hierarchical, bureaucratic control to concertive control in the form of self-managing teams. The study investigates how the organization’s members developed a system of value-based normative rules that controlled their actions more powerfully and completely than the former system. I describe the organization and its members and provide a detailed account of the dynamics that emerged as concertive control became manifest through the members’ interactions. This account depicts how concertive control evolved from the value consensus of the company’s team workers to a system of normative rules that became increasingly rationalized. Contrary to some proponents of such systems, concertive control did not free these workers from Weber’s iron cage of rational control. Instead, the concertive system, as it became manifest in this case, appeared to draw the iron cage tighter and to constrain the organization’s members more powerfully.
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Cited by
The Network Structure Of Social Capital
Burt, R. S. (2000) · Research in Organizational Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0191-3085(00)22009-1 · Cited by 4,104
The Essential Impact of Context on Organizational Behavior
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What Makes Teams Work: Group Effectiveness Research from the Shop Floor to the Executive Suite
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May, D. R., Gilson, R. L., & Harter, L. M. (2004) · Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1348/096317904322915892 · Cited by 3,483
Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations
Acker, J. (2006) · Gender & Society · doi:10.1177/0891243206289499 · Cited by 3,401
Metadata
- Authors
- Barker, J. R.
- Affiliations
- Marquette University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Barker, James R.
- ORCID
- Barker, James R.
- Venue
- Administrative Science Quarterly
- Publisher
- JSTOR
- Published
- 1993-09
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 408
- ISSN
- 0001-8392 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2006770647
- Cited by
- 2,305
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 53 · 2025: 70 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 106 · 2020: 75 · 2019: 89 · 2018: 73 · 2017: 104 · 2016: 101 · 2015: 73 · 2014: 77 · 2013: 92 · 2012: 121
- FWCI
- 32.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Administrative Science Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management Theory and Practice
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Accounting and Organizational Management
- Keywords
- self-managing teams, iron cage, rational control, Weberian bureaucracy, organizational control systems, normative rules, value consensus, rationalization, organizational change, employee autonomy
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