Flexible Firm: The Design of Culture at Bang & OlufsenBang & Olufsen, the famous Danish producer of high-end home electronics, is well known as an early exponent of value-based management: the idea that there should be consistency in what the organisation does, a certain continuity between what the company develops and sells, and the beliefs and practices of the employees. This study investigates how company values are communicated and the collective identity is articulated through the use of such concepts as ‘culture’, ‘fundamental values’, and ‘corporate religion’, as well as how employees negotiate these ideas in their daily working lives. As this book reveals, the identification of values, meant to create cohesion and solidarity among employees, came to symbolise and engender a split between the staff and the other parts of the company. By examining the rise and fall of the value-based management approach, this volume offers the indispensible insight of anthropological enquiry to expose how social realities challenge conventional management strategies and therefore must be considered in the development of new management techniques. |
Contents
1 | |
Reflexibility the Methodology of Fieldwork Among Lay Ethnographers | 23 |
The Power of Culture | 51 |
Farm Factory Firm the Culture of Design and the Design of Culture | 87 |
Breakpoint Metaphors of Change | 118 |
From Corporate Identity Components to Fundamental Values | 143 |
Brand Religion and Voices of Heresy | 164 |
Working with Human Resources | 188 |
How to Do Things with Words | 216 |
The Social Significance of Flexibility | 249 |
Conclusion | 272 |
Postscript | 279 |
Appendix | 280 |
281 | |
292 | |
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Flexible Firm: The Design of Culture at Bang & Olufsen Jakob Krause-Jensen No preview available - 2013 |