Anomie and culture management

Reappraising Durkheim

Bibliographic Data

ID20501059
AuthorsPhil Johnson (Management School, University of Sheffield, UK,, corresponding author), Jo Duberley (0000-0002-3218-8947, The Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK, corresponding author), Joanne Duberley
Year2011
Volume18
Issue4
Pages563-584
Publication date2011-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1350508410392435
OpenAlexW2328387454
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited94

This research investigates how recent approaches to culture management have tacitly assimilated Merton’s and Mayo’s reformulations of Durkheim’s theory of anomie.This reformulation legitimates an instrumental focus upon the need for ‘experts’ to regulate the means by which naturalized utilitarian ends are pursued by developing culture management practices that aim to (re)integrate the mal-socialized. In contrast to this technocratic approach, we explore how Durkheim’s original formulation of anomie, far from accepting utilitarian ends as givens, articulated concerns about the unfettering of egoism he saw to be engendered by the classical liberal free market assumptions at the heart of utilitarianism. How this free market ethos, articulated by recent neoliberal discourses, guides the content and processes of post-bureaucratic culture management manoeuvres is then investigated. This article concludes by showing how, from Durkheim’s stance, such managerial processes paradoxically serve to express and propagate the incidence of anomie. In stark contrast, as a means of re-establishing social cohesion as a bulwark against anomie whilst protecting individual freedoms, Durkheim’s communitarian agenda emphasized the need to establish an organic solidarity, knowingly agreed by all on an equal basis, thereby potentially legitimating a more democratic approach to organizational governance that has contemporary relevance

Anomie · Bureaucracy · Communitarianism · Criminology · Democracy · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethos · Law and economics · Liberalism · Political science · Positive economics · Sociology · Solidarity · Technocracy · Utilitarianism · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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