The Role of Boundary-Spanners in the Control of a Chinese Garment Factory in Myanmar
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2374752 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A H C Hung (0000-0001-9150-0059, Australian National University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1333-1356 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Work Employment and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/09500170231188945 |
| OpenAlex | W4385707954 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 64 |
This research examines the role of intraorganisational boundary-spanners, as mechanisms of workplace control, through an ethnographic study of a Chinese-run garment factory in Myanmar. The findings demonstrate how these intermediaries, rather than facilitating open communication, exerted a restraining influence on their cross-cultural workplace by identifying, dissolving and suppressing the expression of grievances. Wielding relationship-based informal power and position-based formal power, these intermediaries employed various means of persuasion and communication manipulation and disciplinary measures to contain dissatisfaction and maintain stability, whereby workers were directed to abandon their demands and align their expectations with management interests. Merging the literature on labour and management control with that on boundary-spanning in cross-cultural contexts, this article challenges the view that boundary-spanners enhance communication and promote consensus across boundaries, spotlighting the need to examine their activities in light of the profound influence of power dynamics in organisations
Boundary (topology · Business · Control (management · Discipline · Economics · Ethnography · Factory (object-oriented programming · Intermediary · Management · Persuasion · Political science · Position (finance · Power (physics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Computer Science · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Labor Movements and Unions · Psychology · Social Psychology · Marketing
Chinese Migrant Workers and Employer Domination
Formal Organizations
Manufacturing Consent
Life in the Trading Zone
Bridging the Knowledge Gap
Identity Regulation as Organizational Control
Labor and Monopoly Capital
Selections from the Prison Notebooks
Outline of a Theory of Practice
The Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory
The Active Interview
Bicultural Individuals in Organizations
Bicultural Competence and its Impact on Team Effectiveness
Becoming Dagongmei (Working Girls)
Why is cross-cultural management scholarship blind to power relations? Investigating ethnicity, language, gender and religion in power-laden contexts
Ethnic Boundary Making
The politics of production
Exchange and power in social life
Managing from the Middle
The Competent Boundary Spanner
Managerialism, the therapeutic habitus and the self in contemporary organizing
Engendering the Worlds of Labor
Between the Labor Process and the State
Gender and Workplace Dispute Resolution
Interdisciplinary perspectives on interpersonal relations and the evaluation process
Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research
Precariousness, Gender, Resistance and Consent in the Face of Global Production Network's 'Reforms' of Pakistan's Garment Manufacturing Industry
Riders on the Storm
Chicken and Duck Talk
Ethnographic fallacies
Seagull management and the control of nursing work
Bringing emotion to work
Transgressing North-South Divide
Coercion and Consent in Contested Exchange
Labor and Domination
The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences
History and Significance of the Emic/Etic Distinction
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |