Ideology at work

Ambiguity and irony of value-based management in Bang & Olufsen

Bibliographic Data

ID2402365
AuthorsJ Krause-Jensen (0000-0002-5951-0086, Aarhus University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume12
Issue2
Pages266-289
Publication date2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1466138110362008
OpenAlexW2108903778
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited50

Over the past few decades, the ambition of establishing a 'corporate culture' has largely vanished from corporate agendas. Instead, resources and energy are spent on creating 'value-based' organizations. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Human Resources Department of Bang & Olufsen, a Danish producer of 'high-end' home electronics, I offer an explanation of this shift in managerial ideology from 'culture' to 'value' - I argue that much of the attraction of value-based management resides in the double-edged semantics of the word 'value' and its promise to accommodate economic bottom-line value and deep-seated moral and aesthetic values. My material suggests, however, that this ambiguity confuses more than it clarifies and leads to ironic and counter-intentional consequences. The identification of the values, which was meant to congregate the employees, came to symbolize and engender a split between staff and other parts of the company

Aesthetics · Ambiguity · Economics · Environmental ethics · Ethnography · Ideology · Irony · Linguistics · Management · Organizational culture · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Anthropology · Ethics in Business and Education · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Management Theory and Practice · Philosophy

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