1998/01/01 by Donald Macleod, Macleod, Donald
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Management and Organizational Studies #Social and Cultural Dynamics
paper · doi:10.5287/ora-y0ykvoboj
openalex publication_date 1998/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
THIS article explores the concept of power, its characteristics and its manifestation in two London offices. It seeks to understand how power is utilized in the workplace and what this can tell us about the world of business and values in the industrialized West. The office is regarded as a microculture. The two organizations examined exhibit different political structures, though they share many characteristics. The research, based on participant observation, provides insight into the experiences of employees in a flexible labour market and the daily realities of work in the publishing sales industry as part of a global network of organizations. 1 The rapid turnover of staff in the two companies and the volume and breadth of communication are indicative of current trends in business within metropolitan centres. Certain features recur, such as managerial composition and attitudes, business target pressures and the coercive use of power. This leads us to examine the daily exercise of power and its various guises, specifically the uses of control and the reproduction of attitudes and behaviour patterns. The relationship between the metropolitan centre and the periphery is also explored, relating the use of power