DET ENTREPRENÖRIELLA JAGETS IDEOLOGI: En antropologisk studie av hur arbete och personlighet samverkar på ett startup
Abstract
Over the last decades companies and workplaces have adopted a new type of organisational
structure that aims to involve employee subjectivity as a result of the introduction of Human
Resources to workplace organisations. This shift suggests radical revisions for theories concerning
workplace agency, subjectivity, ideology and organisational psychology. Some critical scholars have
raised concerns, meaning this shift could be seen as a valorisation process of worker subjectivity, a
“colonisation” of employee consciousness and further disguising the power relations between
employer and employee under the pretence of workplace democracy. While champions of this trend
argue that it is a further expansion of democratic ideals, meaning less worker alienation and overall
healthier workers.
This paper aims to discuss how this kind of structural implementation is made into a
workplace ideology in the context of a tech startup company. Arguing that commodification of
personality and the creation of an “entrepreneurial self” are central factors for the reproduction of
worker subjectivity ideology. The analysis is based on the theoretical framework of philosopher
Slavoj Zizeks interpretation of lacanian psychoanalysis, anthropological and sociological theories of
agency and neo-marxist concept of ideology. The ethnographic study is made with qualitative
semi-structured interviews with eighteen informants from different departments of the startup
company. The study is written in Swedish.
Degree
Student essay
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Date
2022-11-10Author
Stacke, Patrik
Keywords
Startup
anthropology
ideology
entrepreneurship
subjectivity
Language
swe