%0 Journal Article
%T WHY WORK? A CULTURALLY INFORMED CRITIQUE OF PAST AND PRESENT SHOP FLOOR INTERPRETATIONS OF WORK
%A MIHAELA KELEMEN
%A DIRK BUNZEL
%A PAUL WILLIS
%J Annals of the University of Petrosani : Economics
%D 2009
%I University of Petrosani
%X This paper provides a cultural critique of the meanings of work as theytranscend different modes of production. Twenty years on from the collapse of state socialism,Western experts are still called upon to prescribe ¡®the best way¡¯ for how productive workshould be conducted/managed across the non-Western world (Jankowicz, 1993; 1994; Kostera,1995, Kelemen, 1999). This ¡®one best way¡¯ usually assumes that the basic unit of analysis is therational, utility-maximising individual; a species, bred inside Westernized secondary andtertiary educational institutions, business schools, or (vocational) training courses, all of theseproducing their special form of ¡®learning to labour¡¯ (Willis, 1977). Thus equipped, this species¨C what we might call, for the time being, the ¡®model-worker¡¯ - is bound to inhabit a ratherinhabitable place, an arena of in increasingly global capitalism: the market.
%K work
%K cultural critique
%K workplace cultures
%K working cultures
%K neoliberal context of work
%K socialist context of work
%U http://www.upet.ro/en/annals/pdf/annals-2009-part4.pdf