Contrived Competition and Manufactured Uncertainty: Understanding Managerial Job Insecurity Narratives in Large Corporations
通过分析美国、英国和日本大公司管理者的访谈数据，研究发现管理者普遍意识到工作不安全感，这反映了企业通过“人为竞争”和“制造的不确定性”策略影响管理者对就业状况的理解。
The article addresses the debate over insecurity and precarity in managerial work. It notes while some commentators suggest advanced economies are characterized by managerial job insecurity, others argue the same economies possess stable managerial tenure rates. To make sense of this conundrum, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with managers working in large corporations in liberal-market (USA, UK) and coordinated-market (Japan) societies are analysed. The aim is to assess whether sensitivity to managerial job insecurity is widespread and if so reflects wider corporate strategies of ‘contrived competition’ and ‘manufactured uncertainty’. It is argued such notions can influence managers’ understanding of their work situation through (re)producing narratives of employment precarity. Contrary to the message from many database and questionnaire studies, evidence from this international and longitudinal study suggests awareness of job insecurity is indeed widespread and does affect managers’ views of their employment situation and prospects.