Governmentality matters: designing an alliance culture of inter-organizational collaboration for managing projects

Abstract

The concept of governmentality was developed by Michel Foucault to address the specificity of contemporary neo-liberal forms of governance -- premised on the active consent and subjugation of subjects, rather than their oppression, domination or external control. These neo-liberal forms of governance are evident in new forms of alliance contracting in the construction industry. We review the major innovations in organization form in the sector, before considering the specific management practices of surveillance and control that are typically associated with governance in these projects. Project management has been a historically evolving field. This paper reports on an example of governmentality applied to the practice of project management. While governmentality refers to the design of project governance as an activity, the management of projects as a mode of organization, irrespective of the mode of governance, is highly complex and uncertain. These themes have already been widely addressed in organization theory. Here, we draw on recent treatments of them that combine transaction costs and resource dependence perspectives. Moreover, we argue that projects also display an acute sense of temporality, as Schutzian-influenced approaches have explored. In the context of governmentality, complexity, uncertainty and temporality are addressed in a specific and highly innovative project management.

The research methods used in the ethnography are spelt out, as well as the methods used in constructing the interpretation of the case. Economies in authoritative surveillance have been sought through building collaborative commitment and transparency into the moral fibre of a project. The governmental tools used to do this are a strong project culture, monetized key performance indicators, and a stakeholder conception of the project to bind different organizational stakeholders together. The case does not record an unqualifiedly successful project: the governmentality that was constructed had limits, as the case spells out. The failure indicates some issues that the stakeholder theory of the firm will need to address. We conclude that governmentality projects premised on stakeholder conceptions are particularly susceptible to discrepancies between ambition and outcome. In such a context, the constant injunction to improve may itself be an integral part of the governmental method. Hence, governmentality is pa rticularly appropriate for understanding quality management issues.

Descriptors: governmentality, power, projects, Foucault, construction industry, designer culture

Introduction

That power is embedded in the overall authoritative structure and design of organizations is rarely addressed, compared with the attention that has been paid to deviations from this order (Hardy and Clegg 1996). Thus, the 'problem of order' (Hobbes 1651), is largely unacknowledged in organization theory (but, see Wolin 1960). Hobbes' contractual solution to the problem of social order, that authoritative images of the social order are encapsulated in the notion of an implicit 'contract', is still routinely practised in at least one arena of organizational life -- large-scale project organization.

Large-scale projects are constituted by contract. Typically, these contracts are predicated on a climate of mistrust so contractors, anticipating that agents will transact with guile, write contracts as watertight as possible. Contractual enforcement is held in place by governance mechanisms that involve high degrees of work surveillance, to check that it is completed in accordance with the contract (Lundin and Soderholm 1998; Charue-Duboc and Midler 1998).

The practices of contractual surveillance, as opposed to an emphasis on the principles involved (as in transaction cost economics -- see Williamson 1975), involve complex power practices (Clegg 1989, 1995, 2000; Hardy and Clegg 1996: 375) on a Foucauldian model. Despite Jermier's (1998: 236) warning that 'it would be impossible ... [today] ... to explain what separates critical theory's various traditions', Foucauldian perspectives are often incorporated within traditions of 'critical' organization theory (for overviews, see Burrell's 1988 introductory account, as well as the papers collected in Starkey and McKinlay 1998). Foucault was initially assimilated into 'critical' organization theory through an emphasis on close surveillance and control of individuals (Dandeker 1990; Marks 2000). Recently, this has been enriched by organizational work on surveillance, (Sewell and Wilkinson 1992; Knights and Vurdubakis 1993; Sewell 1998), discipline (Covaleski et al. 1998), as well as forms of language (Oakes et al. 1 998). However, these papers have drawn only selectively from Foucault's writings. As these developed after the publication, in English, of Discipline and Punish, the objective of control came to be seen not simply as an end in itself (or a means to greater exploitation, as earlier labour-process theorists had mostly seen it). Instead, management was seen as wanting to normalize the psyche of sub-ordinates, such that self-super-vision became reflexive. For the latter condition, that of reflexive self-control, a situation in which external sources of surveillance become unnecessary, Foucault coined the term governmentality. The theorists who come closest to capturing this sense of control through self-surveillance were Sewell (1998) and Barker (1993), with their emphasis on the normative work of teams. Surprisingly, however, neither theorist connected their work to Foucault's theme of governmentality.