Management: “Identity” and Anxiety in the Contemporary Workplace

Psychoanalysis has a great deal to say to the field of organizations and management, as it would to any field which emphasizes the preeminence of the conscious attitude to such an overweening degree. Management theory is beset with a number of rather large anomalies that have, for the most part, been ignored. For example, despite a large and rich literature in organizational sociology that solidly undermines the notion of rational control, management theorists remain wedded to the idea that such control is possible. The existence of anomalies like this one suggests that management theory is not grounded in science or even technique as much as it is in ideology. A psychoanalytic perspective suggests that what maintains this ideology is the unconscious gratifications that it produces more than its effectiveness in increasing productivity.

A prime example of this is the use of performance evaluations. There is a long line of empirical research indicating that worker performance evaluation not only does not improve performance but positively impairs it, by creating a net outcome of demotivation among the worker group. This finding is echoed loudly by practical managerial experience. Of thousands