Instilling and Distilling Institutional Excellence

In this ethnographic investigation of a general hospital, Margitta Beil-Hildebrand critically analyses a much lauded corporate culture. Rather than accepting the managerial and academic claims concerning the mobilisation of corporate culture at face value, in this study she builds upon a labour process analysis and takes a close look at how it actually seems to work. The evidence lends more support to the critical view in labour process writing that modern cultural strategies lead to increased corporate control, greater employee subjection and extensive effort intensification.
 
In this ethnographic investigation of a general hospital, Margitta Beil-Hildebrand critically analyses a much lauded corporate culture. Rather than accepting the managerial and academic claims concerning the mobilisation of corporate culture at face value, in this study she builds upon a labour process analysis and takes a close look at how it actually seems to work. The evidence lends more support to the critical view in labour process writing that modern cultural strategies lead to increased corporate control, greater employee subjection and extensive effort intensification.