Discourses of global competition : Obscuring the changing labour processes of managerial work

Challenges the notion that “global competition” is at the root of the changing fortunes of large American corporations, and that it is the reason for the recent trend to downsize/ rightsize/re‐engineer white‐collar staffs. Argues that the change in employment relations can be explained by understanding capital′s view of the micro‐economics of the firm, as posed by transaction cost economics and the intentional implementation of particular types of information technology consistent with that understanding. Argues also that current praxis is consistent with, and a continuation of, a long‐term capitalist project to wrest control of the labour process away from as many types of workers as possible.