‘Survivors’ Versus ‘Movers and Shakers’: The Reconstitution of Management and Careers in the Privatised Utilities

Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which organisational politics in a climate of change shape the fate of managerial careers in the regulated utility business. The significance of organisational politics is that it is embedded in a corporate culture which is constituted in and through marketisation and shareholding expectations underpinned by particular efficiency strategies. In the context of widespread restructuring characterised by economic recession and privatisation, the search for efficiencies has largely been brought about by cost reductions in human resources. Since the utility business is unlikely to rely on the growth of their product markets in facilitating accumulation, there has been a shift of focus to the internal dynamics of the firm, such as ways of working and a concern with quality initiatives (Froud et al. 1996). This strategy has given rise to an interesting contradiction relating to the role of managers as agents of capital (Armstrong, 1989 & 1991). While managers are the purveyors of change programmes and efficiency drives, they have become, paradoxically, the focus of attention because they also comprise part of the human resource cost. The delayering of middle managerial jobs is evidence of this development (Ferner and Colling, 1993; Heckscher,1995). It will be argued that these series of events generated an organisational politics which dislocated established career patterns and gave rise to a new ‘career’ path resulting in a deep cleavage within managerial ranks.