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Enterprise contested: Betwixt and between the discourses of career and enterprise in a UK bank

School of Economic and Management Studies, Keele University, UK, mna19{at}keele.ac.uk

This article analyses the ‘enterprise’ discourse (Miller & Rose, 1990; Rose, 1989) that endeavours to reinvent employees as responsible, autonomous, self-regulating, customer-focused, team players. In this study of a major UK bank, the staff both endorsed and turned the enterprise discourse back on management and so the boundaries between dissent and consent are blurred. The case study highlights that enterprise does not arrive fully formed and can be a weapon of employees rather than simply a tool of those who seek to exercise power. It is argued that whilst enterprise is a contemporary discourse, it reproduces aspects of a much older ‘career’ (McKinlay, 2002; Tempest et al., 2004) discourse in UK financial services. The continuity and discontinuity between the two discourses fuelled resistance, whilst oiling and obscuring, the reproduction of enduring inequalities, that straddle both discourses.

Key Words: customer service • discourse • enterprise • financial services • power • qualitative

This version was published on October 1, 2009

Human Relations, Vol. 62, No. 10, 1551-1579 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726709336499


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