“The name, sweatshop, goes back to the late [some say middle, I say early] 1800s, and refers to the technique of "sweating" as much profit as possible out of each worker. Once a thriving tradition at the turn of the century, sweatshops saw their numbers dwindle in the face of relentless encroachment by labor organization and social legislation. By the post-war years they were pushed to the brink of extinction. But with the new arrangements made possible by the global economy -- highly mobile transnational capital, computer-coordinated production schedules, and free trade policies imposed by US AID and the World Bank -- we have been able to revive this old tradition and give it a new life in a new land: El Salvador” (Sweat Gear web site).  For a History of Sweatshops, see Smithsonian Exhibit (press here) but you will not find Marx, Taylor, or Smith mentioned there.  

What about the influence of wage rates? Smith (1976) in the  Wealth of Nations, saw the choice about paying each worker a "living wage" was clear, economic and moral:

Taylor (1911) also concludes, "the writer has great sympathy with those who are over-worked, but on the whole a greater sympathy for those who are under paid" (p. 18). And both Taylor and Marx wrote about paying living wages instead of paying the least wage the law allows, and held out viable solutions to sweatshops' "slow sacrifice of humanity" (Marx, 1867: 244).

What was revolutionary about Taylor's (1911) scientific management, was the observation that rest and refreshment are necessary to quality and sustained work. Any profit gained by overwork and snatching time for mealtimes and rest breaks and from paying the least possible bare subsistence wage and over-work in unhealthy and unpleasant situations was meager compared to the output of the high productivity enterprise. 

For Marx, piece-wage was a special form of time-wage. "In time-wages the labor is measured by its immediate duration, in piece-wages by the quantity of products in which the labor has embodied itself during a given time" (1867: 553). And piece-wages, from his point of view, afforded the "source of reductions of wages and capitalistic cheating" of workers (p. 553). That is, with piece-wages, the incentive is for the capitalist to parasitically "sub-let" labor by using the services of middlemen (subcontractors). In England this system is characteristically called the "Sweating system."

On the one hand piece-wage allows the capitalist to make a contract for so much per piece with the head laborer--in manufactures with the chief of some group, in mines with the extract of the coal, in the factory with the actual machine-worker--at a price for which the head laborer himself undertakes the enlisting and payment of his assistant workpeople (Marx, 1867: 554).

Piece-rate wage is a special form of influence, ubiquitous in the apparel industry, and becoming more popular as 1st world transnational firms relocate factories to China and other third world nations.  To Marx, it is in the personal interest of the subcontractor using piece-wage systems to "strain his labor-power as intensely as possible" by lengthening the working-day. IN short, sweatshop factory owners and managers do not believe that less terrorizing forms of influence will motivate high production and paying living wages is just not part of the equation.

And this is exactly what we have witnessed in apparel and other global enterprises: without the external influence/control of government or the global enterprise's influential policies and codes of conduct, subcontractors will use piece-wages setting quotas below living standards and extend the working day, as well as the number of days worked each month. 

How to influence and extend the working day? Fine people a day's wage if they do not clock in on time, subtract the costs of production, such as a broken sewing needle from paychecks; also subtract for any food, lodging, or benefits while confiscating identity cards or working with the police to make travel beyond the factory gate inadvisable.  

For Adam Smith the solution to sweatshops and sub-living wages was to influence capitalism with Moral Sentiments. 

Taylor (1911: 14-18) argued that it is possible to have prosperity for both owners and workers and the diminution of poverty and the alleviation of human suffering. For Taylor, the solution to feudalistic sweatshop factories was to convince/influence employee and employer, to demonstrate that through scientific experimentation, healthy work conditions and expertly-designed work processes -- workers would toiled fewer hours, with more rest breaks, and at higher pay and thereby gain efficiency, while the firm enjoyed the fruits of sharp increases in production. 

How can academics influence the conduct of sweatshops in the global economy? 45 academics just submitted a research proposal to test Smith's, Marx's, and Taylor's options in the apparel industry (Boje et al, 2000). That is to move from what is called "extreme Taylorism" managing work processes with central control and high division of labor, to what Taylor had originally described, a system of work which is productive for employers and prosperous for employees. And to what Smith described as a living wage and what Marx saw as a way to empower workers through active participation in worker democracy. Dare we think of moving beyond Taylorism to more post-Taylor work processes and condition where th individual is more important than the work system? 

We believe this is an attainable objective for global enterprise, its subcontractors, global workforce, customers, investors and other stakeholders. To better understand influence it is necessary to spend a bit of time to show the Tamara of narratives and theatrics that are played out on the global stage.

Global Theatric Influences - The sweatshop is a "Theater of Terror," a "House of Pain." As Marx observed the sweatshops in Europe and the U.S. he saw modern management as the "vampire" sucking every last drop of blood and life from living labor (1867: 233).  He observed that noble citizens joined the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: while ignoring situations there workers were treated as beasts (p. 234).  He observed the "small thefts" for meal, recreation, and sleep time as well as the wage-cheating. "Children of nine or ten years are dragged from their squalid beds at two, three, or four o'clock in the morning and compelled to work for a bare subsistence until ten, eleven, or twelve at night, their limbs wearing away, their frames dwindling, their faces whitening, and their humanity absolutely sinking into a stone-like torpor, utterly horrible to contemplate" (1867: 243-4). The movement to establish shorter working hours was fought on behalf of children, then women, but men were left to toil at 16 and 18 hour days. And sweatshops does not refer to some work children still do. Millions of young females, in their teens and early twenties are sweated, and then terminated when the turn twenty three or four, or sooner if they become pregnant.  Excess worker is as Marx put it "the destroyer of the man" and he meant also the woman and the child (p. 256).  There are modern factories today, with the most high-tech equipment, whose management influence workers with the hunger and passion of the were-wolf and shut them away from sun light and fresh air, and work them unto death. 

The influences on sweatshops, the reason why it is such a sell-out performance throughout the world, is the unquestioned assumptions of pragmatic, utilitarian, and materialism. The assumption is that the influence of the vampire and were-wolf manager is the only profitable way to produce the goods that line the shelves at Wal-Mart, Footlocker, and most of the stores at the shopping mall. And if we opened the doors of the factories making the chicken McNuggets and Colonel Sanders' delights we would see slave management of of animal flesh. Few Animal Rights Society members seem to open these factory doors. It is pragmatic some say, it is part of the material wealth of consumer culture, or just the utilitarian creative pathway of destruction of the free market, our right.  But Adam Smith, the father of global capitalism, did not mean the free hand of the market was without ethics. Nor did Marx, the father of Political Economy, at least its greatest work, say in the sweat shop a "House of Terror, then an asylum for the poor, but now the workplace for the majority of the world's citizens (p. 276). The global subcontracting network is one gigantic network of Terror. And to make it work without resistance from consumers, requires some very shrewd spectacles, some dazzling lights and star performers to turn our capitalistic anthropology away from the brutalities behind closed factory doors. Spokesmen and spokeswomen are recruited from the PR, consulting and even business school to declare that there are no sweatshops anywhere. And increasingly the WTO protest is proof enough that the maneuver has not totally camouflaged the wolves.   The global enterprise clings to the letter of the wage and environment law in third world nations that are too weak to enforce such laws.  The university and stockholders too, send sub-inspectors to inspect the factories, and return with glowing reports, and the next day the real story gets told. 

To overcome shoppers' fear of tragedy, consultants, monitors, audits, and PR agents are hired by corporations and universities (with campus apparel in their book stores), to turn the theater's lights down, to move the spot light away from the third world performers, and focus instead upon athletic, movie, TV, and pop stars. When Tiger Woods takes the stage, who in the audience is aware of the pheasant stitching shoes, or the slave carrying the golf bag?  The postmodernists call into question, the metaphors of "sports hero" and "warfare" cries for "team sprit" and "national esprit de corps."  but the shopping mall theater goes are not dismayed. 

Monitoring of the apparel industry is an exercise in pseudo-reality, a charade, and masquerade ball that rivals national political conventions.  Where stars take the stage, and reporters with passes make appointments to hear the carefully scripted sound bites of designated interviewees at the convention hall. Calls for unity are greeted by thunderous applause.  

The spotlight is not a random inquirer. in the background of the apparel monitoring visit is the mumbling of the workers not selected for interviews, the groaning is muffled by the manager's pronouncements that all is well. And the monitor takes notes, looking exactly where the spot light shines and no where else. Now when Kathy Lee was found to have sweatshops in New York and then in China, Wal-Mart executives scurried to find monitors that would turn the spotlight in less sweaty directions. 

Klein, Naomi  (1999) No Logo : Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies  Picador (St. Martin's Press) USA; ISBN: 0312203438  (press here). This is a great book, tracking the ad strategies and camouflage of major corporations. What does Klein conclude about Nike? 

"There is no doubt that companies like Nike have learned that labor-rights abuses can cost them. But the spotlight being shined on these companies is both roving and random: it is able to shine down on a few corners of the global production line, but darkness still shrouds the rest.  Human rights, far from being protected by this process, are selectively respected: reforms seem to be implemented solely on the basis of where the spotlight's beam was last directed. There is absolutely no evidence that any of this reform activity is coalescing into a universal standard of ethical corporate behavior that will be applied around the world;' and no system of universal enforcement is on the horizon.

Instead, what we have with the proliferation of voluntary codes of conduct and ethical business initiatives is a haphazard and piecemeal mess of crisis management" (Klein, 2000: 434). 

In the audience the masters sit quietly  with the consumers to watch the play. In the rafters, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Frederick Taylor see past the spotlight, and are able to see systems and standards that would proscribe and influence more ethical corporate behavior. A few activist shine McSpot-lights, flash lights really, here and there on the stage, but that light is dampened by the brilliance of the PR light show, a spectacle to behold. Each time the spotlight moves to a well known actor, there is thunderous applause.  Sounds are heard, but they do not fit the plot being played out on this stage.  Noises are heard, but we can not make out the voices and do not know if the disturbances are necessary to this plot. Maybe some scene change is about to take place. This is a story of great and lesser influences.  It is titled the "Jeux de Verite" by some French play writer named Michel Foucault. The spot light moves and invites the audience's gaze to follow.  There are louder sounds that draw our attention away from the shadows. 

Bureaucratic red tape, division of labor, the mechanistic clockwork of Taylorism and TQM would influence us to be mere cogs, to follow the program, to be programmed. This is undoubtedly mechanistic choreography, a spectacle of boredom.  Somewhere we traded security for COMPLIANCE. If we all just follow the program, then everything will be in order, it will all make rational sense, and life will be grant, so they say. This is a TAMARA with decidedly modern discourse rooms, but is also rooted in the feudal performances of church, state, and the old military storylines. Bureaucracy is also a source of stress in our present lives, putting delay after delay, signature after signature, layer after layer, rule after rule between us and our assigned agenda.  In the Taylor Bureaucracy, it means we are centrally administered, monitored, and our thinking does not count for much. Bureaucracy is also a tranquilizer, able to shut us away from risk. We believe those vision statements that adorn the office wall, put there by our romantic hero, our CEO who knows all, sees all, and will point the way. The bureaucratic narrative is a monologue, suspended in an infrastructure that can not copy with the increased traffic and the demand for a diversity of voices. We are influenced just to sit down in surrender to monologue, and mindlessly go through the motions of our day, our mind too numb too think about risk or hear any but the official voices. At the same time, bureaucracy helps us cope with the risk of getting it wrong, of actually doing anything that would break out of the status quo, or the risk of exposing the political hegemony for its nakedness. This influence keeps us running in place. Some say bureaucratic is the substance of our alienation, our declaration that it is all useless busywork; others say we can not live without it. We know the formal and official story of the bureaucratic does not capture our life space, so the quest beckons us when we hear a distant call to find our storyline.

Quest calls us to the journey, influencing us to leave our selfish and mundane life world and take companions with us to find our boon in some far away land and return with its light to transform our very self and our community. Joseph Campbell tells us that our journey is a mythical one, where we read into the events, the saga of our lives, and find some meaning to our existence, at least for a while. In quest, we are influenced by myth, to journey until we can stop and listen, and maybe hear the storyline of our lives. Since we live among so many storylines, we have too many to choose among. Along the questing way, as we tune into the mythic code of the events we encounter, and are busy seeking transcendental transformation, we are likely to trip on the rim of some abyss and may even fall into the realm of chaos. It is so unruly there, we long for the tranquility of bureaucracy.

"Unruly passengers can actually affect airline safety. A NASA study found that in 40% of 152 cases studied, pilots either left the cockpit to deal with a disturbance [e.g. a passenger who just goes out of control] or were interrupted by flight attendants who needed help. In one-quarter of those cases, the pilots subsequently reported committing errors such as flying too fast or going to the wrong altitude" (Thompson, 2000: 2A).

Chaos influences us by letting us glimpse the random forces that spill out of the abyss, the ones that bureaucracy is unable to control. The idea that we can manage chaos is the biggest myth of all. For chaos is everywhere, but not always seen. Yet, turn the lights out in Los Angeles, and in this over-crowded city, you will see that anything goes. Every once in a while, we see chaos by daylight, the craziness all around us turns visible, and we hurriedly seek some complex pattern that will make sense of that which just self-organizes, seemingly immune to our influence, but influencing us at every turn. Can engineering keep the lid on Pandora's box? In chaos, there is no grand mythic to make sense of it all, it is just the stuff of tragedy reminding us that the events are more powerful than we will ever be and no romantic hero will save this day. In chaos and complexity we are aware of the stress of our multi-tasking lives, the speeding up of work and play and amid the chaos we encounter the casualties. The actors in the chaos play, are unaware that chaos simmers beneath the surface, just out of sight, until a triggering event makes it all boil over. We see the boil in the face of the postal worker going "postal" and wonder if being out of control is part of the condition of chaos? We see it in the faces of those parents at their children's soccer matches, that at any moment may leap onto the field and punch out the referee. This is why the National association of Sports Officials has to offer assault insurance to its 19,000 members (Thompson, 2000: 2A). We live in collapsed time and space, the speeding up of the economy of play and work, with so much multi-tasking that terror is in the terror looms. Excuse me I must take a call on the cell phone, while I respond to email in one window, write this in the next, and think about my complicity in the toil of Chinese factory workers in my garment choices, on my mental screen. "Cell phones, pagers and high tech devices allow us to be interrupted anywhere, at any time" (Thompson, 2000: 2A). And for some, that next interruption is the last straw. In scattered events of violence committed by postal and other workers and managers, customers and vendors, spectators at sporting events, we are witnesses to increased rude and selfish behavior, rats in an over-crowded world. Parent compete like rats in a maze for fewer and fewer athletic scholarship to pay for university education that becomes more and more expensive, making a child's soccer game into an arena of potential violence. Our lives are turning chaotically violent, into some World Federation Wrestling spectacle, an arena of terror and we and our children are in the iron cage with the Gravedigger.

An America West flight from Orlando to Las Vegas made an emergency landing in Albuquerque after a passenger became combative and had to be restrained by the crew. Carlos Jesus Chairez, 46, of Longwood, Florida was talking loudly, and when another passenger asked him to be quiet, he became enraged. An FBI report said Chairez punched one passenger, choked another, and wrangled with airline personnel. Federal agents arrested the suspect when the plane landed in New Mexico (Enraged Passenger).

The USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found 78% of Americans "believe rude and selfish behavior has increased at highways and airports. An 79% say the number of people who get angry at the bad behavior of others has grown" (Peterson, 2000: 2A). Chaos crowds too many events in too little time, and asks that we accept mathematical algorithms to make sense of the self-organizing boil. A few chaos and complexity experts, searching for hidden causes of those going ballistic in the age of rage, blame the postmodernists. Surely some Universalist code of ethics inscribed in stone, now shattered by postmodern ethicists, would give us an influence-compass to keep all our impulses under control. Ben Franklin for example, had his virtues, which served to guide his choices and influence the development of his character. David has his Healthy, Happy Terrific Philosophy. The point is that for some, the ethical virtues are a way for the individual to set some limits on the chaos and seek a life space not circumscribed by the bureaucratic discourse. 

Postmodern is our mystery condition, the product of the stress of late global capitalism and hyper-modern technology (biotech, robotic, and virtual) mixed in a cultural cocktail of synthetic and ironic heroes migrating from sports to adorn our garments and minds, and thus influencing us to join in simulacra. To be an INDIVIDUAL is not so easy. Stress is the signature of not only the chaotic, but also the postmodern condition, one in which there are so many fragments to craft into individual identities, once you unplug from the tube and the monitor. I have unplugged from the TV world, but  I wake each morning to find 50 to 100 and some days more email than I can answer in a workday. I am the only person I know without a cell phone; I am sure my quality of life will not be improved by given everyone in the world uninterrupted access. I am already on email overload and work overload unable to bound the demands of writing, teaching, and other university work into anything like an eight hour day, or a five day week; instant communication, email, and telecommuting mean I can work 70, 80, and 100 hours each week.  Still in some sense my web life has replaced my TV life, and I am still plugged into the MATRIX.  What happened to the 8 hour day? Stress from over-accessibility, multi-tasking, and too many swirling fragmented encounters, is an epidemic in global capitalism, and proof says the postmodernists that not all technology and not all science is the source of progress. 

We are already in the Matrix, unable to unplug our mind from the violence of high-tech, webbed circuitry numbing us to the terror in a bombardment of advertising charades, e-commerce promises of virtual-utopian commerce, and instant access via the World Wide Web (now available with cellular access to satellite) of all to all in any time and place. We do not need some movie to tell us most have already surrendered to the illusion of media spectacle. We (I) need to learn how to unplug, to meditate more and take a few more breaks in life.  Why do we not have those long vacations that the French enjoy? 

Trapped in the Matrix -- Reality morphs before our eyes, and it its fragmentation, we choose this chard and that element to craft our postmodern identities, but rarely do we self-reflect long enough to question the Matrix, to see if the high-tech, biotech, virtual spectacle influences add to our enlightenment (See Debord's work on this). The truncated storyline presented to us in the age of advertising is that commodities, especially brand-ones with chic logos will make us happy. The next step is we believe the ads, and believe we are entitled to a life of materialism and over-consumption. Do your children think life should be easy?  Why question advertisings' influence; why follow the Alice in Wonderland rabbit on a quest of discovery? The rabbit is just some postmodern deconstructionist who pops out of the rabbit hole long enough to challenge our commodity castle, saying "it is born on the backs of the starving peasants" and "we are under the influence of media conglomerates, playing us like slot machines" and poof, the rabbit disappears. Maybe learning to meditate while waiting in line for our food, the traffic light to change, the bank teller to return from lunch, the airport ticket taker to call our row number -- is all there is. Without self-control, we succumb to the impulse of shopping rage, road warrior-ness, bank-line terror, and airport rudeness. The ability to deal with over-crowding, long lines, and people who go postal on us require survival skills for our 21^st century. In the postmodern world we are witness to "a general breakdown of social conventions, of manners, of social controls" (Thompson, 2000: 2A). A world in which the vulgarity and terror, where over-stressed people go into rage on a Jerry Springer show, appears to make sense to its spectators. We have accelerated change, collapsed time and space, over-crowded the planet, lost our privacy, and entered a century where spectacle-consumers do not take responsibility for the spectacle itself.

Bureaucratic, quest, chaos, and postmodern narrative frames are inter-laced, intermingling, and interpenetrating narratives that influence our lives. They suspend us between the contingencies of events and the never-ending web of stories. This is where we begin our inquiry into influence?  and this managing and organizing is permeated with stakeholder influence.

What is Stakeholder Influence? - We are influenced by many stakeholders? What is a stakeholder if not a web of managing and organizing influences?

... the concept of "stakeholder" denotes in the first place the management and employees of the firm; in the second place it denotes those whom it buys its services and goods; in the third place it denotes its owners, the shareholders; in the fourth place it denotes the unions; in the fifth place it denotes the lawmaking institutions and those that regulate it in the service of the public. Finally it also denotes nature, the voiceless mammals, the whole organic and inorganic world of used and still unused resources, to which a voice must be ascribed. Finally it denotes the future (Kirkeby, 2000: 58).

As a postmodernist I very much appreciate Kirkeby's attention to the voiceless world of plants and animals. Kirkeby's approach to stakeholders also gives attention to power, how a web of stakeholders network to influence one another and the events that interconnect them from different value positions. 

For example, I spend a good deal of time study how grass-roots groups network together to affect subcontractors who manufacture goods for the apparel industry, to influence the reform of sweatshop-working conditions, toxic-environmental and other choices made by transnational corporations selling to consumers unaware or unconcerned about their own complicity in such a Matrix. It is a web of events in which influence is taking place at the intersection of bureaucratic monologues of denial and promises of reform, quests to find transcendental codes of conduct that will put the situation in control, small chaotic events that trigger news media storms and consumer awareness, and postmodern calls to hear the unheard voices of women doing the sweat-work, and even calls to hear the voices of voiceless mother earth.  Influence is about making events happen, altering the ones underway, and telling sorties about events that legitimate leaders' paychecks. 

What is an event? If we seek to influence, then what is it we are trying to influence if not some event, course of events, or a web of events?  Kirkeby (2000: 218) asks do we have the ability to influence an event at all?; what is it to be inside or outside an event?  Events intersect in time and space, with histories, physical parameters, horizons of possibility, and many other contextual layers (p. 220).  

A market is a complex event and so is the web of events that make up the Internet. We follow stock reports on their trajectories forming a web with other stocks, influenced by media reports that send the trading floor into a frenzy to make the prices right. 

A phenomenology of the event can show that there are events with an absolute negative content, yielding absolutely no happiness and not even experiences worthy to be called "human," as is seen during wars adn terror. On the other hand there are also utterly happy events that appear to grant "welfare" to anybody involved. But most events shall probably constitute a mixture (Kirkeby, 2000: 228). 

The military leader, even the politician (though none recently) somehow transforms a tragic event, a genuine catastrophe that seems to have no happy ending possible, into a rallying cry for solidarity, perseverance, and conquest.  The leader labels one "event" a necessary or unfortunate sacrifice that is necessary to bring deliverance to the survivors, and "poof," the tragic event structure is transformed into a tale of heroic and romantic journey, the conquest influencing followers to the cause. Some are bureaucratic followers who surrender their fear of change, others are eager to join a quest, some see a path out of the chaos, and the postmodernists, what do they know of leadership?  There is something important about a leader's ability to command influence in the face of chaotic events, event events that have disputed meanings, where all are arguing about the map, but to understand it requires we know the concept of influence and its relation to storytelling a bit better.

The Concept called "Influence" -  Influence surrounds us and yet is exercise is hard to grasp. Figuring out and tracing a chain of events so we can influence the events is how managers spend most of their time. What is the significance of this new event for career, company, and community? What are the hidden costs and the unseen lines of causality in this choice? We are influenced by past, present and future. Influence is about power over other stakeholders, and time. But it is not clear which stakeholder has power and which has no influence over events and how our anticipated influence of complex or even simple events will turn out.  We are born into stories of a past we have never lived, asking why am I here, where did I come from? If you own 50% of the stock you have more influence than when you are the "1,235th shareholder" (Kirkeby, 2000: 218). In the present, we experience the immediacy of unfolding events, whose course and outcome have not cohered into an easy storyline we can use to make sense of it all.   Our future is a storytellers' promise of what will be the fruit of out plans, or organizing, ur attempts at influence, our enrollment in some leader's grand vision, and our own imaginings about being able to control what has yet to unfold. 

Can we influence chaotic events, catastrophic events that spin out of our control?  If we are one stakeholder in a playing field that is global, with millions of others, then do we have influence?  If a powerful stakeholder conceal its presence from our view, then do we know what is influencing events, even our own actions?  The very definition of hegemony is an exercise in influence of one stakeholder over another, that goes unseen, unnoticed, totally concealed, even accepted as mere commonsense.  

Events are complex, and chaotic. when you web together humans, machines, buildings, technologies and information into organized behavior, you get some interesting influence patterns that may not always be so routine, predictable, or tranquil. We use planning, organizing, leadership, and control to influence events and map what we think are visible and hidden causal patterns.   Yet it is all so interconnected, and a trivial event can trigger all kinds of storm. In the biotech age, we seem to be influencing life itself, the Matrix of Genomes are becoming sensible so that we think nothing of crossing a potatoes and fish gene structure to create some new hybrid, that is both and neither. 

TAMARA -  If events were all there was, mechanistic science would still be king.  But events are interpenetrated with story, so the Tamara-ish process of making sense calls forth the narrator.  Yet in Tamara-land there are many narrator, and we no longer trust that the official's tale of the events and the web of hidden causes is as valid as the many informal stories that circulate in contradiction to the executive's account. It is part of our socialization to accept the the managers story as the author-ized account of what is really going on, the masters' right to decide what is the truth and story of the events.  Indeed it is the leader's role to be THE storyteller of the organization; to anser the question "what really happened?"  The manager reconstructs for us all the causal interconnects that emerged and transformed us into an event.  All of a sudden, we the employees, the consumers, suppliers, and managers are inside the storied and now official narrative of some event.  Yet in TAMARA, the organization as a theater of many stages, with wandering and fragmenting audiences splitting off to see the performances in many corporate rooms, corridors, and even virtual meeting places, no one person, not even the CEO, can visit all the stages, certainly not see the action that is simultaneous on many floors, in many buildings, across many nets.  Yet, the CEO is the least likely to loose the contest of TAMARA interpretations, but this rule is frequently disproved. 

Next I would like to intersect work by Kirkeby (2000) who skillfully defines Four voices and set these in the context of the play, Tamara, which I have written about before (1995). 

TAMARA-LAND and the  FIRST, SECOND. THIRD, and FOURTH VOICE

First - there was one voice -In bureaucratic theater, there is mostly monologue; other voices are there on the stage but forbidden to speak, or they can only be whispered, their words unhearable, drowned out by the one official narrator who is authorized to take center-stage and speak and speak some more. As Kirkeby (2000: 232) argues it is the right of power to baptize the event, to declare it a romantic, tragic, comedic, or ironic event and then of course make it into a romantic one that fits the bureaucratic pension for influence. For any other voice to speak would be an act of bureaucratic espionage; certainly for the secretary to speak would be unthinkable rebellion. Yet few bureaucratic theaters of organization are so totalitarian these days. Still there are glass ceiling on this stage.  Let the CEO recount the "true" and public version of the event. He is the authorized storyteller. Let him take the stage and speak about cost-cutting, down-sizing, and the need to keep all in control. The hero is this CEO and the villain is the sloth labor, the wasteful apprentice, the agitating unionist, those misinformed environmentalists. With the transformation of this event, the day is saved, but tomorrow an other event will present itself for interpretation, and new heroes and villains will be narrated by the monologic CEO. "The real leader shall keep the event open to interpretation" (Kirkeby, 2000: 236). It is best not to fix the lines of connection too solidly, ore paint the villains in too dramatic a way, the press will release a new report tomorrow or the day after. Ask the CEO of Monsanto, Shell, McDonald's or Nike, they know this practice of influence quite well. A good leader controls and influences the regime of truth. "He must be ready to overrule and redeem any identity that seems proper to the event" (p. 237). they know that "events cannot be controlled by creating stories at the level of deliberate decisions, however carefully planned and shaped through vision" p. 238). By how do they know this without listening to other voices? 

Second - there were two voices - In the Quest two or more players take the stage, but it is rarely more than dialog.  In dialogue the "I" and the "Other" take the stage and we hear voices, but little reflection.  It is no longer the monologue of the I declaring the Other as villain. The Other gets to speak and be heard by the 'I."  There are also silent voices, present because we know there is a calling, someone has placed the events into a non-random order, a journey of discovery, in which the I encounters the Other and some learning takes place. Pe There are so many more consultants running about these days with workshops on dialog, how to make the bureaucracy into a conversation, but it is still just the two voices, the First and now the Second. 

Third - there were three voices - To me, this voice that Kirkeby describes is the same one discovered long ago by Adam Smith. Smith looked at global capitalism and say that without ethics events might well follow a logic of the market place that would not lead to ethical relations among buyer and seller, employer and employed, monopolist and entrepreneur. It is the internal spectator, the voice that speaks to us while observing the First and Second (the I and the Other) rehearse there dialogue on the stage in our mind's eye. And in this model, even two actors on the stage visualize the dialogue of the Triad in their own head, but as well in the head of the other.  Game theorists love such a model,  Two beings in my head (each a Triad of First, Second, and Third) --- knowing that you are viewing me from your Triad.  From this Third voice comes our ethical conscience, our attempt to self-reflect on our dialog and action of self and to see how the Other views us (most likely). As Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations, he also wrote the Moral Sentiments, and forever wedded ethics and economics. Is the meaning of an event always transcendental, related to the secrets of the Fourth voice?  This leader is "utterly sensitive to traces" the footprints of the Third voice are in the details of each event, if can read their chaotic lines a bit more clearly using our moral compass. 

Fourth - then there were four voices -  This is a very special voice, one we sense is about to speak but does not, one that is on the stage but stays in the shadows. In the Fourth, "the event is never over and done with" (Kirkeby, 2000: 237). And with the about to speak voice of the Fourth, we are intuitively aware of the simulation and almost can here the polyphony of voices, a mob about to take storm the stage. We may hear a groan, a murmur, a mumbling sound, but we can never quite make out the words. We can sense somehow the bureaucratic machine, the quest journey, and even chaos itself are just mythic metaphors some people have speculated and articulated about the web of human events (web is yet another one, as it theater a metaphor).   We sense the gap, and we know with one more step we will certainly fall into chaos. There are fragmented sounds, and a deep sense that we are being haunted by a spirit. And we do not know yet if it is friend or foe. This is actually we think an existential gap (Cooper and Burrell, 1988: 108). It is something beyond the ability of the bureaucrat to program to control.  The Fourth voice beckons us to listen to the Third voice about the the ethics of our strategies, aims, and obligations.  But the Fourth, lets the Third voice speak of universal values, virtues, and absolutes. Postmodernists read their ethics into each situation a new, but also into the web of relationships of competing ethics.  The Fourth voice is in the land of the pre-narrative, a story hat has yet to be told, a coherence that has not been constructed, and an event that is not yet.  We may feel the bureaucrat is without clothes simply doing PR, the quest travelers can almost imagine this is an offer of liberation that will imprison, or the tragedy of  chaotic events is being manipulated but we do not know how. The postmodernist can see more contingency than pattern, more arbitrary links than pre-ordained ones, more pseudo romantic leadership than ethical calling.   These pre-narrations almost posit a story line, but not one we believe with any confidence. The Fourth voice is a postmodern one, critical, skeptical, and ready to speak but can not put words to the music. It asks who dares call this organization a theater, and who speaks about this plot?  Who is the author of the dialog, who sets the stage, and who rehearses the actors in their lines?   

Pre-modern influence features a fraternal culture with peer influence. Religion affects attitude. Individuals fight laziness and seek to develop an entrepreneurial spirit in the face of feudalistic bureaucracy where promotion is by who you know, not by your skills. Feudal people have deference to authority and their masters do not consider influence much beyond the whip and rack. Premod demonstrations of hangings and the rack are enough to get tourists to behave. A little flogging in Singapore is still quite instructive to gum chewers. Modern influence utilizes scientific management, behavioral science and human relations to achieve compliance. Yield, obey, conform are the watchwords. Postmodern influence focuses on the individual with self-affirmation and self-discipline. But the self is not isolated. The self is one of many stakeholders, and a dialogue of many voices (See the Four).  Sensitivity to a variety of voices is stressed. But, for premodern times, there is the voice of the Eternal and some people who sit as Kings, Queens, and as Religious Authorities. In modern bureaucracy it is pretty much the monologue.  Though consultants galore try to make it into a dialog with discourse training in how to listen to the "Other" or to make it appear so. In multiple stakeholder networks we find participation, fragmentation and diversity which avoids categories. If I grow up in a country not my own, but speak its language and forget the language of my parents -- who am I?  Woven throughout a postmodern approach is a value for feelings and emotions. How to listen to inner voices and to hear the voices of the voiceless animals and plant? As our friend Bob Gephart puts it "who speaks for the trees?"  Who speaks for the animals? One of the critical questions here, is are people more or less empowered with postmodern influence? Is there empowerment with out some material power? 

Pre-modern influence is solace. Solace, order, lazy, attitude, culture, entrepreneurial. In pre-modern stories, influence was accomplished by the craft culture where journeymen could vote in fines ("Solaces"). God was more alive before modern technology. Sin, virtue, and attitude told the story of a man's influence. Despite the influence of guild and religion, people retained a more entrepreneurial and self-reliant spirit. though Weber finds the Protestant's a bit more industrious with their work ethics (a finding widely disputed). 

Pre-modern influence is ubiquitous in American society. Pre-mod is not dead. Fraternities and sororities, for example, influence actives (full fledged members) to initiate pledges with rituals acts of influence, such as interviews, fetching and carrying for the actives, reciting Greek texts, and instilling that special Greek character through all manner of influence that has been passed from upper to lower classman since the origin of fraternities in the late 1700's. Phi Beta Kappa, was the first Greek-letter fraternity with secret handshakes, mottoes, and rituals. On December 5, 1776, the College of William and Mary started a system that has spread its secret influences around the world. The National Interfraternity Conference in Indianapolis, represents 400,000 mean in 5,300 chapters on 800 campuses in the United States and Canada. Pledges are always influenced more by what they see rather than the stories they are told. Brothers and sisters have a duty to "get to know" pledges and to develop the pledges sense of brotherhood or sisterhood. Pledges are reviewed, evaluated, and voted upon from the beginning to the end of the pledge process. Traditions of chivalry, unity, ritual, and community

Brothers and sisters are influenced to be enthusiastic members and righteous representatives of a chapter. Pledges are initiated and grilled to keep the secrets of the chapter and show proper respect to the chapter and its initiated members. Through constant supervision and coaching, the pledge is influence to smooth off the rough edges and develop character worthy of chapter initiation.

Fraternities and sororities are also bureaucratic in their influence, with executive committees, steering committees, chapter advisors and moderators, and extensive charters with rules and policies to influence all facets of the pledges and actives life space. Fraternities and sororities are influenced by the interfraternal council as well as their faculty moderators and advisors.

Boj: Bob, I could tell you about the secret rituals of initiation in my fraternity, but then I'd have to shoot you.

Pre-modern influence is found to this day in churches, universities, military organizations (especially boot camp), Toastmasters, Alcoholics Anonymous, courts, and even the Congress of the United States. Each has a sense of more senior people bringing along the new comers to be influenced to become upstanding members of their organization. These are strong cultures with numerous rituals, ceremonies, and historical traditions to influence their members.

Here are our stories.

Boje did a study of the printing industry for years and years. If such material is not for you, skip ahead.

PRINTING APPRENTICESHIP STORIES:

The Compositors Wore Swords

They were fond of impressing the newly entered apprentices with the advantage they held over mere tradesmen and artisans in belonging to so ancient and honorable a calling as that of printing: telling them that "in olden time, when none but the privileged classes were permitted to go armed, the compositors wore swords by their sides" (being gentlemen by virtue of their art, and because the first compositor was a knight) and sat at case, to mark the distinction between themselves and ordinary mechanics, who stand to their work.1

The Chappelonians walk three times round the room, their right arms being put thro' the lappets of their coats; The boy who is to be made a Cuz carrying a wooden sword before them. Then the Boy kneels, and the Father of the Chapel [the oldest freeman], after exhorting him to be observant of his business, and not to betray the secrets of the Workmen, squeezes a sponge of strong beer over his head, and gives him a title, ...Whilst the boy is upon his knees, all the Chappelonians... walk round him, saying the Cuz's anthem, which is done by adding all the vowels to the consonants.2

Instruments of the Chapel Ceremony

The Chapel was a system of discipline, initiation, and drinking that the journeymen and apprentice maintained from the 1600's to the early 1900's. "The Chapel cannot err...for the good of the Chapel" (Avis, 1971: 27; Boje, 1983: 10). Chapels collected fines for incorrect behavior, birthdays, weddings, and spent the money on drink and to support brethren who were out of work. Unemployed brethren were entitled to food and lodging, if they could verify Chapel membership in another town.3 Those who failed their apprenticeship in a Chapel could be excommunicated. In the 1800's Germany abolished the Chapel by law, since it encouraged drinking and its initiations were considered bizarre. The 1600's rite of passage to journeyman included the apprentice, two godfathers, and a priest for the ceremony (often the master/owner of the shop). In this ceremony, there was an axe, plane, saw, compass, grape stripper, tooth extractor, fox tail and bells. Other ceremonies included soaking the journeyman in baptismal fashion. "Every printer defends himself, but is proud when the ceremony is over and is duty bound to buy a drink for each of the brethren." In the "Kissing the Bookbinder's Daughter" ceremony of the 1800's, the apprentice's face, neck, and head were massaged with glue by means of brushes and a plentiful supply of white shavings, after a gob of paste had been applied to his mouth. He was then held upside down in a bin of white wastepaper to complete the ritual. 4

Ben Franklin Visited by Ralph, the Ghost

A "solace" is a rule voted in by the journeymen, such as "no swearing" or "do not leave the candle burning." Ben Franklin refused to pay his solace bill to the Chapel and was visited by "Ralph," a unfriendly ghost. Ralph pi-ed(mixed up or dropped) Ben's type.5

Deconstruction of the Chapel Ceremony Stories.

1. Adaptations of Religious Categories. Each ceremony is a stylized adaptation of a medieval age church ceremony to people's role in the technology of their craft. Words like Chapel, Priest, Baptismal, Altar are examples of the adaptation of Church language to business. There is also an adaptation of the technology: words like chase, cuz, bookbinder, paper-board, pi-ed...

2. Discipline. Any journeyman could call a Chapel meeting to vote in a new fine called a "solace." A solace was imposed to enforce a shop rule such as no swearing, no fighting, do not leave your candle burning.6 Remember the craftsmen, as bizarre as these initiations and punishments may seem, were in fact exercising self-discipline. You were disciplined by your peers when you practiced poor work quality. The Chapel discipline mirrored school discipline where master teachers taught their lessons to obedient students. Anyone refusing to pay, could be taken by force and laid on his belly across the correcting-stone, while his brethren applied a paper-board to his buttocks.7

3. Community of Influence. The printer was influenced by the community in which s/he apprenticed to become a journeyman and master. The ritual of the Chapel was the center of their informal influence.

Ben had  PMA! Perhaps no one sought more to discipline his thinking and PMA than Benjamin Franklin. According to his autobiography, Franklin wanted to control his habits by focusing his mind on the best possible virtues. Franklin was following the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, which advocated a daily examination of one's virtues.

THE BEN FRANKLIN STORY:

Franklin made up a book to record his meditations.

"I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue up on that day" (Hill and Stone, p. 125).

Since there are 13 virtues and 13 times 4 = 52, Franklin could also dwell on one virtue for an entire week, and be able to cycle through his list four times a year. Each week he could look at ways to build that virtue. In this way Benjamin Franklin worked in a very self-disciplined way to modify his own attitudes. Here is a list of his virtues and the chart he used to keep his mind focused on PMA.

Table 4.2: BEN FRANKLIN'S 13 ATTITUDES