Book review: Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson, Organisational Misbehaviour

Abstract

so doing become a significant drama of dignity. The other main drama – relationships with co-workers and managers, and with clients and other ‘upperworld’ individuals – is analysed in Chapter 3. The cleaners are shown to eschew occupational solidarity in favour of social differentiation based on continual ‘othering’, a process of categorising that positions others as different and inferior (pp. 83–84). However, cleaners share the shame of being underclass members, and with few exceptions, openly practise racial discrimination against co-workers, a combination that warranted more discussion. Although cleaners mainly work outside of normal business hours and occupy spaces below ground level, they clean the ‘upperworld’ and occasionally interact with clients and other workers. Chapter 4 examines the strategies cleaners use to maintain their dignity against expectations of invisibility and assumptions of social inferiority. These include taking advantage by obtaining special access to events such as film festivals, debunking artefacts and art in the city complex, and practising ‘ressentiment’, a deeply felt hostility to the powerful (p. 108). In particular, client complaints about their work offend cleaners’ dignity but ‘talking back’ is risky. Management do not offer support and co-workers are rarely helpful, as they too feel unjustly treated and liable to vent their anger on their colleagues (p. 124). So, with few exceptions, cleaner encounters with the ‘upperworld’ are part and parcel of the drama of dignity. Chapter 6 turns the spotlight on how the cleaners respond to their superiors, including consequences for human dignity. However, instead of a comprehensive analysis of the management system, we learn how cleaners use different strategies to counter security guard camera surveillance, thereby maintaining their autonomy and sense of dignity. In the concluding chapter, Costas argues that the cleaners do find dignity from their work, but this is constantly challenged by their experiences at work as described earlier. Although other types of low status service workers are mentioned, there is no attempt to broaden the analysis. Neither is there any theory development employing such relevant concepts as shame, resentment, respect, autonomy, self-esteem and dignity. Instead, there is a discussion of how cleaners’ consciousness expresses both aspiration and desperation as depicted by two photographs (reproduced on pp. 154–155), which exist on a wall in the ‘minus area’ of Potsdamer Platz. Notwithstanding the above-mentioned limitations, Dramas of Dignity is a lucid and engaging close-up study of cleaners that deserves attention by sociologists and social psychologists of work. It will also animate discussion in advanced undergraduate and graduate student classes.