"Who Guards the Guards?": A Study About the Power of Bank Managers Concerning the Organizational Electronic Control

Abstract

The studies about panopticism have a highlighted spot on organizational researches. Recently, with the inclusion of information technology, it creates the digital panopticon, in which informational systems perform the control, including on the vigilantes themselves (managers). Thus, this study addresses hierarchy, power, and the insertion of information technology in banking organizations to understand the perception of managers about their power over the team on this new kind of materialization of power. For such, this qualitative exploratory research used interview and observation as data collection and triangulation techniques. The treatment of information performed was by speech analysis. The analysis of collected data revealed that the manager is not responsible for the conception of work anymore, because they became a task performer, showing their subjection to the system of the establishment and target control; after all, the power is in the system.