The Infantilizing Gaze, or Schmidt Revisited
The Infantilizing Gaze, or Schmidt Revisited
This chapter examines the globalization of corporate culture. It first considers the balance of control and consent in the workplace before discussing managerial views of Indian workers. It then explores how professionalism plays itself out in the lives of outsourcing workers and describes some of the less than salutary effects of this push for moral reform. It also analyzes the ways that rule-bending undermines the meritocratic aspirations of the contemporary workplace. The chapter shows that management's infantilizing gaze, its project of moral reform, and the “flexible” labor regime are mutually supportive. Frustrated by what they perceive to be the submissiveness and excessive “Indianness” of their employees, management attempts to instill nominally Western professional values in the workforce.
Keywords: globalization, corporate culture, control, consent, workplace, Indian workers, professionalism, outsourcing, management, moral reform
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.