From Prem Sikka: We have opened a new web site for critical work in the UK. We have kicked off by placing a "secret" government report on the web site, which can be found in the section marked "Jersey Watch." The web site address is: http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/aaba.htm. Prem can be contacted at:

University of Essex
Department of Accounting, Finance and Management
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: prems@essex.ac.uk.

Also, from Mark Dirsmith, Mark Covaleski, James Heian and Sajay Samuel, "The Calculated and the Avowed: Techniques of Discipline and Struggles over Identity in Big 6 Public Accounting Firms," Administrative Science Quarterly, 43 (1998): 293–327. The following is the abstract for the article:

An ethnographic field study in Big 6 public accounting firms,where management by objectives and mentoring are used as techniques of control, examines how organizations transform professionals into disciplined and self-disciplining organizational members whose work goals, languages, and lifestyles come to reflect the imperatives of the organization. The study shows that the scope and effect of these techniques shaped the identities of organizational participants but that the discourse of professional autonomy fueled resistance to these pressures toward conformity.

Implications of these results are discussed as they relate to conflict between professionals and organizations and to the critical study of organizations.

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