Dualisms and Paradoxes with Work. Autonomy Control

The workplace has been strongly redesigned by different processes such as productive restructuration, firms' reorganization according to a centre/network model from the local to the global level, deep management methods' transformations. The article introduces & discusses an analytical device, the concept of controlled autonomy, particularly effective in grasping the main contradictory dynamic in core of these changes, characterizing the regime of action of the contemporary capitalism. The concept of controlled autonomy aims at describing the social space produced by two different contradictory trends: on the one hand, a strong productive fragmentation accompanying the broad development of the sub-furniture chains; on the other hand, a trend in continuity with past modes of evolution of capitalist system, consisting in a rising concentration of the economic & financial power. References. Adapted from the source document.