Competences in Competition: The Manager-Entrepreneur in Large Corporations

Studies about the work of managers are framed within debates about the transition from so-called "Fordism" to "Post-Fordism" or from mass production to flexible production. These discussions tend to sidestep or relegate the issue of identity and subjectivity transformations within the work space to a secondary role. This essay proposes that the work space occupies a fundamental role in configuring identity. This postulate opposes the most optimistic forecasts of so-called "Post-Fordism," which consider that the world outside work is the one imprints its seal on the world of work. The intention of this essay is to inquire, on the one hand, as to how the Social Sciences in general and the Sociology of Work and Organizational Sociology in particular approach the issue of managerial work; and on the other hand, explore the contributions made by bibliography in this field in order to clarify what type of subjectivity corporations foster in their managerial authorities and what implications accompany them in their everyday working practices. Therefore, this article introduces two fundamental debates that have ploughed the road in order to elucidate this issue: the debate about qualification and competences and that of the labor culture perspective. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]