Multiple realities and contradictions within the transnational corporation

Traditional   management is a sophisticated machinery of signals and incentives driving human beings toward the quest for what should be.  The managerial Ideal is to obtain a perfect alignment between the strategy, designed by the headquarters’ leaders and the operations conducted in the many industrial and commercial settings. The so-called “managers” are supposed to manage a “serious” organization that is an organization with clear boundaries, autonomy, rational and legitimate special purposes and a clear hierarchy, a well coordinated institution with a controlled structure (Nils Brunson, 1993).  In fact, a large international company is made up of multiple realities and of frequently incompatible “working worlds,” to speak like Alfred Schulz (1945).  Invisible local transgressions of the managerial doxa make it possible for these “incompatible working worlds” to co-exist. Most such work consist in disconnecting the strategy and norms designed by the top executives from local operations. I will argue that this multiple and invisible work of decoupling (Karl Weick, 1979) is among the key innovations today, despite the fact that it is hidden. I will also argue that it is a signal of low resonance, not always easy to see or hear but which deserves to be interpreted carefully by academics in search of new philosophies for the private governance of corporations.