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Transforming Power: Expanding the Inheritance of Michel Foucault in Organizational Studies

Southern Methodist University

Although critical scholars have used the work of Michel Foucault to theorize about organizational power for almost 20 years now, many such scholars see his work as limiting and regulate his ideas to theoretical explorations of domination and resistance. Leaning heavily on the work of Jones (2002), I argue that Foucault’s work has broader usefulness when developed through the process of reinheritance. I illustrate how a reinheritance reading of Foucault’s work on power provides new insights into the enactment of power in organizational life. Such a reinheritance of Foucault broadens organizational theorizing on power to move it beyond domination and discipline and on to pleasure, desire, and choice. Furthermore, my expanded reading of Foucault’s work permits the exploration of relational constructs that are predominately voluntary, nontask related, and pleasurable, yet nonetheless powerful in organizational life.

Key Words: power • Foucault • organizational studies

Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3, 283-296 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0893318906296089


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