Post-Soviet management and critical agency theory.

This paper intends to explore issues of trust and control, as they emerged from the labour process debate, in the context of management restructuring in Transformation Economies. On the basis of ethnographic research in post-soviet manufacturing industry, the paper will present problems faced by managers and owners in carrying out restructuring, unveil the contradictions that constrain their relationship and identify the nature of the social transformation at work in the process. The paper will contend that critical agency theory (Armstrong 1984, 1989, 199) is the best suited tool in problematising the ownership-management relationship in this context. The post-soviet context in turn, with capitalist transition still in its early stages, represents an ideal field for operationalising this approach. The peculiarity of the soviet economic system rests in the limited control by the elites over the production process, which, in turn, translates into a conflictual and mistrustful relationship within management. The emergence of outside ownership in privatised enterprises introduces a new dimension to this contradiction. This calls for problematising managerial issues of control and decision-making, keeping in sight the way in which managerial work occurs in the circuit of capital.

revised and updated version of the paper.