In what ways do any of the Amazon leadership principles contradict one another? Home

The University of Manchester Alliance Manchester Business School

Human Resource Management:

Context and Organisation

SEMINAR 2:

AMAZON CASE STUDY:

Ethics, Fair Treatment and the ‘Meaningful’ Organisation

Professor Tony Dundon (Alliance Manchester Business School)

&

Dr Brian Harney (Dublin City University Business School)

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AMAZON CASE STUDY: Ethics, Fair Treatment and the ‘Meaningful’ Organisation

Amazon is one of the world’s most recognised organisations. It was the first to leverage on-

line platforms for selling and distribution, making its first book sale on-line in 1995 before

diversifying into CD, DVDs and electronics and ultimately becoming the ‘everything store’.1

It utilises high-end technologies and robotics to shape and control work and employment

relationships. Amazon is an internet mammoth, heralded as a true ‘meaningful organisation’

by its corporate leaders. It claims to lead the way for its culture of managerial change and

creativity and its identity to millions as one of the few companies of its type to survive the

technological boom-bust cycle.2 As Google is to internet search, Amazon is to e-commerce,

practically inventing this category of shopping. Amazon’s overriding goal is

“to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find

and discover anything online”3.

Financial results suggest the company and its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos are doing well in

this task. At the close of 2015 Amazon shares reached a record $694, whilst company market

capitalisation stood at $325 billion US dollars.4 Jeff Bezos has been lauded for his

achievements, including numerous best CEO awards. Industry adjusted shareholder return

under his stewardship comes in at a massive 12,266%.5

According to Bezos success to date is attributable to a unique culture and capacity for re-

inventing.6 This is seen in inventions such as customer reviews, the Kindle, and Amazon

Web Services. Recent developments include moving to compete with Netflix in streaming,

whilst experimenting with drones to achieve 30 minute delivery times.

In employment terms Amazon has 155,000 people world-wide, surpassing the likes of

Microsoft. Employees, known as “Amazonians”, are managed culturally to be ultra-

competitive and achieve high performance. Amazon is renowned for pioneering creative

work practices. CEO Jeff Bezos is an outspoken supporter of technological innovations to 1 Sone, B. (2014) The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, Back Bay Books. 2 Smith, A. (2015) ‘Amazon is America’s best company. Says who? You!’, CNN Money 15th of June. http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/15/news/companies/amazon-reputation/index.html 3 http://www.amazon.jobs/ 4 Nicolaou, A, and Bullock, N. (2015) ‘Bumper holiday season sends Amazon soaring’, Financial Times, 30th of December. 5 Hansen, M. T., Herminia, I., and Peyer, U. (2013) ‘The Best-Performing CEOs in the World’, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 81-95. 6 Economist (2012) ‘Taking the long view’, Economist, 3rd of March

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reconfigure the world of management by engendering ‘self-management’ spaces where

Amazonians are encouraged to take ownership of their own career destiny and earnings

potential. Bezos is famed, for among other things, coining the mantra that Amazon wants to

be ‘misunderstood’7 and that being normal just deserves to be messed with’8. If the modern

so-called ‘meaningful organisation’ is defined by its cultural identity, employees who are

empowered to maximise their potential, combined with a corporate reputation for innovation,

re-invention as well as wealth creation, then Amazon is possibly the top of the pile.

Yet at the height of its most successful financial year, Amazon encountered its most severe

criticism for being a bullying and bruising place to work. A damming New York Times (NYT)

exposé in August 2015 put Amazon, and it’s CEO Jeff Bezos, estimated to be the 5th

wealthiest person on the planet, under intense scrutiny.9 Allegations included severe work

pressure with workers crying at their desks, aggressive and confrontational managerial styles

including inhumane treatment of those suffering personal traumas such as miscarriages and

cancer, and a culture of constant ‘anytime feedback’ encouraging employees to undermine

one another. The report prompted Jeff Bezos to make a very rare and public rebuttal. The

debate resonated widely and cross the media broadly (see Figure 1 and 2 below), raising

public questions that resonate with themes such as what constitutes a meaningful

organisation, what are the wider societal and human resource management implications of

wealth and success and, in this context, what equates to appropriate ways of managing

people?

Figure 1 Sample public reaction

7 Hansen et al., (2013) see note 5 8 Amazon ‘something new’ commercial http://worldwidegadget.blogspot.ie/2012/09/amazon-something-new-commercial.html 9 Kantor, J. and Streitfeld, D. (2015), ‘Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big ideas in a Bruising Workplace’, New York Times, 15th of August http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0

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Figure 2 Sample public reaction

‘Meaningful’ Leadership?

Amazon’s managerial approach is, and always has been, unashamedly one of ‘hard work’. In

managerial discourse Amazon is evidently unitarist: that is to say the likes of Bezos and other

senior figures demand employees strive to achieve and deliver the Amazon way with no time

or space for externalities or undue influence (such as union representation or independent

worker voice). In fact, the first two words of the company’s motto to new recruits are just

that, ‘hard work’. Bezos himself defines the company culture as ‘friendly and intense’,

adding that if he had to choose, ‘we’ll settle for intense’10. The work regime and culture is

certainly intense and fast-paced. Both originate in the constant quest to deliver for the

consumer, meaning the organisation menacingly pushes moral, business and ethical limits.

This applies to products and services, ways of doing things, employee effort and

expectations. In a symbolic act, it is claimed Bezos periodically leaves a seat free at

conference meetings informing all attendees that ‘they should consider that seat occupied by

their customer, the most important person in the room’.11

10 Streifield, D. and Kantoraug, J. (2015) ‘Jeff Bezos and Amazon Employees Join Debate Over Its Culture’ New York Times, 18th of August http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/technology/amazon-bezos-workplace-management-practices.html 11 Anders, G. (2012) ‘Inside Amazon’s Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes Customers’, Forbes, 23rd of April

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In order to reinforce such ideals Amazon espouses a set of so-called ‘Leadership Principles’

which guide what every Amazonian (employee) is supposed to do in their daily work (see

Box 1). According to Amazon:

“Our Leadership Principles aren’t just a pretty inspirational wall hanging.

These Principles work hard, just like we do. Amazonians use them, every day,

whether they’re discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best

solution for a customer’s problem, or interviewing candidates. It’s just one of

the things that makes Amazon peculiar”.12

The content of these 14 ‘principles’ are unashamedly about driving a hard working culture

that is obsessed with the customer above all else (#1). As can be seen in Box, 1, the language

of macho-leadership is used excessively to try and influence people and push boundaries.

Ownership, and by consequence responsibility, is cascaded down the organisation (#2), with

activities conducted by only the elite best (#3). The principles boast of ‘unreasonably high

standards’ (#6), ‘a bias for action’ (#8) and delivering results (#14).

Box 1: Amazon’s Leadership Principles

1. Customer Obsession Leadership obsesses about customers. Work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. 2. Ownership Leaders are owners and act on behalf of the entire company. Leaders never say ‘that’s not my job’. 3. Invent and Simplify A leader will always find ways to simplify and innovate; externally aware; look for new ideas everywhere. Amazon accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time. 4. Are Right, A Lot Leaders are right and have strong judgement and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. 5. Hire and Develop ‘The Best’ Leaders raise the bar with ever hire and promotion; recognise people with exceptional talent. Leaders develop leaders and coach others. 12 http://www.amazon.jobs/principles

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6. Insist on the Highest Standards Many people may think our leaders have unreasonably high standards, continually raising the bar and delivering high quality products, services and processes. 7. Think Big Leaders ‘look around corners’ and create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results to serve customers. 8. Bias for Action Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking. 9. Frugality Accomplish more with less. Leaders don’t get extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense. 10. Learn and Be Curious Leaders are never done, always seek to improve themselves and curious about new possibilities and act to explore them. 11. Earn Trust Leaders listen. They don’t believe their or their team’s body odour smells of perfume. They speak candidly, treat others respectfully, are vocally self-critical (even when it’s embarrassing). They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best. 12. Dive Deep Leaders operate at all levels. No task is beneath them. 13. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit Leaders respectfully challenge decisions. They have conviction and are tenacious and do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly. 14. Deliver Results Leaders focus on the key inputs. They rise to the occasion and never compromise. (adapted from: http://www.amazon.jobs/principles)

The 14 leadership principles make the ideology of Amazon’s corporate ethos explicit. The

undercurrent is drive for performance, rewarding those that excel and, equally, highlighting

those that are not. Work pressure and intensity is manifest through the focus on analytics and

technology, from the use of 15,000 Kiva robots in warehouses to enhance efficiency and

workforce effort.

Beyond the explicit performance dimensions are suggestions that such principles are

manipulatively dangerous. The NYT report quotes Amazonian Dina Vaccari who worked on

corporate gift cards

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“I was so addicted to wanting to be successful there. For those of us who

went to work there, it was like a drug that we could get self-worth from.”

It is suggested that Amazon even encourages staff to instil similar principles when rearing

their children. Critics find the inference that all Amazonians (workers) are somehow leaders

to be misguided. Warehouse attendants, pressured to perform with increasing precision and

under the watchful eye of monitoring surveillance technology signifies a lack of job

autonomy or discretion to make meaningful, engaged employee decisions. Further, the NYT

times report suggests that the lack of any female representation on Amazon’s leadership team

(relative to the likes of Facebook or Walmart) is likely a function of the principle based

system with its rigid prescription of ‘competition and elimination’, meaning that work

pressures can be increasingly more difficult for women with childcare responsibilities.

Ethical HRM or Cultural Control?

Jeff Bezos’ well-known bias for immediate action, his tendency to micro-manage, attention to

detail, and willingness to push boundaries as a ‘change junkie’13 are reflected in Amazon’s

approach to people management., From the beginning Bezos was attentive to ensuring a good

cultural fit when bring in new hires;

“I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong

person. Why?… cultures aren’t so much planned as they evolve from that

early set of people”14

Bezos’ approach to management is founded on a desire to resist forces that might sap

innovation including red-tape, bureaucracy, slow decision making and unbridled expenditure.

In spite of Amazon’s growth, these lean start-up principles remain. One example of frugality

concerns expenditure on office equipment, while Bezos holds true to his long standing two

pizza test; if you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, the team is to large.15 Amazon differs

from the likes of high-tech contemporaries Google and Facebook which are renowned for

supporting and developing employees through a fun work culture, surrounded by foosball,

on-site massages and independent thinking time. Rather than engaging in a battle for

employee talent based around perks and benefits, the ‘no-frills Bezos is proving the potency

13 Deutschman, A. (2004) ‘Inside the mind of Jeff Bezos’, Fast Company, Aug (85): 52–58. 14 Deutschman, A. (2004) as above. 15 Deutschman, A. (2004) as above.

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of another model: coddling his 164 million customers, not his employees’.16 In a letter to

shareholders in 1997 Bezos wrote ‘You can work long, hard or smart, but at Amazon.com you

can’t choose two out of three’.17 These expectations about the nature and intensity of work

are made explicit to new hires who are screened for bias to action and ability to deliver.

Glassdoor.com, a platform where current and former employees evaluate their workplace

experiences does not hold Amazon with any great expectations, ranking it 3.1: similar to

Burger King (3.0)18

The darker side criticism of Amazon’s actual day-to-day workplace regimes have publically

surfaced previously with reference to the poor working conditions faced by employees and

agency workers in Amazon warehouses. At the warehouse in Allentown in the US it was

reported that workers had to walk distances of 5-17 miles per day in conditions that were so

intense that emergency ambulances had to wait outside for those that had fainted or fallen

ill.19 The New York Times piece extends the criticism to the human resource practices,

performance analytics and array of (culturally-driven) controlling work practices as applied

to the increasing cadre of professional, lower and middle managerial staff. In no uncertain

terms it said Amazon is ‘conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-

collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable’.

The NYT story reports of brutal work practices that resemble something akin to the Hunger

Games peppered with a sprinkling of George Orwell’s 1984 big brother tactics. Veteran

workers use the term ‘Amabot’ denoting a good worker who has become self-directed,

internalizing the Amazon mode of working to ‘become at one with the system’. Work life

integration is said to be complete as white collar and lower managerial employees are

expected to be ‘ever-present’, including checking in and working during vacation time.

Another work practice that has evolved to be culturally normal is sending emails late at night.

When a response is not immediate, the unanswered email is often followed-up with a phone

text message to the person (usually lower or junior level manager), asking for their response.

This sense of normality is evidenced in attempts to add humour to this dilemma:

16 Anders, G. (2012) ‘Inside Amazon’s Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes Customers’, Forbes, 23rd of April http://www.amazon.jobs/principles 17 Kantor, J. and Streitfeld, D. (2015) see note 9. 18 Anders (2012) see note 17 19 Soper, S (2011) Inside Amazon’s Warehouse, Of The Morning Call, 18th September http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc- allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html#page=1

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“The joke in the office was that when it came to work/life balance, work came

first, life came second, and trying to find the balance came last.” (Jason Merkoski, former Amazon Employee reported in NYT)

The culture of voice and employee speak-up programmes, common among many leading

firms to help generate ideas, has a somewhat sinister twist at Amazon. Employees are

encouraged to criticise (even purposely undermine) co-workers using a HR policy called

‘anytime feedback’. Amazon’s leadership principles refer to being ‘vocally self-critical, even

when it’s embarrassing’ (see box 1 principle 11). The Amazon rationale is that this will

engender in-house staff competition. Reports suggest Amazon encourages conflict and

debates, particularly over performance metrics so that ‘there’s an incredible amount of

challenging the other person,”20 with ‘feedback that can be blunt to the point of painful’21

The undercurrent of bias for action and results also forms a significant and harrowing part of

the critique. The NYT article talks of a woman being told to focus on her work after a

miscarriage. Another employee is given a low performance rating because of time out for

cancer treatment. The woman, a professional level manager who had breast cancer, was

referred to a ‘performance improvement plan’ which, internally, is known to mean that the

person may be at risk of being fired. The cancer treated employee was informed that

‘difficulties’ in her ‘personal life had interfered with fulfilling her work goals’. The

performance ethic and fear of retribution is also clearly manifest at the top. A former Amazon

employee referred to his former CEO as the ‘Dread Pirate Bezos’, noting his mandates made

workers ‘scramble like ants being pounded with a rubber mallet’.22

Just as Amazon obsess over customer analytics, so too it constantly measures employee effort

via technological control and surveillance systems. In Amazon warehouses workers carry

handheld devices which report their performance (timing and quantity) against specific

targets. These devices can also receive incoming text messages from management telling

workers to speed-up or to conduct additional tasks.23 A disciplinary point-based system

frames the work tasks as employees can accumulate points for poor work progress, not

adhering to safety standards or uncertified absences. The same workers are subject to airport

security like scrutiny on exiting the warehouses to prevent theft. Amazon is a metric driven 20 Manfred Bluemel, a former senior market researcher at Amazon reported in Anders (2012), note 12. 21 Kantor, J. and Streitfeld, D. (2015) see note 9. 22 Anders (2012) see note 12. 23 O’Connor, s. (2012) Amazon unpacked, Financial Times, February 8, 2013.

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organisation with professional workers subject to ‘anxiety-provoking sessions called business

reviews’. These reviews can be based on 50 plus pages of results, with the NYT reporting that

employees can be cold-called and questioned on any one aspect of their performance.

Commentators reflect that these are ‘burn-out’ practices which have become embedded into

Amazon’s work culture. The NYT expose further reports on a ‘lock-in mechanism’, which

financially penalises any recent hire who exits the company within two years of being hired.

With such negative media around its work culture, some suggest Amazon may alter the way

it does things. 24 Yet with strong financial results, it is questionable whether there is sufficient

motive in the upper echelons of managerial control for any improved staff improvement

change programmes.

‘Meaningful’ Performance: Does the end justify the means?

The sinister, manipulative and hard-hitting images reported in the NYT piece are less a new

revelation than an observation of the contours of global neo-liberalism and market capitalism.

Bezos was quick to deny the harsher commentary of working conditions noting ‘they don’t

describe the Amazon I know’’25 However, he was equally explicit in reinforcing that

Amazon’s performance is underpinned an intensity for pushing a hard working culture and a

focus and enhanced performance using competitive work models and high-tech practices.26

According to the Amazon way, the logic is those who complain are simply disgruntled

underperformers who just can’t do the job and don’t fit: thousands of ‘Amazonians’, claims

Mr Bezos, are happy and eager to stay and earn big bucks. Defenders of Amazon’s culture

suggest that the evidence of the NYT expose is based on ‘rounding-up a 100 or so disgruntled

employees (past and present) out of a workforce of 150,000’. A current Amazon employee,

Nick Ciubotariu, mounted a public defence of Amazon’s practices (see Box 2).27

24 Liacas, T. (2015) ‘What will it take to make Amazon a great place to work?’, The Guardian, 18h of August 25 Price, R. (2015) ‘Jeff Bezos has responded to a report slamming Amazon’s working conditions’, Business Insider, August 27th 26 Scheiber, N. (2015) Work Policies May Be Kinder, but Brutal Competition Isn’t, New York Times, 17th of August 2015. 27 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu

Box- 2: An Amazonian’s Defence

‘During my 18 months at Amazon, I’ve never worked a single weekend when I didn’t want to. No one tells me to work nights’

“Our sheer size and complexity dwarfs everyone else, and not everyone is qualified to work here, or will rise to the challenge. But that doesn’t mean we’re Draconian or evil. Not everyone gets into Harvard, either, or

graduates from there. Same principles apply”.

“I also think teaching Amazon’s Leadership Principles to one’s children is kind of funny (my opinion only, if there are indeed Amazonians that do this)”.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu

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Amazon has an intense business model and has exerted its competitive muscle in a range of

controversial domains including with respect to corporate taxation, legislation, pressure on

suppliers, and in power plays with publishers. Amazon’s own services such as ‘mechanical

turk’28, heralded as a ‘marketplace for work’ which is known for perpetuating insecure,

precarious and low paid work.29 A further counter to the controlling culture of the

Amazonian work experience is that such criticisms have not dented it’s phenomenal growth

and rising value. In that context, it should not come as any surprise that negative scrutiny

about the treatment of employees is of little concern to such a corporate giant.

Defenders of Amazon argue that in contrast to those former employees who bemoan the

culture there are plenty of others who thrive on the Amazon way. Indeed, management at

Amazon claim that expectations about the nature of work are explicit, so that employees

should have appropriately self-selected. One Senior Technical Program Manager, Nimisha,

explained “you either fit here or you don’t, you either love it or you don’t, there is no middle

ground really”. 30 The argument goes that if Amazon’s culture was founded on such extreme

brutality they simply would not have any employees working for them. 31 In a statement to

the Financial Times defending working conditions in its warehouses, Amazon noted both the

reality and expectations of positions:

“Some of the positions in our fulfilment centres are indeed physically

demanding, and some associates may log between 7 and 15 miles walking per

shift. We are clear about this in our job postings and during the screening

process and, in fact, many associates seek these positions as they enjoy the

active nature of the work. Like most companies, we have performance

expectations for every Amazon employee – managers, software developers, site

merchandisers and fulfillment centre associates – and we measure actual

performance against those expectations.”32

28 https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome 29 https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome Crowdsourcing: Prof Debra Howcroft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbcPeVIMzq8 30 ‘What is it like to work at Amazon: Go Beyond the Badge with Nimisha’, Inside Amazon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWFxFBD8Qus 31 Price, R. (2015) ‘Jeff Bezos has responded to a report slamming Amazon’s working conditions’, August 27th 32 O’Connor, s. (2012) ‘Amazon unpacked’, Financial Times, February 8, 2013, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ed6a985c- 70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab49a.html#slide0

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The unitarist undertones re-emerge again and again in the discourse espoused by Amazon: ‘if

we put customers first, other stakeholders will also benefit’.33 The ideology belies that if the

company is doing good, employees will be better off along with shareholders, too. Bezos is

frequently praised for his efforts to dodge the short-termism that characterises the stock

market. With outward facing customer analytics having proved so successful for the Amazon

business model, it may be argued that a logical corollary is to manage and control workers in

the same way, using real-time performance tools and technologically-pervasive system of

monitoring. Former HR Executive, Robin Andrulevich, suggests that ‘purposeful Darwinism’

filters out underperformers: ‘they never could have done what they’ve accomplished without

that’.34

Amazon is an avidly anti-union company which has hired the services of anti-union

consultants to fend off any attempts at collective worker representations.35 With respect to

opportunities for those who are disgruntled or aggrieved, Amazon points to its regular team

briefings and all hands meetings as domains where pressing issues could be brought to

management attention. Bezos finished his public memo advising staff that they could also

contact him directly: “You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare

or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero”.36

Going forward: meaningful or meaningless?

Amazon is one of the few early internet companies that survived and eventually thrived. The

company is renowned for its innovative zeal, track record of change, and for Bezo’s grand

ambitions. What emerges is a corporate culture that is determined, focussed and centred on its

own ambitions and wealth. What is more questionable, however, is whether this neatly

equates to a ‘meaningful’ corporate model, commensurate with a ‘meaningful’ existence for

Amazon’s 150,000 plus employees. With record growth it is unlikely that Bezos will

introduce any dramatic changes in the way things are done or let up on the intensity of work

pressure and exceptionally high performance demands. Indeed, investor and shareholder

expectations for even greater massive returns may only serve to accentuate rather than

alleviate current approaches and systems corporate governance at Amazon. With stock

33 Hansen et al., 2013 34 Kantor, J. and Streitfeld, D. (2015) 35 http://time.com/956/how-amazon-crushed-the-union-movement/ 36 Geekwire company memo Nicolaou, A, and Bullock, N. (2015) ‘Bumper holiday season sends Amazon soaring’, Financial Times, 30th December, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9ec3e288-ae5b-11e5-993b- c425a3d2b65a.html#axzz3vqmXPyzG

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market prices at an all-time high, an unashamedly strong anti-union sentiment, and limited

scope for labour resistance except, perhaps, through employee exit, it is questionable where

the pressure for meaningful change will emanate from.

Nonetheless, winds of potential change and/or resistance are not inevitable. Workers are not

cultural dopes and know when they being duped by Mr Bezos or other Amazonian leaders.

They may be a distinct power disadvantage, but they are not blind to the potential for

collective mobilisation or protest. Underlying challenges in people management issues may

also surface as Amazon moves its business from ‘clicks to bricks’. Its first physical store

opened in Seattle’s university shopping mall in November, 2015. One suggestion is a

physical store brings different managerial and cultural challenges when workers engage and

build relationship directly with customers: the bricks format will enable ‘customers to

experience the tension between front-of-house and back-of house as a kind of pleasure’. 37

Evidently, with a more traditional mode of business Amazon’s staff will have direct

interaction with customers so that any perceived staff grievances will be more directly and

obviously manifest. There is little doubt that Amazon have brought about some leading

inventions of the internet age, in part fuelled by workers who thrive on meeting huge

challenges and demands whilst expending creative effort. As former Amazon executive and

author of the ‘The Amazon Way’ John Rossman put it:

‘a lot of people who work there feel this tension: It’s the greatest place I hate to work’.

37 De Monchaux, T. (2015) ‘How Amazon’s bookstore soothes our anxieties about technology’, New Yorker, 22nd of December, 2015

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Tasks and Questions

You will be allocated into four teams:

• Team 3 will present (approx. 10-15 mins) on questions 1 and 2.

• Team 4 will present (approx. 10-15 mins) on questions 3 and 4

• Team 1 will critique and debate Team 3 answers.

• Team 2 will do the same to Team 4 answers.

Then idea is not to rigidly present and defend, but to stimulate a more rounded debate and

discussion about what’s happening in the context of Amazon, and how these issues connect

and inform the learning on the course (culture, ethics, leadership – among other aspects).

Team 3

• Is Amazon a ‘meaningful’ and ‘ethical’ organisation’? (if so, based on what

rationale; if not, why not).

• In what ways do any of the Amazon leadership principles contradict one another?

Team B4

• Do the issues and conditions at Amazon lend weight or support to any models of

ethical responsibility? (if so which, and why)

• Describe how corporate cultural and organisational symbols can control

employees?

References and some additional readings

Collinson, D. (2005), ‘Dialectics of leadership’, Human Relations, 58(11): 1419-1442. [shows the problems and meaningless of some leadership discourse].

Cullinane, N., & Dundon, T. (2013). Unitarism and employer resistance to trade unionism. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(8), 2573-2591 [unpacks concepts of unitarism]

Cushen, J. (2013). Financialization in the workplace: Hegemonic narratives, performative interventions and the angry knowledge worker. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 38(4), 314-331 [explores the consequences of short-termism and the tensions that arise for knowledge workers]

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Cushen, J., & Thompson, P. (2012). Doing the right thing? HRM and the angry knowledge worker. New Technology, Work and Employment, 27, 79-92 [how leading company HR practices can have complex and often unintended consequences]

Dobbins, T and Dundon, T (2016), ‘The chimera of sustainable labour-management partnership’, British Journal of Management (doi: 10.1111/bjom.12128) (on-line early). [charts an understanding of Society, System and Dominance (SSD) theory relative to corporate change, participation and managerial control]

Dundon, T., Harney, B., & Cullinane, N. (2010). De-collectivism and managerial ideology: towards an understanding of trade union opposition. International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 4, 267-281. [velvet glove and iron fist approaches deployed by management to remain union free].

Dundon, T. and Dobbins, T. (2015), ‘Militant Partnership: a radical pluralist analysis of workforce dialectics’, Work, Employment and Society, 29(6): 912-931 [talks about undercurrent of worker agency as potential source of conflict, even in unusual work regimes predicated on cooperation and mutuality]

Fleming, P. & Spicer, A. (2003), ‘Working at a cynical distance: implications for power, subjectivity and resistance’, Organization, 2003, 10, 157-79. [post-structural meanings on subjectivity of agency and worker resistance].

Grugulis, I., Dundon, T., & Wilkinson, A. (2000). Cultural Control and the `Culture Manager’: Employment Practices in a consultancy. Work, Employment and Society, 14, 97-116 [explores cultural control for professional workers, including how control is extended beyond areas and boundaries of traditional employment contracts]

Martin, R. (2010). The age of customer capitalism. Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 58-65

[value of focusing on customer as opposed to shareholders, ignores any implications of such for employees].

Bergvall-Kåreborn B, Howcroft D. (2014), ‘Amazon Mechanical Turk and the Commodification of Labour’, New Technology, Work & Employment 29(3):213-223. [critiques Amazon’s mechanical turk system of creating a low paid work regime externally]

Pollert, A & Charlwood, A. (2009), ‘The Vulnerable Worker in Britain and problems at work’, Work Employment and Society, 23 (2): 343-362. [unpacks vulnerable and meaningless work experiences].

Smith, C. and Meiksins, P. (1995). ‘System, Society and Dominance Effects in Cross-National Organizational Analysis’, Work Employment and Society, 9, pp. 241-67. [offers theoretical insights into the application of SSD theoretical framework, labour process analysis and corporate governance].

Thompson, P. (2013). ‘Financialization and the workforce: extending and applying the disconnected capitalism thesis’, Work, Employment and Society, 27, 472-488. [advances theory of disconnected capitalism, showing managerial inertia and incapacity in face of changing social structures of accumulation].

Willmott, H. (1993), ‘Strength is ignorance; slavery is freedom: Managing culture in modern organizations, Journal of Management Studies, 30, 515-52. [the managerial colonisation of culture].

Zoller, H. M. & Fairhurst, G. T. (2007), ‘Resistance leadership: The overlooked potential in critical organization and leadership studies’, Human Relations, 60(9): 1331-1360 [leadership adaptions to resistance and dilemmas of agency].

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