The discipline of teams: The control of team-based industrial work through electronic and peer surveillance

Abstract

This article proposes a new model of industrial labor process control that maintains discipline under conditions of teamwork. The model draws on theoretical and empirical studies to examine how work monitoring undertaken using management information systems interacts with the peer-group scrutiny that goes on in teams. These represent "vertical" and "horizontal" forms of surveillance, respectively, creating the conditions for a hybrid or "chimerical" mode of workplace control to operate. The article concludes by assessing the practical and theoretical implications that the model holds for further studies of the labor process.•.