In pursuit of (post-)bureaucratic promises: Analyzing the logics of career self-management discourse at a privatized company

Abstract

As a component of post-bureaucratic governance, career self-management provides the hegemonic meanings that make professional advancement intelligible. However, several studies have shown that neither post-bureaucracy nor career self-management are coherent discursive formations. We tackle such tension by qualitatively mapping career management discourse at a privatized utilities company in Chile. Drawing on Glynos and Howarth’s Logics of Critical Explanation framework, we explain how the discourse of career self-management gains traction through the prompting of rationalities, and more decisively, affects, against but also in reliance of the traditional bureaucratic meanings. By highlighting the role played by ideology and fantasy in the (re)production of the post-bureaucratic discourse, we provide insight into the symbolic and affective dimensions that help realize, but also make hollow, post-bureaucratic professional ideals at the contemporary workplace.