“They Don’t Know Who We Are”: Fear-Based Resistance and HRM in Public Service

Abstract

By reframing fear as a strategic resource in HRM, this study explores how public sector organizations can support employees while maintaining operational effectiveness. Efforts to enhance service delivery through efficiency, targets, and accountability create tensions between professional values and corporate imperatives, leading to disengagement. While managers may use fear to align individuals with corporate values, employees can mobilize it as concertive resistance against identity regulation. Setting our study in the UK Probation Service, we reveal how employees’ strategic use of fear challenges managerial control, resisting the divisions imposed by identity regulation and identity threat. Rather than portraying employees as passive subjects of managerialism, we position them as active contributors to reducing the structural, instead of the interpersonal, imbalance between them and managers. Recognizing resistance as integral to public management allows HRM frameworks to foster a resilient, engaged workforce, addressing those complexities in an evolving public sector.