By this time the consultants and the ERP coordinators declared that many plant side modules were ready for “final” testing and subsequent trial use. Through the repeated (earlier) testing and trial use many employees had developed another technology frame: ERP as an employee visibility increaser. The employees interpreted the increase in employee visibility as a result of integration. I do not claim here that individuals formed this technology frame at this particular time or during this particular period. But, this technology frame appeared in the daily discourses increasingly during this particular period. The timing of this discourse perhaps is a signal that employees used this frame as a discursive resource, a political device.
The employees interpreted the intended result of the visibility increase as increased monitorability of the employees by the management. They anticipated the unintended result as peer monitoring. For example, see a representative excerpt from an interview with an administrative manager (PM):
I: For what purpose or why do we need that kind of detailed breakdowns?
PM: .. those in the top management..will become blind to small differences, for example, differences in the payment details. Unless they see the details, they can't question the subordinates effectively. They can't not only monitor but they also have to depend on the subordinates for explanation and take them in confidence. If they can see the details, there are no such issues. So the top management will become ignorant of so many activities unless there is a break down. So we need more break down.
Below is another representative excerpt from a casual conversation between two middle managers:
M1: ..Gop (MD’s nickname) wants to know what happens on the ground..eyes into our ativities..both an integrated view and a detailed view..seems we have and we’ll have more (work) breakdowns in ERP..Guy (the MD) can even screw us up..we’ll start pushing each other..
M2: yah..chance for pulling each other’s leg also will be then more..many can now peek into many others’ job..
Unlike other managers, the top managers did not connect the suggestions to have more breakdowns with the intention to increase monitoring. Instead, they connected it with an efficiency concern. For example, below is an excerpt from an interview with the DGM:
“ We have more breakdowns..more detailed record of who did what at what point in time…how failed, etc..this is not to punish anyone or even to monitor..in government you cannot anyway punish anyone..we are at the engineers’ and workers’
mercy..therefore, such breakdowns rather will help us take quick action and
remedies..more work efficiency…ya..but anyway MD has the right and privilege to monitor anyone’s task.”
This rehashing of visibility into efficiency or coupling of visibility increase with efficiency increase occurred in many public talk irrespective of the hierarchical status of the speaker and listener. For example, see the part of a formal conversation between a manger (M) and a senior about the modification required in the ERP software:
M: So we’ll have the machine or equipment breakdown: a record of who did the
maintenance, the history of breakdowns and a track of how many times the
maintenance performed by a particular crew or employee failed. This will help us to monitor and take quick action.
In the above interview excerpts, we can notice two points: a) the choice to increase employee monitoring is interpreted as MD’s right, and b) there is no mention of the negative impact of such potentially increased monitoring on employees. Many of the managers, engineers, officers, and TU representatives repeated the first point and mentioned that the issues such as the possibility of micro-monitoring need not be discussed with anyone since it is the privilege of the management to monitor employee activities. For example, here is an excerpt from a mechanical engineer’s (ME)
interview:
I: You mean your work getting more monitored or..
ME: (intervenes) certainly. Our work will become more monitored. But we have no scope for monitoring anyone. That is a very big drawback.
I: Monitoring whom? Your superiors or..
ME: (intervenes) What a joke! How can a subordinate monitor a superior..If you raise the increased monitoring, I mean by your colleagues, you must have noticed, you will be seen as a CITU guy27 or a lethargic government employee.
The points such as a) the chance of getting categorized negatively (e.g., lethargic government employee) if one speaks against increased monitoring, b) the taken-for-grantedness of superior’s right to increase the subordinate monitoring, c) the positive characterization of increased employee visibility and the resultant potential micro-monitoring of employees, were repeated many times. Below is another representative comment by an Accounts Officer (AO) during his interview:
27 CITU is a left wing trade union which in this state has a bad reputation for taking money from people without rendering any service (Heller, 1999)
AO: We will become answerable for each act. Now, there is a check to be given to a supplier. 30 days are over and is still not given. If there is a system, that guy (MD) can see from there. Then there will be question, why the check is still not gone. Then we will have to find a reason. Now it is not like that. No one will come to know about it.
Even if the supplier calls we will say, “oh! check has come. It will proceed in its own way”. That is it. Instead, if the MD or the DGM calls you twice or thrice, on such matters, you will become extra conscious so as not to repeat such things. That is very good. That is not negative. The only negative aspect is cost.
I: How is it good?
AO: Haven’t you heard this saying, “the lethargic government of employees are the curse of our country”…Unless forced, here, people won’t work..such forcing will increase his efficiency, the company’s performance and our country’s performance.
Here, there is obvious mobilization and reproduction of the hegemonic discourses about right of the superior to asymmetrically (asymmetric because subordinate cannot monitor superiors) and closely monitor the subordinate without even prior negotiation about such increase in monitoring. The legitimacy of such increased monitoring is linked to public good and individual good. Interestingly, some of the managerial staff members reproduced the managerial hegemony discursively, along with many other managerial staff members, but resisted it (the asymmetric relations of dominations) behaviorally. The resistance manifested as attempts to reduce employee visibility to superiors and peers.
For example, here is a representative comment of an ERP facilitator from mechanical maintenance division during my conversation with him:
“If I make my activities more visible, that will generate a lot of headache for me.
Therefore, I decided to minimize the links. Why to put efforts to integrate more, make us more visible, and get the displeasure of the management?”
Another facilitator, a plant engineer (PE)) remarked during his interview:
“We thought if this becomes visible to Instrumentation (division), we’d be in trouble.
So we decided to replace the effort we put and cut down its links.”
See another typical comment from a mechanical engineers’ interview:
“If this thing gets to others, it’ll cause you troubles. So we decided to replace the effort we put and cut down its links.”
There were other strategies than reducing the connection (and in turn integration) that the negotiating employees followed: a) they provided less breakdown of activities than they could have actually provided (for example, the activities that were already
standardized and therefore easy to code into the ERP software), b) they reported many activities as non-repetitive and thus having more variations, making it difficult for Itech engineers to standardize and code them into the software, and c) some
employees also tried to get the software modified in such a way that it would reduce visibility of their actions. For example, see what happened to a junior engineer’s (E) suggestion during ERP discussions in KOIN plant.
E: I suggested an individual level login. …..Most people opposed individual log-in.
I: What were their oppositions?
E: Who knows! Maybe some people want to work while others don’t want…I came to know later..During our coffee break they scolded me for having behaved naively.
They told the individual login would help the management pinpoint you individually.
Still another example from MIS’s interview:
I: We were talking about the non-separation of LT-HT sub-module…
MIS:…they demanded separate sub-module login because they didn’t want to be observed
by the peers. They usually postpone a lot of work [I confirmed it through personal observation]…Now, at any time, anybody in electrical (department) and the superiors can check on the readings entered and know who entered it at what time. This kind of
checking they didn’t want.
I: Did they tell you that reason?
MIS: No, they won’t tell. How can they tell this openly? But I know since I was the HOD there. The objective was to avoid getting controlled.
MIS was correct. When I raised this issue in the engineers’ interview (who demanded separate login) although they put forward flimsy technical reasons in the beginning, finally they told me that their main concern was about increased monitorability.
From the above-described attempts of the employees to reduce their visibility to the management and peers, it seems that while the employees discursively agreed with the taken-for-grantedness of management’s right to increase monitoring without prior negotiations and the positive effect of such increased monitoring, they were also concerned about the potential negative effect, such as more employee control and work stress. Therefore, while the employees reproduced the hegemonic discourse of management’s right, they behaviorally resisted the effect of the management’s right and the espoused positive effect of increased efficiency. The employees exhibited their resistance by modifying the software to protect their interests. Therefore, at least to some extent, the negotiators’ political interests decided the structure of the software codes (e.g. number of links) and thus constituted the software. That means the technology was not merely a symbol of employee resistance nor was the technology used as an immutable physical object to express employee resistance. Instead, the negotiators modified the technology to materially realize the employee resistance. In this sense, technology became a materialization of employee resistance. In other words, the ERP software by and in its constitution became another means for resistance, ‘resistance by other means’ as this chapter is entitled.
As I mentioned earlier, I suspect that the employees acts of reducing their visibility, and in turn, the strength of integration (for example, reduced number of links between data within a module and across modules) could also be a resistance to management’s demand to focus exclusively on integration (against employees’ desire) and thereby
increase the strength of integration and get the software running somehow. This suspicion is reasonable given that a) the employees interpreted the management’s call to focus exclusively on integration (as opposed to integration and automation with more focus on automation) as the management’s objective to achieve an integrated view, a visibility into the impact of an employee action on different functions of the organization, and b) generally, the employees had understood that one of the
objectives of integrated software is to generate an integrated view of various activities that included employees’ task related activities. In the next stage, the employees’
highlighted the weak integration without mentioning the role of their visibility reduction efforts in producing that result.
5.9 Stage 6: From an exhaustive information integrator to a weak information