Unit 6_CM410_Discussion response

13648Respond or elaborate on the response below:

During my time working in a highly structured call center, I experienced firsthand the subtle ways organizations exert control over employee behavior. The environment was rigid, scripts were mandatory, metrics were tightly monitored, and even bathroom breaks were timed. While I didn’t openly challenge these policies, I engaged in passive resistance by occasionally deviating from the script during difficult calls with hostile callers. My motivation stemmed from my emotional well-being. As Mumby and Kuhn (2019) explain, organizations often seek to shape not just behavior but identity, encouraging employees to internalize values that align with corporate goals. This deeper level of control (this third dimension of power) can lead to spontaneous compliance, but it also risks erasing individual agency.

I believe organizations should absolutely guide behavior to maintain consistency and efficiency in regards to quality of service, but there must be ethical boundaries. When control becomes psychological such as ignoring how employees feel when being emotionally abused by a customer or heavily guiding employees on how to think that contradicts with their personality, I believe it can border on manipulation.

In this context, unions play a vital role in organizational communication. They provide a formal structure for resistance and negotiation, ensuring that employee voices are heard. Rather than being disruptive, unions can foster more ethical and transparent communication by challenging unchecked power. As Mumby and Kuhn (2019) note, power and resistance are inherently linked, and unions help maintain that balance. And as concluded by Egunjobi (2024) in their study on worker rights of the National Union of Electricity Employees, unions “can help curtail or prevent any form of low performance and conflict that might occur between the unions of employees and their employers” (p. 237).