Week 2 Reading Analysis Student Name and ID: xxxxxxxx Tutor’s Name: xxxxxxxxx Tutorial day and time: xxxxxxxx

Narcissism and Corporate Life (Norton, 1992) Business ethics and organisational culture have developed considerably in the last twenty years. This leads me to believe that Norton’s (1992) analysis of Schwartz’s theory of organisational totalitarianism (1991) and Jackall’s theory of patrimonial bureaucracy (1988) may be outdated. Nevertheless, there are still things we can learn from these theorists’ arguments, even if new external factors that developed since then may have had a more significant influence on organisational dynamics. Jackall’s concepts of organisation logic defining the constructs of corporate bureaucracy are somewhat still applicable today, although they fall under the more expansive theory of organisational culture. While the structural logics behind decision making, chains of command and top-down management are still used, more recent changes to human resource management greatly differ from Jackall’s theories. Jackall introduces notions of subordinates required to “get the job done” without troubling superiors. Whilst performance criteria like KPI’s will forever push employees to “get the job done”, today’s workplace reforms counter Jackall’s ideas. These changes largely regard matters like workplace safety, harassment and whistleblowing, which twenty years on from when Jackall published his theories of patrimonial bureaucracy are built into the organisational structures and policies of middle-to-large organisations. Schwartz’s notion of organisational totalitarianism hold less practical relevance in business today, not in the least because his studies of General Motors were conducted through a secondary source rather than a first-hand factual account. However, Norton uses this concept to question the authenticity of persons discussing