Bourdieu’s symbolic power and postcolonial organization theory in local–expatriate relationships: An ethnographic study of a French multinational corporation in Singapore

Abstract

This empirical study seeks to illustrate the complementary interplay between Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power (field, habitus, cultural capital) and postcolonial organizational theory. Local and expatriate regional subsidiary managers of a French multinational corporation (MNC) hosted in Singapore share their divergent views on managerial assertiveness. Findings from ethnographic fieldwork point to the exercise of symbolic power and the differentiated responses to this imposition. The differentiated value of managerial assertiveness is found to be undergirded by not just power relationships within the organization, but also social inequalities, such as childhood socioeconomic background, within the broader social context of Singapore. Within this culturally diverse landscape, the author examines the empirical representations of theoretical perspectives emergent from the imagined dialogues that the managers have with each other, through the researcher as the medium. Notions of how expatriate managers are assertive by disposition and local managers are, conversely, risk and uncertainty avoidant, are first presented as symbolic impositions of cultural hegemony, before presenting perspectives that concede (‘conciliatory’) and reject (‘retaliatory’) these notions from a postcolonial vantage point. From the empirical findings, the author explores how theoretical dialogues on symbolic power and postcolonial organizational theory may unfold within the context of highly globalized societies.