This article examines theories about the labour process that have become widespread during the last 30 years, focusing particularly on how subjective control/resistance processes play out in the workplace. My objective is to contribute to theories that highlight how employers’ incorporating worker subjectivity into management technologies cannot be simply understood as increased domination in the workplace; these new approaches introduce new variations in the entangled production of workers’ resistance and compliance. To understand the range of worker responses I argue for a processual power imbricated approach to the construction of subjectivity within the production process in service industries. My contribution to this discussion draws on the main conclusions of my research about the labour experiences of supermarket workers in the city of Rosario, Argentina. I specifically examine subjective control and its connection to the mobilization of the customer’s evaluation of workers.
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