Business Ethics

Alienation, Police Stories, and Percival

John T. Luhman • Andy F. Nazario

Received: 3 February 2014 / Accepted: 16 June 2014 / Published online: 30 June 2014

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract There are many people in organizations who

have feelings of alienation; that is they feel they do not fit in,

they get no meaning out of their work, they feel belittled or

abused by their superiors or colleagues; they desire to break

loose the masks they wear, or to find some sense of mean-

ingfulness. In our paper, we demonstrate our assumption of

alienation in the workplace by reviewing a collection of

satirical and ironic organizational stories from police officers

working at a county sheriff’s department. Our argument is

that if it seems that alienation might not be resolved through

organizational change efforts and interventions, or might not

be resolved through radical change of the economic condi-

tions of modern industrial life, then alienation might be

changed through the aggregation of individual projects from

below. We discuss the possibility of resolving alienation at

the workplace by using the legend of Percival as an analogy.

Keywords Workplace alienation � Meaningfulness � Storytelling � Legend of Percival

Introduction

There is not a day goes by when somewhere in some

organization someone shares their feelings about how they

do not fit in with the people at work, how they get no

meaning out of their work, how they feel belittled or abused

by their superiors or colleagues. And not a day goes by

when somewhere in some organization someone shares

their desire to break loose the masks they wear at work, to

find some sense of authenticity, to find work that is really

who they are. And not a day goes by when someone shares

their beliefs that they are helpless to change things for the

better, they do not see any hope for improvement, while the

fault is really not theirs but of the managers, the leaders, the

owners. We all know these feelings and beliefs. We heard

them from others; we have had them for ourselves. This

paper is about those feelings and beliefs—that is the phe-

nomena of alienation in the workplace—as demonstrated by

a collection of organizational stories from a county sheriff’s

office in the southwest of the United States, and is about the

possibility of overcoming those feelings and beliefs by

taking a cue from the Western medieval legend of Percival.

The purpose of this paper is to first discuss the concept

of alienation and how it seemingly exists and persists in

modern industrial organizations. The second is to exhibit

alienation in the collection of organizational stories by

specifically looking at their story ‘emplotment’ (i.e., a

story’s meaning or esthetic perception). And the final

purpose is to consider our argument that if alienation might

not be resolved through organizational change efforts and

interventions, or might not be resolved through a radical

change of the economic conditions of modern industrial

life, then alienation might be changed through the aggre-

gation of individual projects from below. Or in the words

of Hardt and Negri, ‘‘what Foucault calls ‘le travail de soi

sur soi,’ the continuous constituent project to create and re-

create ourselves and our world’’ (2000, p. 92).

Our paper is divided in the following manner. Our dis-

cussion of the concept of alienation at the workplace is

J. T. Luhman (&) College of Business, Eastern New Mexico University, Station

49, 1500 South Avenue K, Portales, NM 88130, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

A. F. Nazario

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Eastern New Mexico

University, Station 19, 1500 South Avenue K, Portales,

NM 88130, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

123

J Bus Ethics (2015) 130:665–681

DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2264-y

followed by a presentation of our method and analysis of

the police stories. We continue with a discussion of the

possibility to resolve alienation at the workplace using the

legend of Percival as an analogy for the call for individual

projects.

Alienation

Seeman’s (1959) article, ‘‘On the Meaning of Alienation,’’

is usually the starting point when considering the concept

of alienation in organization and management studies

(Prasad and Prasad 1993, p. 171). Seeman (1959) described

the concept of alienation in six characteristics:

1. Social isolation: a feeling of not fitting in;

2. Cultural estrangement: a mismatch between personal

values and cultural values;

3. Normlessness: a disconnection between social norms

and personal norms;

4. Meaninglessness: a feeling that nothing makes sense;

5. Self-estrangement: a feeling of being engaged in work

that is unrewarding;

6. Powerlessness: a feeling of being unable to influence

anything.

These six characteristics enabled decades of testing and

refinement of a socio-psychological construct in the

empirical manner common in organization and manage-

ment studies—for example, Blauner’s (1964) study of

alienation among factory workers in the United States.

Alienation in the workplace, as a form of self-

estrangement (Seeman 1972), is usually defined as a psy-

chological state derived from an employee’s general sense

of powerlessness, separation from the context of their

work, frustration at failing to achieve personal or organi-

zational objectives, and lack of autonomy and control over

tasks, all of which manifests into apathy (Kanungo 1992,

p. 414). The consequences of workplace alienation for

employees are poor mental health, increased job dissatis-

faction, increased job stress, increased anxiety or depres-

sion. The consequences of workplace anxiety for an

organization are low productivity, damage to morale,

higher absenteeism, higher turnover, and increased chances

for sabotage. The consequences of workplace anxiety for

society in general are increases to the crime rate and

increases to health care costs (Kanungo 1992, p. 414).

Since the 1960s, organizational researchers have

attempted to find an empirical relationship between alien-

ation and other work life phenomenon such as technology,

bureaucracy (i.e., centralization or formalization), gender,

levels of participation, political behavior in organizations,

or identification with organizations. Empirical results till

this day have been inconclusive. Some specific empirical

studies to consider are as follows: Pdsakoff et al. (1986)

study of both professionals and support staff members who

were experiencing an increase of organizational rules and

procedures. The authors—defining alienation as a degree of

estrangement from one’s work—found no significant con-

nection between alienation and an increase of formaliza-

tion. Pandey and Kingsley’s (2000) study of managers in

both private and public organizations found a strong

positive connection between an individual’s perception of

alienation—measured by how far away they were from

liking their job and having a sense of contribution, pride,

and importance—and an individual’s perceptions of orga-

nizational red tape (excessive rules and procedures).

Bacharach et al. (2002) found no significant connection

between a perception of alienation (a sense of powerless-

ness and meaninglessness) and the drinking problems of

the workers they studied. Sarros et al. (2002) surveyed

officers at a fire department in the eastern region of the

United States and found that leadership style (in this case

transformation versus transactional) had an impact on

feelings of work alienation (that is, transactional leadership

was associated with higher work alienation but transfor-

mational leadership was associated with lower work

alienation). And in the study by Banai et al. (2004) the

authors surveyed workers in Hungary and found that

leadership, job characteristics, and individual locus of

control explained work-related alienation.

Some more recent empirical studies are: in a survey of

knowledge workers in India, Nair and Vohra (2010) found

that the strongest predictors of work alienation were lack of

meaningful work, the inability to work to allow self-

expression, and poor quality work relationships; Sulu et al.

(2010) survey of healthcare professionals in Turkey found

that work alienation mediated the relationship distributive

justice, procedural justice, and organizational commitment;

Ganesh and Joseph (2011) surveyed executives in India and

found an indirect relationship between alienation and per-

ceived complexity of a performance review system; and, in

a survey workers in the United States, Chiaburu et al.

(2013) found that perceptions of alienation were a positive

predictor of employee careerism and a negative predictor

of employee career satisfaction.

Prasad and Prasad (1993, p. 172) who examined the

research from 1960 to 1990, stated that ‘‘the discourse is

still unable to describe the organizational conditions that

create alienation or to answer the question, ‘What produces

a state of alienation?’’’ One problem with the field’s

empirical research on alienation was the gradual dilution of

a complex issue to states of minds such as disappointment

with one’s career or dissatisfaction at work. In fact, one

study claimed that alienation was actually not at all present

among white collar and management workers in the United

States (Saunders et al. 1986). Prasad and Prasad, in

666 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

characterizing the empirical research to date, argue that

‘‘the overall consequence is that alienation comes to be

regarded as a psychological state of mind resulting from

certain narrow characteristics of work within individual

organizations rather than as a more widespread and

anguished human condition’’ (1993, p. 173). Therefore,

organizations from time to time engage in change practices

that attempt to decrease workplace alienation. Attempts are

made to utilize techniques of job enrichment or goal set-

ting, to augment self-efficacy through training or coaching,

or to restructure into self-directed teams or quality circles,

all with a primary eye to increase productivity but a sec-

ondary awareness that these practices and structures may

also decrease workplace alienation (Kanungo 1992).

In contrast to the limited view in the empirical studies of

the last five decades, the concept of alienation has a much

richer tradition flowing out of the writings of religion,

philosophy, political economy, and sociology (Luhman and

Cunliffe 2013, pp. 6–7). The Judeo-Christian belief that

humanity became alienated from God when Adam and Eve

were banishment from the Garden of Eden to live in a

world of sorrow and evil is an important foundation of the

Western concept of alienation. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

believed that humans exist in one of two states of being—a

non-alienated state of the ‘natural man’ and the self-

alienated state of the ‘social man;’ while Georg Hegel

believed that alienation occurs when humans ‘objectify’

the world (Prasad and Prasad 1993). And political econo-

mists such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam

Smith discussed alienation in terms of the universality of

an egoistic human nature and the universality of private

property. In the twentieth century, writers such as Erich

Fromm argued that alienation is an inability to lead

meaningful, self-directed lives in the modern industrial

world that causes feelings of powerlessness and paralysis

(Gemmill and Oakley 1992).

Karl Marx is probably the most important philosopher to

write on alienation prior to the twentieth century. Marx

viewed alienation as a key concept to understanding the

issue of modern capitalist society. In his early writings of

the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,

Foundations (Grundisse) of the Critique of Political

Economy, and his later masterwork, Capital, Volume One,

Marx focused on four types of alienation: from nature,

from work activity, from humanity, and from others. Marx

argued that alienation springs from the conflict between the

one social class that has the wealth or power to own and

control the means of production (raw materials, land,

technology, patents, and capital) and the other social class

that must sell their labor to live. A worker’s only freedom

is to sell her or his labor power to gain wages that allows

her or him to purchase the alienated products of other

workers (Luhman and Cunliffe 2013, p. 7).

This means that what one produces confronts oneself

as an alien and hostile power. Second, one is alien-

ated from oneself in the act of production. This fol-

lows from the first mode of alienation. Because one is

deprived of the product of one’s own labor one is

deprived of a part of oneself, of what belongs to

oneself. Thus one is alienated from oneself in the

process of labor. Third, one is alienated from others

in the process of production. Not only is one sepa-

rated from what one produces and from oneself

because one is alienated from what one produces, but

one is also estranged from others (Corlett 1988,

p. 700).

In fact, in capitalist society workers view their divorce

from the means of production, their alienation, as normal.

For Marx, it is not through organizational change efforts or

organizational development interventions that workplace

alienation will be resolved; rather, it will only be resolved

through a radical change of the economic conditions of

modern industrial life. In other words, workplace alienation

will only end through a radical change of capitalist society.

The dialectical Marxism of, for example, Marcuse

(1969) or Sartre (1963), and the critical theory of, for

example, Adorno (1973) or Horkheimer (1974), expanded

on Marx’s writings on alienation and examined how

workers’ lack of freedom within capitalism leads to an

inability to realize a sense of oppression and class con-

sciousness with fellow workers. These writers were con-

cerned with people’s lack of awareness of oppression

because they live in an illusion of freedom. They argued

that people needed to uncover a purposeful distortion of

their reality by those with power by understanding their

political and historical alienation from the means of pro-

duction, and by understanding how to resist the symbolic

processes of capitalism—that is the cultural industry that

manufactures consent (for a comprehensive study of

Marx’s theory of alienation, see Mészáros 1970).

However, as we reach the mid-twentieth century, the

concept of alienation in the field of management studies

lost any connection to Marx’s writings. Organizational

psychologists such as Argyris (1957, 1964) and Maslow

(1943, 1954) focused on the individual’s lack of self-ful-

fillment or lack of self-awareness as impediments to their

psychological maturity. This shift of focus away from the

faults of capitalism toward the faults of individual mental

states also shifted solutions away from the need to change

the structure of society to the need to change individual

attitudes and behaviors through training or therapeutic

interventions. Prasad and Prasad (1993) decried the state of

affairs of alienation research in organization and manage-

ment studies and called for a more expansive agenda. They

hoped that future research would examine how to create a

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 667

123

non-alienated existence by looking at the de-commodifi-

cation of work and identity, by redefining work as a crea-

tive, social and spiritual activity, by building community

and connectedness to fight aloneness, and by questioning

any taken-for-granted assumptions about contemporary

organizational life.

A particular source of alienation, according to Gemmill

and Oakley, is the leadership myth which allows for fol-

lowers ‘‘to repress uncomfortable needs, emotions, and

wishes that emerge when people attempt to work together’’

(1992, p. 114) and then to project these issues onto leaders

as they accept their role as followers. This dynamic creates

a ‘learned helplessness’ defined as the inability to imagine

viable options, or having feelings of despair and resistance

to action. The leadership myth reinforces alienation by

helping individuals to believe that their alienation is their

own fault. They then focus their emotions on one person,

who they imagine as all powerful (the leader), as the one

who will free them from their anxiety and their responsi-

bility to take action. Gemmill and Oakley express alarm as

this situation contrasts greatly with the definition of free-

dom as ‘‘the awareness of alternatives and the ability to

choose’’ (1992, p. 122) and with the feminist concept of

power ‘‘as the ability to influence people to act in their own

interests, rather than inducing them to act according to the

goals and desires of the leader’’ (1992, p. 124).

A more general source of alienation may come from the

experience of modernity itself. Arpad Szalcolczai (2000,

pp. 215–226) posits modernity as a state of ‘permanent

liminality’ as a result of the collapse of the medieval world

order. His concept is derived from Turner’s (1969) study of

rituals and the description of ritual’s three stages: a pre-

stage of social structure; a stage of temporary suspension of

social structure and role-playing; and, a post-stage of social

re-aggregation back into social structure. The second stage,

temporary suspension of social structure and role-playing,

is one of liminality. Modernity, according to Szalcolczai, is

a social structure that is frozen in temporary suspension

(thus, permanent liminality). It is a dangerous situation

where individuals are stuck in life-long role-playing forced

to wear masks of artificial identities.

As a result of this state of permanent liminality, the

anxiety of modern life creates a drive to rationalize the

conduct of everyday life. Rationalization is modernity’s

attempt to move toward a post-stage of social re-aggrega-

tion. This drive of rationalization is the focus of the life-

works of reflexive historical sociologists such as Weber,

Elias, Borkenau, and Foucault (Szalcolczai 2000). For

Weber, the collapse of the medieval world and the rise of

the ‘‘religious rejection of the world’’ (or the ‘‘inner-

worldly asceticism’’ as described by Borkenau) brought

about the closed mind of esthetic rationalism. The phrase

‘‘closed mind’’ comes from Weber’s phrase of ‘‘iron cage’’

(1930, pp. 179–183), which is commonly misrepresented in

organization theory literature to refer to Weber’s critique of

bureaucracy. His phrase is actually a critique of Western

materialism. For Elias and Foucault, the rise of the abso-

lutist state, as a response to 16th and 17th century Euro-

pean civil wars, brought about the ‘‘closed space’’ and

‘‘governmentality’’ of social control and transparency. In

all, rationalization of the conduct of everyday life is one

not of progress, but the secularization and spread of the

religious rejection of a hostile world, to be transformed into

a transparent, procedurally oriented utopian inner-world.

The end result is the dissolution of meaning in human life

(Szalcolczai 2000, pp. 225–226). Paradoxically, intellec-

tuals and social reformers throughout modernity have

sought the appropriate forms of rationalization of everyday

life to reinsert meaning back into our modern Western

lives. This drive of rationalization plays out in organiza-

tional life, especially with the domination of the bureau-

cratic form.

We move now to exhibit the phenomena of alienation in

the workplace by sharing a collection of organizational

stories from a county sheriff’s office in the southwest of the

United States, and analyzing them in terms of their story

‘emplotment,’ that is a story’s meaning or esthetic

perception.

Method

This study involves the qualitative method of storytelling

research. Paul Ricoeur defines a story as describing

… a sequence of actions and experiences done or undergone by a certain number of people, whether

real or imaginary. These people are presented either

in situations that change or as reacting to such

change. In turn, these changes reveal hidden aspects

of the situation and the people involved, and engen-

der a new predicament which calls for thought,

action, or both. This response to the new situation

leads the story toward its conclusion (1984, p. 150).

Storytelling research conducted by folklorists assert that

stories do not exist apart from their storytelling perfor-

mance, while research conducted by sociolinguists assert

that listeners and tellers ‘co-produce’ narratives. However,

the stories collected in this study were not collected in situ,

or while they were being told/performed, rather they were

collected ex situ or off-site and not in performance.

The stories collected ex situ in organizational storytell-

ing research are typically analyzed in terms of poetic

modes, or emplotment. The emplotment of a story is the

meaning of the story, and an examination of emplotment

allows us to understand the story’s esthetic perception and

668 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

moral message. Emplotment analysis is useful because

organizational storytelling researchers assert that actors are

able to interpret ‘‘stories as a means of understanding

organizational processes and events’’ (Cunliffe et al. 2004,

p. 263). Emplotment points the outsider to those

interpretations.

White (1973), taking the lead from Frye (1957), points

to four archetypes of emplotment:

1. Romance A hero or heroine overcomes obstacles and

achieves personal psychological growth, but society is

not changed;

2. Satire A heroine or hero fails to overcome obstacles

with little or no personal growth while the society is

still not changed;

3. Comedy Conflicting parties achieve harmony causing

characters to grow psychologically as well as causing

positive social change;

4. Tragedy A heroine or hero is defeated by obstacles, but

the defeat is a mediator for society to change or

psychologically mature.

Romance is a drama of self-identification symbolized by a

hero’s victory over the world of experience. The hero is

redeemed or liberated. Satire is the opposite of Romance. It

is a drama of apprehension symbolized by the heroine’s

captivity in the world. She is never able to overcome the

darkness, to get out of the abyss. There are two essential

components to satire: humor or wit, and an object of attack.

Comedy and Tragedy are dramas of partial liberation. In

Comedy, there is hope for the heroine in a temporary tri-

umph over darkness. Reconciliations are symbolized by a

festive occasion and harmony can be achieved between

conflicting parties. In Tragedy, the hero is defeated by the

experiences of the world; yet, hope exists for those left

behind by their understanding of the limits of overcoming

the abyss.

Gabriel (2000) argues for a different classification of

plot archetypes, those of Comic, Tragic, Epic, and

Romantic, where his Epic is more in line with Frye’s

(1957) Romance emplotment, and his Romantic is more in

line with the conventional view of a love story. Although

Gabriel’s classifications are more in tune with popular

notions of plot structures, the White/Frye classification is

more appropriate for our analysis because Gabriel ignores

Satire and also ignores the important sub-archetype of

Irony. Irony might be described as the use of comic effect

to actually express satire. It is an effective literary mech-

anism for rendering that which seems familiar strange so as

to encourage an audience to reflect on the culturally taken

for granted (Ritzer 1993), or to explore a ‘truth’ that may

be suppressed (Frank 1995).

The organization involved at the time of this study was a

medium size law enforcement center with 325 sworn

personnel and 98 civilian personnel with the mission to

provide quality law enforcement to the citizens of its

community. This was a paramilitary organization with a

pyramid of hierarchical control. At the top was the Sheriff,

who had directly under him a Public Information Officer,

Assistant Chief, Legal Advisor, Executive Secretary, and

clerical support staff. Under the Chief Deputy Sheriff the

department was divided into four divisions. The four

divisions were divided under two bureaus. One was the

Services Bureau, which accounts for the Court Services

Division and Support Services Division. The other was the

Operations Bureau, which accounts for the Field Services

Division and Criminal Investigations Divisions. There was

also the Internal Affairs Unit, Psychological Services, and

the Budget and Grant Accountant. At the time when the

stories were collected the operational budget was $20

million as compared to the city budget of the same time

period of $102 million. The city manager at the time

wanted to reduce the high turnover rate in the depart-

ment—there had also been a high degree of instability

between the upper level managers, or the division

commanders.

To collect stories for this study, the second author made

contact with employees who were assigned to several dif-

ferent divisions. He contacted volunteer participants and

asked them to think about stories that may have involved

them in the organization, or may have heard of from

another. He either had the individual come to his office, or

he went to their office, or met in a neutral place such as a

restaurant. The second author recorded the conversations

on a mini tape recorder placed on the table or desk, at the

beginning of the conversation—explaining this was only to

help him recall what they had to say. There were eight

individuals involved, of which seven gave a total of ten

stories that were transcribed. Only nine of the ten stories

were used in our analysis and their complete texts are

exhibited in the Appendix. All the names of people in these

stories have been changed to protect their identity.

The Police Stories

In Story 1, Larry is a take charge and micro-manager who at

one specific time interferes with an investigation in process.

He demands to take over the interrogation and to do it alone.

He gets a confession and later never lets anyone forget about

the event by continually boasting about his superiority. He

has the bad habit of pointing out everyone’s inadequacies.

His need to control and be-little subordinates is seen by the

teller as a need to cover his inexperience. This story we

identify as satire. Larry is a leader whose behavior creates

alienation. The story is one that expresses anger toward the

leader and despair at being helpless to escape the situation.

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 669

123

In Story 2 we have a lieutenant who undermines a ser-

geant’s work at a crime scene by taking over after the fact.

The sergeant had been competently going about leading the

investigation at the crime scene and overseeing the officers.

The teller confronts the lieutenant in private about his

behavior at the scene. From that event the teller and the

lieutenant become enemies. This story is about an unre-

solved conflict. The hero does not overcome obstacles and

the protagonist does not change his behavior of controlling

situations unnecessarily. Clearly this story is a satire.

Story 3 is about when the teller was almost hung out to

dry by his superiors because a piece of evidence, a rifle,

was wrongly inventoried and could not be found when the

owner came to claim it. After much abuse by his superiors

while it was being searched for over several days, the rifle

is finally found and the superiors then act as if their

deriding behavior was in good jest. The teller has since

then had negative feelings toward everyone above him.

These superiors were obviously going against the old

mantra of leadership of ‘when good things happen, give

credit to your people; when bad things happen, take the

blame.’ We identify this story as satire since, although the

rifle was found, the world he works in does not change. The

alienation is evidently felt by the teller.

The teller in Story 4 talks about a carjacking that results

in a high speed car chase right at the time of a night time

shift change for the officers. After a chase through high-

ways and streets, the tires of the car in question blow out

and the two suspects take off by foot. The teller runs after

them but fails to catch them after which he returns to his

police car where there are lots of other officers now at the

scene. Eventually the suspects are caught. The problem

was that the teller was chasing the car alone for a long time

because the radio frequencies had been changed back at the

station so the teller was radioing into no one. To top it off,

the commanders who had an argument about who is in

charge at the scene, then hand over the two suspects to the

city police. The tone of frustration, anger, and despair in

the teller’s story, is identified as satire—this one exhibition

of incompetence is seen as representative of the work

world the teller had to live in with no hope of change.

Smith is the main character in Story 5. Smith is someone

seen as incompetent and should never have been promoted.

One day, Smith takes charge of a situation where a horse is

stuck hanging above a pool as it is caught in the pool cover.

Rather than waiting for the vet and for the pool water to be

pumped out as planned, Smith takes charge and cuts the

cover to force the horse to swim over to the shallow end of

the pool. He then gets the horse to jump out of the pool.

Given that the horse was said to be very expensive and that

the edge of the pool was very slippery, it was lucky that the

horse did not get injured. The teller promotes this story as

one example of Smith’s incompetence. Although this story

seems comedic, we identify the story as irony because the

teller is frustrated with the irrationality of when an orga-

nization promotes incompetent people.

Fred, in Story 6, is known as a womanizer. One day he

was caught in the act having an affair with his best friend’s

wife. The husband, in his car, chased Fred in his police car.

Fred was then suspended or demoted and eventually retired

because of the incident. This story points to the kind of

characters the Sheriff’s department has to work with, but in

this case the antagonist is punished. We identify this story

as irony not only because of its comic flares but because it

does not reflect well on the type of colleagues the teller has

to work with.

In Story 7 we have Mike who carries unauthorized

weapons and fancies himself as a Clint Eastwood tough

guy. One night Mike and the teller catch a peeping Tom in

action. Mike hits the suspect in the legs which causes him

to fall to the ground in great pain. Mike asks him if he will

ever do it again and then leaves. Here we have a story of a

police officer taking on a vigilante attitude which could be

seen as a breakdown of the system. This satirical story has

comic tones and thus is identified as irony.

Story 8 is about Chris who takes advantage of a break-in

at a cookie store by eating some cookies. The teller is

afraid of getting into trouble but Chris just laughs it off.

Later when the store owner arrives, Chis offers to pay for

the cookies he ate but the owner does not want Chris to pay

since the police were there to protect the store. From that

day on, Chris never lets the teller live down his naiveté for

being afraid. In this story we have a junior office worried

about breaking rules who is then derided by his partner.

Although things worked out, the partner continually laughs

at him for it. If Chris is seen as the hero in the story, then

the story is a comedy as the conflict is resolved and maybe

the teller learns to relax. But if the teller is seen as the hero

in the story, then the story is more ironic as Chris and the

store owner see the abuse of power as okay.

The final story, Story 9, is a bit weird. A group of

unhappy subordinates went about urinating on the door

knob of their superior to show their contempt for his lack of

abilities and incompetency. This last story is identified as a

satire as the characters are clearly expressing their feelings

of alienation toward their boss.

If one believes that management should strive to nurture

a community of respect and dignity by promoting equal

opportunities, fair treatment and accountability, then

management practices should not only strive toward an

ideal of efficiency in the labor process, but also toward

conditions that allow for the development of human

potential. Management must, therefore, have an awareness

of the potential conflict between efficiency and human

development—in particular, being aware that when effi-

ciency and order override human development forms of

670 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

alienation will become manifest. If one also believes that

the ‘‘individuals’ well-being and status are often at least

somewhat related to the well-being and status of the

organization in which they are a member or an employee,

producing some commonality of interest in perpetuating

the organization’’ (Pfeffer 1997, p. 8), then management

must have an awareness that when there is a lack of

alignment between the goals of an organizations and the

interests of its members, forms of alienation will again

become manifest. We believe that our collection of stories

exhibit the manifestation of alienation in their expressions

of frustration, contempt, despair, and helplessness. Table 1

provides a few examples of these expressions.

The satire and irony exhibited in the nine police stories

are representative of the lack of concern for the dignity and

human potential of the officers as well as representative of

the lack of concern for effective interest alignment. We

assume that the micro-managing, the promotion of less

than competent officers, the abuse of power, the lack of

concern of feelings and attitudes, occur because the orga-

nization is more concerned with ideals of efficiency and

control. We also assume that the same negative behaviors

occur because the organization is not concerned with the

well-being and status of their members and, thus, have no

regard to aligning of interests.

The phenomena of alienation in the workplace, as

demonstrated by our collection of organizational stories

from a county sheriff’s office, might not be resolved

through organizational change interventions and might not

be resolved through any radical social change. We ask the

question, might it be resolved from below by the efforts of

individuals? We move now to discuss the possibility of

resolving alienation in the workplace by using the legend

of Percival as an analogy.

Percival

The legend of Percival (the English version of the name) is

a journey of spirituality that stresses the importance of

humility, compassion, self-control, and moderation. This

Western medieval legend first appeared in unfinished form

in French as Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chrétien de

Troyes. This version was expanded into a full narrative

structure by Wolfram von Eschenbach in German as Par-

zival. Written from around 1197 to around 1209 or 1215,

the author probably also took inspiration from the medieval

French romance tale of Tristan and Iseult (Mustard and

Passage 1961, pp. x–xi, xv–xvii). The legend primarily

involves the life of Percival as he grows into manhood by

first becoming a dutiful and courteous knight at the court of

King Author, to his many and long journeys through the

world to discover his authentic self.

Percival makes two important mistakes during his

journeys. First he kills his cousin without knowing who he

was, and second he fails to ask what is ailing the Fisher

King at the Grail Castle which causes a curse over the land

to continue for many more years. These two mistakes, and

many other experiences, cause Percival spend his time

trying to discover his authentic self (Pierce 2010). The

characteristics of noble love, enduring loyalty, spontaneous

compassion are that which are required to heal the land of

the Grail Castle, in other words, to end the alienation

between nature and spirit that encased feudal Christendom

Table 1 Example expressions of alienation from the police stories

Story 1: Lieutenant

Rambo

That is kind of the way that he did

everything. He inferred himself even

being new to the division, he inferred

himself from A to Z. A ‘‘Rambo’’ like

fashion. Regardless of all the training and

education we try to instill into our people

he would carry it way out from the rank

in which he was involved. That was

classic, that was typical, that is Larry.

Story 2: I am the Boss

Here

And there was never no, there was never no

resolving this situation. He kept his

attitude towards me, and I kept my

attitude towards him and nothing was

ever resolved. It made a lot of friction

between the two of us throughout the

years, until the time that he uh, retired.

Story 3: Where is My

Rifle?

I have seen before where other people have

just been the last one’s able to be shown

to have something to do with something

and there was a problem with it they are

axed for it, (pause) tossed, written up,

whatever, and it does not give me a lot of

(pause) confidence in my leadership

structure (said with a laugh).

Story 4: The Great

Chase

Out of all the incidents that have happened

that is the one that is still my hot button.

Ya know that one was kind of, I kind of

feel like that was just complete

incompetence.

Story 5: There is a

Horse in My Pool

You know what I mean this is the kind of

run-in’s I have had with Smith. He is a

nice enough guy and I have always got

along with him, as far as how the guy acts

on the job, he is terrible. And you know,

nobody does anything… Story 8: Grandma’s

Cookies

And the owner says, ‘‘No, No, No here take

as many as you want, thanks for showing

up, blah, blah, blah’’ And he is sitting

there laughing at me the whole night, and

probably the rest of the year. He gave me

shit over me being afraid of losing my job

over a chocolate chip cookie.

Story 9: Take That,

You Doorknob

This symbolism of him being a boss when

they all were quite certain that they knew

more than him, and every chance he got,

he proved that they knew more than him.

It hurt him in that respect.

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 671

123

(Campbell 1972). The Grail represents the authentic life—

living harmoniously between pairs of opposites (good and

evil; nature and spirit; reason and emotion). In the

‘wasteland,’ every one lives an inauthentic life: one that is

separated from nature and from true spirituality; one that

follows norms, rules, and orders without question; one that

does not follow dreams and the heart. Percival fails to ask

the question that would heal the land because he followed

the knightly rule that one does not ask questions. He fails to

listen to his heart which wanted to ask the question to the

king, ‘‘What is it that troubles you?’’

Percival himself is then cursed and loses his honor for

his failure at the Grail Castle. His alienation—his loneli-

ness and yearning for spirituality—leads him to retire from

the active and mundane world to win his honor back. ‘‘The

big moment in the medieval myth is the awakening of the

heart to compassion, the transformation of passion into

compassion….to turn our minds from the gross concerns of raw life in the world to the specifically human values of

self-giving in shared suffering’’ (Campbell 1988, p. 143).

The heroic deed required of Percival at the Grail Castle

could only have been done ‘‘spontaneously on the impulse

of his nature’’ where one does not conform to social norms

and does not have knowledge of the task or rules (Camp-

bell 1972, p. 164).

The Percival legend helps us to understand the hero

cycle (Pierce 2010). Percival, as all heroes do, starts out as

an innocent fool in whom the vision of Plato’s ‘tripartite

soul’ is balanced between its three components: reason;

emotional drive; and bodily appetite. Percival fulfills a

bodily appetite (when he kills his cousin because he desires

his suit of red armor) and becomes out of balance in his

soul. To return to balance, the hero needs to receive help

from a sage and to spend time in contemplation. Percival

receives help from a hermit telling him of the proper nature

of spirituality, and then spends years wondering the forests

in contemplation. At some point a decision has to be made

by the hero to act or ‘‘to cross into grace.’’ What this means

is that the hero will have an experience which forces him to

reject fulfilling either a bodily appetite or an emotional

drive. Crossing into grace is the act of finding balance

again in the soul by taking on a heroic deed and accepting a

role as an agent of positive social change (Pierce 2010).

Percival and the Possibility of Overcoming Alienation

We started out this paper by sharing our assumption about

how there are many people in many organizations who

have feelings of alienation. How people feel that they do

not fit in with the people at work, they get no meaning out

of their work, they feel belittled or abused by their supe-

riors or colleagues, and desire to break loose the masks

they wear at work. And how people feel helpless to change

things for the better, do not see any hope for improvement,

and tend to blame the managers, the leaders, or the owners

for the circumstances they find themselves in. We then

demonstrated our assumption of alienation in the work-

place by reviewing our collection of satirical and ironic

stories from officers working at a sheriff’s department.

Adam Smith and Karl Marx understood alienation to be

the loss of individuality and an impoverishment of the human

spirit. Marx believed that laboring should be spontaneous,

conscious, and self-directed. Maslow believed that laboring

should bring about self-actualization, while Argyris believed

laboring should have a progressive increase of autonomy and

control (Kanungo 1992, pp. 414–416). There are many

organizations today that do attempt to ‘fix’ the problem of

workplace alienation. Organizational change practices or

organizational development interventions that might

decrease workplace alienation are to flatten the hierarchy and

augment employee participation to give a broader context to

workers, to promote job enrichment and goal setting to

augment control over tasks, or to create self-directed teams

and participatory management structures to decrease the

sense of powerlessness. It must be noted that many of these

practices and techniques are primarily utilized from the point

of view of increasing productivity not for decreasing alien-

ation. Some organizations might hope to address workplace

alienation with interventions that find a way to re-structure

control towards workers, increase work autonomy, and find a

way to augment workers’ sense of self-efficacy and self-

determination (Kanungo 1992).

One of the most visible concepts for organizational

interventions over the last two decades has been ‘employee

engagement’ and its relationship to ‘meaningful work’ (e.g.,

a concern for workers’ self-esteem, contribution, security

and dignity, caring relationships, or lack of power).

According to Soane et al. (2012, p. 530), engagement

research started with Kahn (1990) who defined it as the

activation of physical, cognitive, and/or emotional factors

that create an ‘engaged state.’ The requirements of employee

engagement are a defined work role, a physical trigger for

enthusiasm and intellectual consideration of tasks, and

positive and active emotions. The construct of engagement at

the individual level refers to a strong emotional connectionto

the job, a balance of preferences between change and sta-

bility, goal and social orientation, and the behaviors of

commitment, vigor and dedication (Haugen and Davis

2009). Although at present there is no consensus on how to

measure engagement because of overlapping psychological

constructs—topics include loyalty, pride, overall satisfac-

tion at the organizational level, and persistence, adaptability,

and taking initiative at unit level—engagement is found to

relate to the organizational outcomes of customer satisfac-

tion, return on assets, and profits (Macey and Schneider

672 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

2008). All-in-all, organizations can create work roles that

apply knowledge and skills to rewarding tasks in a positive

social context (Soane et al. 2012).

Kahn (1990, pp. 700–701) defines ‘personal engage-

ment’ as a worker’s state of mind and/or behaviors that,

given the appropriate conditions, drives their personal

energies into their physical, cognitive, and emotional

labors such that the worker applies effort, is mindful to

tasks, and is connected to their work and to others. In

contrast, he defines ‘personal disengagement’ as a worker’s

state of mind and/or behaviors that, lacking the appropriate

conditions, removes their personal energies from their

physical, cognitive, and emotional labors such that the

worker does not apply effort, etc. (cf. personal disengage-

ment aligns with the concept of workplace alienation). The

appropriate conditions for personal engagement, according

to Kahn (1990, p. 705), are threefold: meaningfulness—a

sense of return on investments of self in performing your

work role (i.e., feeling valued, worthwhile); safety—a

sense of being able to share self at work with no fear of

negative consequences (i.e., feeling workplace is secure,

predictable); and, availability—a sense of possessing the

physical, emotional, and psychological resources necessary

to perform your work role. Kahn (1990, p. 705) details the

sources of meaningfulness for a worker as: job tasks that

are challenging, varied, creative, autonomous, and clearly

formalized; formal job roles that fit with one’s self-image;

and, work interactions which promote one’s dignity and

self-appreciation, and promotes inclusion.

‘Meaningfulness’ answers the question of why am I

here, to help one to make emotional or spiritual sense of

their work lives. According to Lips-Wiersma and Morris’

(2009, p. 491), ‘‘an essential condition of being human is

the choice to live meaningful lives’’—to live a life with

purpose. Their review of the empirical research in orga-

nization and management studies found that although there

are strong correlations between meaningful work and

employee engagement, there is a lack of identification of

‘‘specific sources of meaning that might contribute to such

a sense of significance or purpose’’ (p. 493). In contrast, the

authors find that the sources of meaningful work within the

humanities literature are clearly elaborated. Meaningful

work is defined as consisting of (pp. 494–495):

a. Authentic living—the freedom from a proscribed

meaning;

b. Moral living—an awareness of how one’s actions and

speech affect others;

c. Dignified living—the right to work and freedom to

make choices;

d. Living that serves an ultimate concern—a work life

that connects to the transcendent, beyond one self, that

is universally beneficial.

In their action research study (with 214 participants of all

ages, occupations and cultural backgrounds) that was influ-

enced by a humanities based description of meaningful work,

Lips-Wiersma and Morris (2009, p. 501) found a complex

structure for the sources of meaningful work, such as a sense

of: moral development, personal growth, and staying true to

oneself; making a difference, and meeting the needs of

humanity; sharing values, belonging, and working together

with others; or creativity, achievement, and influencing.

Their findings ‘‘show that meaningful work is based on an

authentic engagement with the often less than perfect real-

ity’’ (Lips-Wiersma and Morris 2009, p. 507) in that reality

must be articulated for work to be meaningful. Whereas

meaningfulness might inspire us to desire to improve, strive

toward an ideal, an awareness of reality’s imperfections and

obstacles is required to achieve meaningfulness. Here you

might see the connection to our police stories of alienation.

The reality of alienation is an obstacle to striving toward our

inspirations. Lips-Wiersma and Morris’ recommended

intervention for any organization is a collective engagement

that allows for meaning to emerge by exhibiting the tension

between reality and inspiration, and by acknowledging a

community of human purpose (2009, p. 508).

Conclusion

People in organizations desire to find some sense of

authenticity and to find work that is really who they are, but

it is not interventions from the top-down, or from the

outside-in, designed to manipulate psychological states that

will resolve their sense of alienation. To support this claim,

we need to first discuss the concept of ‘legitimation’ from

the social constructionism of Berger and Luckmann (1966,

pp. 92–128). An individual’s acceptance of a socially

constructed reality requires the process of legitimation—a

process that explains the social order by providing cogni-

tive understanding of the order’s symbols and structures.

Legitimation informs the social actor why things are and

what one should do. Berger and Luckmann described two

forms of legitimation for the social actor: horizontal

legitimation and vertical legitimation (1966, pp. 92–93).

Horizontal legitimation is how the social actor makes sense

across specific social roles in a given context. Vertical

legitimation is how the social actor makes sense across

specific social roles through time. These concepts are aptly

applied to the legitimation of organizational life in that

things only make sense and provide meaning when we

understand the contexts of our organizational roles and

understand our roles as they flow through time (Luhman

and Cunliffe 2013, p. 51). Legitimation, in regards to

organizational life, provides the justification of the insti-

tutional order, an order created through the habitualization

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 673

123

and objectification of human activities (Berger and Luck-

mann 1966, pp. 53–67).

Accordingly, acceptance and maintenance of a socially

constructed reality is only possible through the process of

legitimation. Every subjective reality must maintain itself.

However, there is the possibility for individual social actors

(or groups) to ‘emigrate’ into a new legitimized definition of

reality. Berger and Luckmann describe this as ‘alternation’

(1966, pp. 157–163), or the process of re-socialization,

which requires specific social and conceptual conditions.

The social conditions necessary for alternation arise when

(a) one questions their social roles, (b) one finds others who

are forming the same questions, and (c) one achieves mental

or physical disaffection with the previous social order. The

conceptual conditions necessary for alternation arises when

there is an ‘‘availability of a legitimating apparatus for the

whole sequence of transformation. What must be legitimated

is not only the new reality, but the stages, by which it is

appropriated and maintained, and the abandonment or

repudiation of all alternative realities’’ (Berger and Luck-

mann 1966, p. 159). It is our argument that Percival is one

such available legitimating apparatus.

The legend of Percival demonstrates that, at least in

Western society, alienation is not only a modern industrial

phenomenon but something experienced by humans in

many different social and historical contexts. Recall that

Percival fails to ask what is ailing the Fisher King at the

Grail Castle which causes a curse over the land to continue

for many more years. In the legend, the Grail represents the

authentic life while the ‘wasteland’ represents the inau-

thentic, or alienated, life. What is required of Percival is to

heal the land by ending the alienation between nature and

spirit common to the experience of medieval life. What is

required of Percival is to act with spontaneous compassion.

Yet for our times, it is at the level of the individual

within each organization that the feelings and thoughts of

alienation must be resolved. A community of work might

just be the place where individuals could ‘‘acquire a con-

sciousness adequate to their social individuality’’ (Mészá-

ros 1970, p. 288). As with the idea of alternation, the

message of Percival is to question our social roles, to find

others who also questions, which will lead us to become

disaffected with our situation, our lives of role-playing, our

wearing of masks of artificial identities. Freire argues that

people ‘‘will tend to reflect on their own ‘situationality’ to

the extent that they are challenged by it to act upon it.

Human beings are because they are in a situation. And they

will be more the more they not only critically reflect upon

their existence but critically act upon it’’ (2000, p. 109;

original emphasis). And then, as when Percival ended his

long time wandering the dark forests to finally ask the

critical question that healed the land, we too must attempt a

project to recreate ourselves and our world. This is a

bottom up quest, not one controlled by management, but a

project of spontaneous awakening of the human spirit.

With the legend of Percival as an analogy, we believe that

it is possible to resolve alienation in the workplace through

the collective efforts of individuals.

Appendix: Text of the Police Stories

Story 1: Lieutenant Rambo

The uh, incident that comes to mind that has not really ever

been discussed, is uh, is the one uh, where Larry Stack had

just taken a transfer into CID, in matter of fact he had just

been assigned as the Lieutenant in CID for about ten or fif-

teen minutes when a homicide had occurred. And uh, it was

at La Vega and Riverside, near Hardy. And the detectiveshad

responded, and I do not remember particularly why I did not

but I was unavailable. He responded down there, Larry had

always envisioned himself as a take charge, out front, kind of

guy. No matter where you were in the investigation, nor how

much information you had gathered, nor how much work you

did, or how well things were going, you were all ways behind

the power curve, always, and uh (pause) in managing that

way Larry kind of put a cross, he created a kind of unneeded

sense of urgency. Which I think forced people back differ-

ently which I think would have, and may have even taken

away from final case products. Because people felt this urge

to rush this uh, you know the old saying, the behinder, ‘‘the

harder I work the behinder I get.’’ It is just one of those things.

In his opinion you were all ways behind. He uh, got into the

case and the case and identified the guys fairly early on. Did

some field work, we went out into the field, and he was just all

ways a part of what happened in the field. There was never a

situation where he would allow his supervisors to manage, he

all ways had to have a hand, in everything from the crime

scene, to the warrants processes, to fiscally taking people into

custody. I recall he was out there and we were attempting to

take the guy down in a video store and he made himself the

typical character, and all that was going on, and all had to go

through him, and all well that ends well, we got the guy. He

certainly did not make things work more efficiently. We

made the arrest, and we got done, then you bring the guy

down town and the county spends hundreds of hours, and

thousands of dollars teaching us how to talk to people, and

the supervisors spend a lot of time imparting on the detec-

tives interview settings the process, and Larry says no, bring

him into my office. He lights up a cigarette and picks up his

glitter stick and sets the homicide suspect across from him at

the desk. Then before long he is trying to be the ‘‘father

confessor’’ which sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

In this particular case it took a while, he eventually excused

everyone from the room so he himself could take care of the

674 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

interview. He felt that he had the rapport with this guy, and he

was the one who was going to solve this case. Uh it was a long

time on this case, I do not know how much time they spent

talking, or how much time they spent sleeping, but eventu-

ally they came out of the room and Larry, uh, through his

expertise had obtained a confession from this guy because of

his ability to build a report with him. He was quite proud of

himself despite of the fact that every method he had used

since had first opened the car door was contrary to all the

training that all of us had ever been provided. And every

example he had set, was contrary to every example that the

other supervisors where trying to instill upon our detectives

and it was very noticeable. It was to the point where, you

know, the guys were not surprised any more. It did not shock

anybody any more. When it was all said and done, he had

made your case of getting a confession. He would all ways

remind you of that you might have solved this one, but that

does not mean that you are a detective. That was all ways his

striving point. You got lucky this time. You know no matter

if you worked harder, or even when you did get lucky, in

Larry’s opinion, you were lucky this time and that you would

never obtain the level of ability or expertise that he had. So

you know if things turned out good, you got lucky. That is

kind of the way that he did everything. He inferred himself

even being new to the division, he inferred himself from A to

Z. A ‘‘Rambo’’ like fashion. Regardless of all the training and

education we try to instill into our people he would carry it

way out from the rank in which he was involved. That was

classic, that was typical, that is Larry.

Story 2: I am the Boss Here

This is in regard with a manager with our department that I

have had problems with over the years. Uh, one of the

problems I experienced with this individual, he was a

lieutenant with our department, uh involves the lieutenant,

my sergeant, and several detectives. On a particular after-

noon we were all sent to the area of Second and Alameda, in

reference to a homicide that had occurred within the parking

lot of this business. As part of our investigation we con-

ducted what is called a briefing. The briefing was conducted

in a command post, or mobile unit. Uh, the particular ser-

geant involved had taken control of the situation; he had

given direct orders to individuals to handle certain respon-

sibilities. Basically the supervisor, the sergeant, had

instructed everybody to do certain assignments, and

everybody was on their way to do these assignments. He

took control of the situation; uh there was nothing wrong

with what, in my eyes, with what this sergeant had done,

and how he had conducted himself at the time. Um, I had

been experienced in homicide investigations for a while, um

this sergeant had definitely taken control of everything and,

in my eyes had had done everything by the book without

any problems. This particular lieutenant had a habit of

showing up on crime scenes, all the time. Uh, on this par-

ticular, uh, crime scene the lieutenant showed up (pause)

after the briefing was conducted. This Lieutenant ordered

everybody back into the briefing, and basically wanted to

know what was going on. Um, he was instructed as to what

was happening, uh, basically this lieutenant decided to take

things over, again, uh redirected everybody to different

locations, and basically put the sergeant out of the loop as

far as I saw. Um, by doing this, it delayed the time that we

could of apprehended the suspects. Um, the suspect had

time to, to at least change and do other things that could

hamper our investigation. Um (long pause), afterward, I

guess it was the following day, we had a debriefing in the

office of the lieutenant. Um, to my recollection, I remember

ah, having some word with the lieutenant at that time in

front of everybody, um, I remember that the lieutenant had

cleared the office, and he um, basically told me, ‘‘Let’s have

a man to man chat with no bars, no stripes, no nothing

involved.’’ What I remember, I uh, basically told him that I

thought it was very disrespectful for what I thought he did.

He had the, he had degraded, I felt, the supervisor, the

sergeant, he had already had handled the situation, and had

done it in a manner that was professional and correct, as far

as my thought, I told him he had a habit of showing up on

scenes, he makes everybody miserable, that, you know, I

basically felt he had no idea what he was talking about, or

what he was doing. Um, keep in mind that he had said this

was going to be a man to man talk. Uh, the first thing he got

was extremely irate, he lost his temper. He started telling

me that he had seen things more than I have ever done as an

investigator and he had handled more investigative homi-

cides then, he had handled more homicide investigations

than I ever have been involved. Uh keep in mind that this

individual had always been uh, to me, really degrading, all

ways making fun of people, always arrogant, always uh,

looking for the power authority, power control. Uh, he is uh,

was all ways like this. When were in this meeting after I had

told him I did not think he knew what he was talking about,

he um, told me that he knew more about investigations than

I had ever known, (voice raises) at that particular time I

pointed out the point to him that he had been claiming that

he had worked more homicides then I have ever worked.

Within the criminal investigation division there is book

dating back all the way to 1978, that indicates what homi-

cides were assigned to who, and who had them. Uh, I

brought that up, and I told him as far as I saw from that book

of record, records being kept, that I did not see his name

being mentioned very many times as a lead investigator, and

I had barely seen his name appear as an assisting investi-

gator. As far as homicides, there was very few. I think there

was only one case that kind of stuck out that was kind of

high, I brought that to his attention, and he got extremely

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 675

123

irate, he threw me out of the office telling me that he did not

have to tolerate talking to me like that. I told him that I

believed the conversation was a man to man conversation,

he went back to his authority as being a lieutenant, and

basically ordered me out of the office. And there was never

no, there was never no resolving this situation. He kept his

attitude towards me, and I kept my attitude towards him and

nothing was ever resolved. It made a lot of friction between

the two of us throughout the years, until the time that he uh,

retired. Basically, I saw this with everybody that he ever

dealt with. He had his click, or did not have his click. If you

were not in his click, he basically would not talk to you, or

he would not have any kind of conversation with you. Uh,

whenever it was business, he would have to have the upper

hand, he would never take any suggestions or ideas from

anyone else that was not in his group. That is about all I

have on that particular incident.

Story 3: Where is My Rifle?

‘‘Well, let me see, (pause) I haven’t had a real bad history,

(pause) uh, working with the Sheriff’s department. I had

some trouble periodically, hum, since I have been in

criminalistics. There was that fiasco about the rifle that was

collected and they were going to hang me for, (pause) and

my mistake was, I happened to be in the office when it was

brought in, uh, after having been tested at the lab. The APD

lab. And they said, ‘‘Go tag this into evidence!’’ and it took

me awhile to get the information from them on how they

wanted me to tag it into evidence. But I did, (pause) and

somehow the case number on the bottom of the card is

handwritten in was transcribed differently from the one I

wrote on the top. So that eventually, when the owner of that

rifle came in looking for it, it was nowhere to be found in

the PD evidence room. And so, they looked in the files and

stuff, and they notified me. And uh, I looked in what little

paper work I had from it, which was very, almost nothing.

And uh, it got worse and worse because the guy was asking

for his rifle which was rightly enough, he was not an object

of a criminal investigation any longer, it was brought in

tested and to be released. And the uh, the tone of the

conversation that I had with my superiors was getting more

and more threatening and basically I was told that I was

going to be hung out to dry because of his rifle not being

found. I, and I thought that was very unfair, although

looking at the way that things are done, my name was the

last one positively identified with this thing. So I would

have been the one that would go to the end of the line, and

finally, uh, the folks from the Sheriff’s evidence took me

over there after the last threatening meeting with the uh,

commander, and we did a physical search, and I was trying

to remember what the rifle looked like, it was in a case and

had a certain collar, and we were looking, looking, and

finally we found several that where close and they weren’t

it. And then finally we found one, that was the right rifle

and looking at the tag we found that it had been transcribed

differently. So we notified all the people and they were

happy and they were patting me on the back and they were

saying, ‘‘You did good, you did good.’’ And I was thinking,

‘‘You lousy son’s of a biscuit, I’m fixing to be hung by my

toes as a scape-goat kind of thing, and now everything is all

hunky-dory. This kind of showed to me the mentality that I

really never understood before, but uh, I have seen it in

other situations and never really thought about it much

because it was not me that was (pause) concerned, but this

time it was. I’ve seen before where other people have just

been the last one’s able to be shown to have something to

do with something and there was a problem with it they are

axed for it, (pause) tossed, written up, whatever, and it

doesn’t give me a lot of (pause) confidence in my leader-

ship structure (said with a laugh). Uh, instead of being

active and involved they are willing to sit back with their

declarations and decisions and say, ‘‘well off with his head,

it’s too much for us to deal with.’’ It’s the easy way out for

them. Uh, perhaps it’s a case with no clear solution, for the

department, or someone in the department is going to be

held responsible for something going wrong, I guess that

stuff happens a lot, but to be so uninvolved with things and

to say, ‘‘well, the only option we have is to punish this

person.’’ (Long pause) Uh, it is not the way I would like to

think of myself as running an organization or handling a

problem if I were in that seat.’’

Story 4: The Great Chase

Teller: ‘‘The one incident that I can think of….’’ Listener: ‘‘This won’t go to the department, this is for

college.’’

Teller: ‘‘I know, but I don’t mind if the department

knows anyway because this still pisses me off

every time I think about it. Is ah, I was on

patrol and we had a carjacking over at ah by

Wal-Mart at 224 Coors Bypass and it was

about, it was towards the end of the shift. They

gave out the description of the vehicle and it

was a gold Oldsmobile or something, with like

uh Dayton rims and a temporary tag in the back

window, this was a pretty specific descriptive, a

car that you just couldn’t miss. And the two

suspects that took the car where both uh, where

both armed with handguns. And uh, it was

about ten o’clock at night or so, so we get out

there and we don’t find the suspects and we

look around and take a report so at about eleven

o’clock I’m on my way home, and, I look right

at the out skirt of my district at that time. And

676 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

so, its eleven o’clock and I’m sitting at Golf

Course and Paseo Del Norte getting ready to

turn, to take you know to take Golf Course

home. And I look over at the light and what do

I see, it’s that car that was involved in the

carjacking with the two suspects sitting in it. So

I pull off to the side of the road and I call radio

to verify the description of the vehicle. As their

telling me the description of the vehicle this car

passes me, so I get back out, and I advise that I

am behind the suspect and this is where we are

at. And uh, as soon as I pull in behind these

guys they just gun it and they take off. So, you

know, we start a pursuit and I call out I’m in

pursuit and me, you know basically say these

are the guys in the carjacking and their both

armed, so on and so forth. And we were not

going all that fast, we were probably doing

fifty-five or sixty-five down Golf Course. So

I’m chasing them and I’m having a hard time

getting people there because its right at shift

change. So everybody is kind of spread out,

you know what I mean and this is already

moving inside the city limits. And so as I’m

calling it out everything is going OK, and we

get all the way down to Montanyo and uh, uh,

Larry, I can’t remember the guy’s name that

left us and went to work in Texas, Texas

Department of Public Safety?’’

Listener: ‘‘Yes’’

Teller: ‘‘He’s got the victim, so he calls out that he is

going to be in route and logs code.’’ Well Robert

(laugh) gets on the radio and tells him, ‘Well, do

you still have the victim with you?’ ‘Well, that’s

10-4’ ‘Negative, you cannot join in the pursuit.’

So has him, because he wanted to come involved

in it, he was the closes unit at the time. So I am

calling it out as we are going down Montanyo

and we turn on to Unser, and it is like a Tuesday

night and the whole city has been dead all night

long. And uh, I am still not getting any back up.

And finally as we are approaching I-40 my first

unit comes to back me up. And uh, we turn on to

westbound I-40 and we get off at the next

intersection down and these guys are driving

like maniacs through traffic and everything else.

And about that time I have probably about ten

squad cars behind me, I mean these guys are

done. And uh, we turn on to, going into the

South Valley; I do not remember the name of the

street. And as where going threw I call, I stopped

calling it out and the second unit is calling out.

And uh, uh, the car gets spiked belted, as were

going into the South Valley. I was, I was too

close to the guy because the spike belt took out

my right two tires. (Laugh) and as, we go to

Tower, and I do not remember the road that we

were on. And at that point all four tires on that

car where out and that car just slid ways into the

intersection. The tires where just done and these,

both these guys get out and take off on foot. I go

after the driver and as I am running a unit, two

units pass me and go after the passenger. So I am

running, uh, through the mesa and I am calling it

out, foot pursuit, west, uh, traveling east bound

from the vehicles, And uh, its ah, probably a

quarter to half a mile worth of just mesa sand till

you get to the first sub division. And I am

running after this kid and I can not get too close

to him because I know that he has got a gun. And

uh, he would not stop and the running and finally

we get to that wall and I was exhausted from

chasing this little kid, you know. And he hops

over the wall and I am calling it out, and nobody

is with me! I am just by myself. And I can look

back and there are cars everywhere, there is us,

there is city, there is state police, there are lights

everywhere, by myself. So he hops the wall, I

hop the wall and I am trying to search behind

this house for this kid and uh, an APD guy

comes running around the corner. So he helps

me search. We are searching and they call out on

the radio that they got this, both of them in

custody. So I go back and I am walking to my

car and I meet up with Terry and we find this

guy’s gun. It is a big forty-five that he threw as I

was chasing him. Go back, and uh, we were kind

of doing the debriefing and I pulled this guy’s

aside and I said, you know, ‘Who was with me?’

Well apparently this Lieutenant Jack Smith decided in his

infinite wisdom that he was going to change the radio fre-

quency from north radio to the south radio. And I did not

know that. ‘Cause, I quest he did it while I was chasing the

guy, or when the car had been spiked, or sometime when the

stress was really high. Because I wasn’t listening to the

radio at that point, he changed the radio frequencies, so you

had some guys on south and some guys on north. Well I

think that I was the only north unit, and I think everyone

else was south units that where there. So I’m the only one

that is not on the same radio frequency as everybody else.

And I’m running by this guy calling it out to nobody!

(Laugh) you know what I mean? So you know, I was pissed

off about that, because I didn’t have any help and I’m with

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 677

123

an armed subject by myself and there are a ton of cops out

there. And uh, that’s fine I wasn’t going to make a big issue

about it, and we get back and we’ve got these two guys in

custody. Then Smith shows up on scene and he says ‘great,

let’s give it to the city.’ And Ruben says that we can’t. And

John, I don’t know why he doesn’t know what’s going on,

but he has no idea what’s going on. He’s trying to palm it off

on the city guys and he’s getting into an argument with

Ruben and Ruben trying to tell him that where the initial

agency, we took the initial report, this happened in our

jurisdiction, this is ours. And, uh, for whatever reason, John,

was just not was with us. And, you know, he was not up to

speed about the facts, you know he didn’t waste his time, I

guess it was a waste of time to him, but he didn’t come over

and ask anybody what was going on. He didn’t ask a

supervisor, he didn’t ask me, and he didn’t ask any other

deputies. He just came up and he was going to make his

decision right then and there and of course it’s a terrible one,

so he’s trying to figure out how to save face instead of just

accepting the fact that he made this decision without any

information. You know what I mean? And uh, it just turns

into a mess and then he comes over afterwards and he finds

out what is going on and uh, I guess he didn’t want to be

around Nancy and Ruben and more so he. Nancy was the

other supervisor, Ruben was the, I guess Nancy was the,

Nancy was my supervisor the swing shift and Ruben was the

graveyard supervisor. So that how there was two sergeants

on scene and both of them where arguing with Jack saying

you can’t give this to APD because it’s not theirs, they

didn’t initiate it. So then he comes over, asks if everybody,

kind of asks if everybody is OK and kind of ‘good job’ that

kind of thing. Out of all the incidents that have happened

that is the one that is still my hot button. Ya know that one

was kind of, I kind of feel like that was just complete

incompetence. If I’m running the radio, then you should

stay off the radio and let me get the job under control and

don’t interfere. Especially when your twenty miles away

and you don’t know what going on and you’ve got two guys

with hand guns that obviously aren’t too concerned about

using them, you know what I mean, and for you to start

interfering inappropriately is just unacceptable.

That’s the thing about this department, ya know, it

seems like in some cases this administration, one doesn’t

know its people it’s promoting and then it doesn’t give

these people any training. Smith is one of those guys they

should have known about ahead of time. Most of the

dealings I have had with him on seen have just been a

mess.

Story 5: There is a Horse in My Pool

Teller: That is the thing about this department, yea

know, it seems like in some cases this

administration, one does not know its people it

is promoting and then it does not give these

people any training. Smith is one of those guys

they should have known about ahead of time.

Most of the dealings I have had with him on

seen have just been a mess. Do you remember

that horse that was in the pool?

Listener: I heard something about that, yea.

Teller: Greg and I get dispatched over to it, where

there to back up FMO. It is not even our scene.

And so we get there and they had one of these

pool covers, it is one of those elephant pool

covers that suppose withstand the weight of an

elephant. This lady did not realize that the

shape of an elephant’s foot is completely

different from that of a horse. Because a

horse walked across it and its hooves went

right through the cover in the middle of this

pool. So it is got these straps where it is

partially on the pool and partially on the cover,

and so we are just waiting for the veterinarian

to get there. And we are just going to make sure

nobody goes and messes with the animal

because the media is starting to get there and

so we are just OK, not problem and what FMO

is going to do is just tranquilize the horse to

calm him down. They have one of those brand

new pumpers,’ apparently that thing can push

like ten thousand gallons a minute or

something, and they’re going to run a hose

into the pool and drain it. Then they are just

going to hoist the horse out, that way it won’t

get hurt. Apparently this is a really expensive

horse. Well Smith, horseman, uh gets a hold of

some people, tells us on the radio nobody is

allowed to do anything to secure the scene. So,

we’re having to go tell this lieutenant from the

fire department, you know, our boss just told us

nobody is to do anything until he gets here.

And so, you know, of course we’re trying to be

nice about it because it’s not our scene. But,

what are we going to do? He’s like, OK. And

then uh, we’re sitting there waiting and Smith

coming from his house. So we’re waiting and

just waiting and waiting and waiting and finally

you can hear Smith running code for this horse

call. So he gets out and takes over and says,

‘‘We’re going to get this horse out.’’ And so he

pulls out his knife and starts cutting this uh, the

pool cover and he cuts it out. Now the horse is

swimming independently right, and he’s trying

to get the horse to the shallow end. He finally

678 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

gets the horse to the shallow end and then he

starts doing (laugh) horse calls or something

and convinces this horse to jump out of the

pool. And this is a smooth, you know it’s a pool

surface and its smooth, you know. So he gets

this horse to jump out and of course the media

is there and they get this thing. And he is

dancing around as this horse is jumping out of

the pool you know what I mean, that horse

could have slipped and broke his hip and the

Sheriff’s Department would have been totally

responsible for this hundred thousand dollar

horse, you know. And, I mean it was just

absolutely crazy the way this guy did it. And

FMO, I’m surprised that they still talk to us.

The Lieutenant was furious, and he said you

know, I’m writing a letter to the Sheriff, this is

absolutely ridiculous. And you know, poor guy,

just gets totally, you know, blown off and it

wasn’t even our scene. You know what I mean

this is the kind of run-in’s I’ve had with Smith.

He’s a nice enough guy and I’ve always got

along with him, as far as how the guy acts on

the job, he’s terrible. And you know, nobody

does anything, management you know that

thing with Tapia and he pulls out his magazines

and says you know ‘‘you’re crazy, why don’t

you go kill everybody on the fifth floor,’’ you

know, I mean it’s bad enough if a deputy did

that, and a sergeant is that much worse. But for

a lieutenant that is completely unacceptable to

do anything like that. If it was me that did

anything like that, I mean 10 days off easy. I

would be in major trouble, you know what I

mean?

Story 6: Red Line Affair

The story goes, and the officer, I do not know if you want a

name but I will tell you, Fred. He was dating a lot of

different women and uh, including his wife. I heard this

story, but I never confirmed with Fred that he uh, that he

was having an affair with one of his best friend’s wives,

while on or off duty. And also one of his best friends was

repairing Fred’s car, which was like a fifty-seven Chevy,

ah, that is certainly was a hot rod. And upon finding out,

uh, that the guy had come home and Fred was screw, uh

having an affair with his wife and caught them. And the

chase was on, and I have heard that it was on the radio that

a marked patrol car was getting chased the other way, by

the guy, that was the husband and that the chase went all

over the place. And he actually reported it on the radio, you

know, that he was being chased. Of course I heard that it

went to Internal Affairs and that he got suspended or

demoted over that. But also there was also a secondary

portion of that the guy went to his garage where he had

been working on Fred’s car and that he started the car and

redlined it up and put a brick on the accelerator and rolled

it out to the street. That it ran out there at redline without

oil in the engine. Fred was demoted for that and retired

shortly thereafter and I have not heard a thing from him

since.

Story 7: Batter Up

We had a guy one time on the department by the name of

Mike. Mike was tall, tall and skinny and thought he was

Clint Eastwood. The first time I met Mike he as in Extra-

dition’s and he had double 357s six inch revolvers in dual

shoulder holsters. I said, ‘‘Hi, I’m Glen.’’ And he intro-

duced himself and he said you can call me Clint and I will

never forget that. Later on I came to work with Mike

Wiggins on patrol. We pulled up in the North Valley at a

peeping Tom call. Mike took out from his patrol car one of

several unauthorized weapons that he used to carry. He had

a bull whip in his car and he had a long stick. The kind of

stick that riots people, uh, officers could hit people from a

horse. It was like a four foot long stick, uh, nightstick. We

went around the house and we saw a guy sitting on several

boxes peering in through this window. We actually caught

the peeping Tom in progress. Well we walked up to him;

silently Mike walked up like a ninja warrior. He took a

baseball bat type of swing and wopped this guys back of

the legs. It hit with a loud Whap knocking this guy back-

ward off the thing as he grabbed his legs screaming in pain.

Mike then, then sitting on this gentleman’s chest with one

foot and put the stick down towards the gentleman’s throat

and said uh, ‘‘you weren’t doing what I thought you were

doing?’’ and he said ‘‘what was that?’’ Then he said,

‘‘peeping in that girls window’’ and he said, ‘‘no I wasn’t’’

and he said ‘‘I didn’t think so, and you won’t do it again

will you?’’ Mike left.

Story 8: Grandma’s Cookies

Nineteen ninety-two, uh North Valley swing shift with for-

mer Deputy Chris. And we got an alarm call, an alarm call at

Grandma’s Kitchen. And we responded and the front door

was not wide open but was unlocked. So we entered into the,

into the business and checked the whole business. I checked

the back kitchen area and when I came back from the kitchen

area, uh, Deputy Chris was at the front counter, at the front

counter they had this big glass tray, uh, and they had these big

huge chocolate chip cookies. Uh, Deputy Chris commenced

to take off the lid to it and started eating these chocolate chip

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 679

123

cookies. And he told me, ‘‘here dude, try these cookies there

the best chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever eaten.’’ And I sat

there and I looked at him and I told him ‘‘No, where not eaten

those cookies, put it back where going to get in trouble.’’ And

he said, ‘‘No, we’re not going to get in trouble.’’ I said, ‘‘The

owner of the business is in route and if they walk in and see us

eaten those cookies their going to rat us out and all this other

crap, blah, blah, blah.’’ And so he kept on eating the cookies

and I said, ‘‘Dude you better put that cookie back, there could

be hidden cameras in here and this could go to Internal

Affairs and we’re going to get fired.’’ I was scarred shitless

and he is laughing and eaten away at these cookies, well the

owner arrives. I kept telling him, ‘‘You better pay for that

cookie!’’ He is laughing and he is laughing and the owner

came up and Deputy Chris went up and said, ‘‘Oh by the way

after we got through checking your business I helped myself

to one of your cookies, cause I think those are the best

chocolate chip cookies in the world and he said here let me

pay you for it.’’ And the owner says, ‘‘No, No, No here take as

many as you want, thanks for showing up, blah, blah, blah’’

And he is sitting there laughing at me the whole night, and

probably the rest of the year. He gave me shit over me being

afraid of losing my job over a chocolate chip cookie.

Story 9: Take That, You Doorknob

You know there is a classic story of how someone feels

about their boss. Having somebody who had worked for

somebody whom had been known to work in the organi-

zation for quite some time. Not to be a capable manager,

who had been known to have problems with um, serious

situations, situations with impact. This guy who was a boss

in this case was um, you know he was a likable person.

You know you would always want to have him around at

lunchtime, but you damn sure did not want him around

when the bullets started to fly. You never knew what he

was going to do, and often times the decisions he made

were poor. So when it came about that it was discovered

that someone employed under his command was urinating

on his door knob it left things pretty wide open, because

that was kind of the opinion that a lot of people had. Um,

they did not believe that he had the technical abilities to be

where he was, and therefore they kind of resented the

decisions that he made. This symbolism of him being a

boss when they all were quite certain that they knew more

than him, and every chance he got, he proved that they

knew more than him. It hurt him in that respect. But, um,

this particular employee was very intelligent below him,

and was about to become a supervisor himself. He never

thoroughly explained why, but this was a dramatic sym-

bolism to him by urinating on his boss’s door. It happened

frequently, he would do it two or three times a week. He

did it for quite some time before anyone noticed it. I am

sure he was in his own private kind of heaven every time he

saw someone grab that doorknob and walk in. Um, but it

was an entertaining situation to be exposed to because I can

recall one female who was a counter part of his was asked

during the investigation if she had done that. She told me,

‘‘No, because I couldn’t get a chair to get me up high

enough.’’ And I think that, that in a nut shell sums it up, the

only thing that would have kept those employees symbol-

ically urinating on that guy would have been the physical

inability of properly situating their bodies to have done so.

References

Adorno, T. W. (1973). Negative dialectics. New York, NY: Seabury.

Argyris, C. (1957). The individual and organization: Some problems

of mutual adjustments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2,

1–24.

Argyris, C. (1964). Integrating the individual and the organization.

New York, NY: Wiley.

Bacharach, S. B., Bamberger, P. A., & Sonnenstuhl, W. J. (2002).

Driven to drink: Managerial control, work-related risk factors,

and employee problem drinking. Academy of Management

Journal, 45(4), 637–658.

Banai, M., Reisel, W. D., & Probst, T. M. (2004). A managerial and

personal control model: Predictions of work alienation and

organizational commitment in Hungary. Journal of International

Management, 10, 375–392.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of

reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York, NY:

Doubleday.

Blauner, R. (1964). Alienation and freedom: The factory worker and

his industry. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Campbell, J. (1972). Myths to live by: How we re-create ancient

legends in our daily lives to release human potential. New York,

NY: Penguin Books.

Campbell, J. (1988). The power of myth. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Chiaburu, D. S., Diaz, I., & De Vos, A. (2013). Employee alienation:

Relationships with careerism and career satisfaction. Journal of

Managerial Psychology, 28(1), 4–20.

Corlett, J. A. (1988). Alienation in capitalist society. Journal of

Business Ethics, 7, 699–701.

Cunliffe, A. L., Luhman, J. T., & Boje, D. M. (2004). Narrative

temporality theory: Implications for organization study. Orga-

nization Studies, 25(2), 261–286.

Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and

ethics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Freire, (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY:

Continuum.

Frye, N. (1957). The anatomy of criticism: Four essays. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gabriel, Y. (2000). Storytelling in organizations facts, fictions, and

fantasies. London: Oxford University Press.

Ganesh, S. S., & Joseph, J. (2011). Exploring perceived organiza-

tional formalization and performance review system complexity

as predictors of executive alienation in performance review

systems. Management Review, 23(4), 197–207.

Gemmill, G., & Oakley, J. (1992). Leadership: An alienating social

myth? Human Relations, 45(2), 113–129.

Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

680 J. T. Luhman, A. F. Nazario

123

Haugen, L. K., & Davis, A. S. (2009). The engagement process:

Examining the evidence from diverse perspectives. Journal of

Behavioral and Applied Management, 10(3), 396–414.

Horkheimer, M. (1974). Eclipse of reason. New York, NY:

Continuum.

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engage-

ment and disengagement at work. Academy of Management

Journal, 33(4), 692–724.

Kanungo, R. N. (1992). Alienation and empowerment: Some ethical

imperatives in business. Journal of Business Ethics, 11,

413–422.

Lips-Wiersma, M., & Morris, L. (2009). Discriminating between

‘meaningful work’ and the ‘management of meaning’. Journal of

Business Ethics, 88, 491–511.

Luhman, J. T., & Cunliffe, A. L. (2013). Key concepts in organization

theory. London: Sage.

Macey, W. H., & Schneider, B. (2008). The meaning of employee

engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 3–30.

Marcuse, H. (1969). An essay on liberation. Boston, MA: Beacon.

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological

Review, 50(4), 370–396.

Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York, NY:

Harper.

Mészáros, I. (1970). Marx’s theory of alienation. London: Merlin.

Mustard, H. M. & Passage, C. E. (1961). Introduction. In W. von

Eschenbach, Parzival: A romance of the Middle Ages (translated

by H. M. Mustard & C. E. Passage), vii–lvi. New York, NY:

Vintage Books.

Nair, N., & Vohra, N. (2010). An exploration of factors predicting

work alienation of knowledge workers. Management Decision,

48(4), 600–615.

Pandey, S. K., & Kingsley, G. A. (2000). Examining red tape in

public and private organizations: Alternative explanations from a

social psychological model. Journal of Public Administration

Research and Theory, 4, 779–799.

Pdsakoff, P. M., Williams, L. J., & Todor, W. D. (1986). Effects of

organizational formalization on alienation among professionals

and nonprofessionals. Academy of Management Journal, 29(4),

820–831.

Pfeffer, J. (1997). New directions for organization theory: Problems

and prospects. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Pierce, J. (2010). Parzival and the hero cycle. Journal of the Utah

Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 87, 225–233.

Prasad, A., & Prasad, P. (1993). Reconceptualizing alienation in

management inquiry: Critical organizational scholarship and

workplace empowerment. Journal of Management Inquiry, 2(2),

169–183.

Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative, volume 1 (translated by K.

McLaughlin & D. Pellauer). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago

Press.

Ritzer, G. (1993). The McDonaldization of society. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Pineforge Press.

Sarros, J. C., Tanewski, G. A., Winter, R. P., Santora, J. C., &

Densten, I. L. (2002). Work alienation and organizational

leadership. British Journal of Management, 13, 285–304.

Sartre, J. P. (1963). Search for a method. New York, NY: Knopf.

Saunders, C. B., O’Neill, H. M., & Jensen, O. W. (1986). Alienation

in corporate America: Fact or fable? Journal of Business Ethics,

5(4), 285–289.

Seeman, M. (1959). On the meaning of alienation. American

Sociological Review, 24(6), 783–791.

Seeman, M. (1972). Alienation and engagement. In A. Campbell & P.

E. Converce (Eds.), The human meaning of social change (pp.

467–527). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Soane, E., Truss, C., Alfes, K., Shantz, A., Rees, C., & Gatenby, M.

(2012). Development and application of a new measure of

employee engagement: The ISA engagement scale. Human

Resource Development International, 15(5), 529–547.

Sulu, S., Ceylan, A., & Kaynak, R. (2010). Work alienation as a

mediator of the relationship between organizational injustice and

organizational commitment: Implications for healthcare profes-

sionals. International Journal of Business and Management,

5(8), 27–38.

Szalcolczai, A. (2000). Reflexive historical sociology. London:

Routledge.

Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process. Chicago, IL: Aldine.

Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism

(translated by T. Parsons). London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

White, H. (1973). Metahistory: The historical imaginations in

nineteenth-century Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins

University Press.

Workplace Alienation and the Legend of Percival 681

123

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.