Telecommunications Privatization in Scandinavia: The hysteresis effect as a pathway to historical consciousness

Abstract

This article concerns the responses of managers and employees to organizational changes in the wake of privatization in a Scandinavian telecom. The former state- owned monopoly was privatized in the early 90s following the liberalization of the telecommunications markets across Europe. Based on six months of ethnographic enquiries, the article investigates how marketization of work practices became a source of conflict and tension between technicians and managers. The research reveals how these two groups resisted change while the union representatives seized the opportunity to reinvent themselves and forge into a new position of power and infl uence. Based on these fi ndings, the article inquires how history impacts on organizational change, i.e. if history is a constraint or a resource to achieving an envisioned future. Thus, the article situates its contribution within the expanding stream of research in management and organizational history. The article proposes the praxeology of Bourdieu, with a particular emphasis on the concept of hysteresis, as a pathway to bring a historical consciousness by bridging objective and subjective elements of history. This will serve to advance our knowledge of the impact of history on organizational change.