Flamme, Kevin
The institutionalization of workplace violence: The case of professional male modeling
- 2020.
6
This research focuses on the role of work organization and management in the institutionalization of workplace violence. We study situations of violence at two levels of analysis: organizational and individual. We use a qualitative and comprehensive methodology based on an eight-year immersion in six modeling agencies, which allowed us to write an auto-ethnography. It was supplemented by five semi-structured interviews with participants involved in professional male modeling. Drawing on the psychodynamic approach to work, we were able to study the three dimensions of violence at work: systemic, symbolic, and physical. We show that the organization of work and the practices of authoritarian management normalize systemic and symbolic violence. Consequently, the suffering of individuals at work cannot be sublimated and a progressive sense of isolation sets in. In this context, individual strategies of physical violence appear. This leads us to present a model for the institutionalization of violence when cooperation at work is prevented. We discuss the need for discussion forums to improve management practices, and propose organizational changes to help prevent the risk of subjective violence.