Papers by Dhammika Jayawardena
Contemporary South Asia, 2024
Since its inception during the latter stages of the British colonial era in Sri Lanka, the countr... more Since its inception during the latter stages of the British colonial era in Sri Lanka, the country’s co-operative movement has consistently fostered a distinctive value system, empowering the ‘weaker sects’ of society to become productive members. However, with the opening of Sri Lanka’s economy in 1977, the social and economic role of the movement shifted to an ambivalent position. Against this historical backdrop, this article delves into the possibilities of survival of the co-operative movement in neoliberal Sri Lanka. Employing the case study method and embarking on fieldwork in a multi-purpose primary co-operative society, it examines how the primary co-operatives in the country navigate the challenges posed by ‘free market’ conditions. The article shows that, within such market dynamics, Sri Lankan co-operatives face an ongoing struggle over how to cope with free market norms and assumptions, gradually losing their momentum and influence. In conclusion, the article posits that for the Sri Lankan co-operative movement to endure, it must transform into a voluntary people’s movement, adapting to the changing socioeconomic landscape of neoliberal Sri Lanka.
Critical perspectives on international business, 2023
Purpose-This paper aims to accomplish two purposes: firstly, it revisits the "positional identity... more Purpose-This paper aims to accomplish two purposes: firstly, it revisits the "positional identity"the ambivalent-hybrid dispositionof human resource management (HRM) in the (postcolonial) Global South. Secondly, it seeks to reframe the role of Southern agents of the epistemic community of HRM, particularly human resource (HR) managers, in managing people in the South. Design/methodology/approach-This paper takes inspiration from the postcolonial theory of Homi Bhabha, his notions of hybridity, the Third Space and colonial positionality, to revisit the positional identity of HRM and to reframe the role of HR managers in the South. Findings-In postcolonial Southern organisations, HR managers play a dual roleas "mimics" and "bastards" of Western discourses of HRM. The dual role tends to put the managers in Southern organisations in a "double-bind". Research limitations/implications-This paper helps in the understanding of the role of HRM as well as HR managers in Southern organisations regarding the (post-)colonial legacy of the South. Originality/value-This paper provides new insights into the identity of HRM in the Global South beyond the dualistic understanding of HR practices, such as convergence-divergence and the mere form of crossvergence. It argues that hybridisation of HRM in Southern organisations takes place in the form of (post-) colonial hybridity.
ICBR 2021, 2021
The cooperative movement of Sri Lanka is a historically embedded phenomenon. Since its emergence ... more The cooperative movement of Sri Lanka is a historically embedded phenomenon. Since its emergence in the latter stage of the British colonial era of the country, the movement has been creating a unique value system in Sri Lanka's political economy thus enabling 'weaker sects' of society to be 'productive members'. Yet, once Sri Lanka opened up its economy in 1977, this social and economic role, the 'double nature', of cooperatives was exposed to an ambivalent situation. Against this backdrop, this article critically examines the role of the cooperative movement in 'neoliberal Sri Lanka'. Based on the case study method, it analyses how primary cooperatives of the country operate in the free market conditions. The article shows that Sri Lankan cooperatives are continuously losing their momentum and strongholds in the market as they are struggling to cope with the challenges in the free market conditions. In conclusion, the article argues that Sri Lankan cooperative movement needs to transform itself into a 'voluntary people's movement', if it is to continue into the future.
The 9th International conference on Sri Lanka Studies, 2003
In this paper, we attempt to reread HRM-the symbolic process of managing labour-with a postmodern... more In this paper, we attempt to reread HRM-the symbolic process of managing labour-with a postmodern sensibility of exploration of the rationale behind gender stereotyping of locally created texts in HRM. We, therefore, arrange a historical journey through managing labour and dissect that managing labour is an inevitable outcome of the capitalist mode of production. Our journey illustrates, however, that though the capitalist mode of production agitates the position of male labour in organisations, it is not able to emancipate from its origin's sin: masculinity as the preeminent centre. Thus, organisation remains a male domain. The modern version of managing labour evolved as so-called Personnel Management with a view of imposing control and has now shifted to a commitmentorientated strategy as HRM. Throughout our journey, however, we have been unable to discover a 'fixed' HRM. And we dissect that the discussion of HRM has persistently been troubled by modernist definitional and ontological problems. Hence, 'HRMism' is used as a generic term to signify the various meanings and discourse(s) of HRM. In this context, we argue that 'reality' in HRMism is a language construct. And language, 'the signifier of signifiers', in HRMism evolved in a male domain and is unable to represent the 'real' in (female) labour. And it creates a puzzling paradox among female labourers by compelling them to prepare themselves as more assertive feminine symbols in organisations since they have been dropped out of the meanings and discourse(s) of huMAN resource MANagement.
Gender in Management: An International Journal, Feb 14, 2020
Purpose– This paper aims to understand the dialectical relationship between place-making and ide... more Purpose– This paper aims to understand the dialectical relationship between place-making and identity formation of factory women in a free trade zone (FTZ)int he Global South.
Design/methodology/approach– Inspired by Judith Butler’s notions of performative acts and performativity, the paper uses poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyze data– oral and written texts generated through a fieldwork study conducted in an FTZ in Sri Lanka.
Findings– Performative acts and the performativity of the occupants in the FTZ demarcate the boundary of the zone and articulate the identities of its occupants. Furthermore, the study shows that, in this process, such performativity and performative acts function as a form of “glue” to amalgamate the places of the zone space as kalape, a complex socio-geographical landscape in flux.
Research limitations/implications– This study provides a new insight into the relationships between discursive-performative acts, place-making and identity formation of (factory) women in the neoliberalized (zone) space(s) of the Global South.
Originality/value– By articulating the FTZ as a (neoliberalized) space in a perpetual present, the study provides new insight into the relationships between performative acts, place-making and identity formation
(of factory women) in the zone space.
In this paper, I make a case for the Buddha's moral philosophy, especially his philosophy of exis... more In this paper, I make a case for the Buddha's moral philosophy, especially his philosophy of existence, in the study of organisational space vis-à-vis Western process thought such as that is proposed by English philosopher Alfred Whitehead. For this, alongside Western process thought, especially that of Whiteheadian, I examine the 'spatial turn' in organisational research and the processual understanding of (organisational) space in which the reproduction of space in Southern organisations as well as employing 'Sothern epistemologies' continues to be scarce. I show how Whiteheadian process thought is inclined towards Western dualistic thinking-the noun/verb dichotomy-although it proposes a comprehensive systematic approach in understanding the processual nature of (organisational) space. Against this backdrop, I examine the Buddha's nonsubstantialist epistemology, which avoids the two-valued system or dualistic thinking, and show, alongside such an epistemology, the way in which the Buddha's philosophy of existence facilitates us to overcome the noun/verb dichotomy in the study of organisational space. In conclusion, I argue that the Buddha's philosophy shows us how to capture and re-articulate the becoming of spatio-temporal moments in organisations without falling back on some conception of permanence or by being trapped by the noun/verb dichotomy which would lead to misinterpret and misrepresent 'spacing of organisations'.
Routledge, Jun 5, 2015
It was a sunny morning in May in a small village 30 kilometres off Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was in t... more It was a sunny morning in May in a small village 30 kilometres off Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was in the human resource manager’s office of an apparel company, a congested partitioned room without a door. The left-side wall of the room was covered by a large poster of a few smiling factory women—‘the employees of the year’. A thoughtful man in his early thirties, the human resource manager, was in his comfortable office chair. He was a graduate of human resource management and was supposed to be a participant of the fieldwork of my doctoral project. I began my dialogue with the manager, a semi-structured interview conducted in Sinhala. The interview was aimed at understanding managing factory women, if not (female) shopfloor labour in the company and Sri Lanka’s apparel industry. The manager narrated: There is a policy in our company to treat everyone equally. Even if our director 1 comes, there is only one canteen to eat. Even lamai [little ones] eat there. We don’t have separate transport [for workers]. We have the same buses [for everyone]. Employees come in those buses. And lamai also come in those buses. That is a value that ChillCo [pseudonym] appreciates.
This thesis explores the formation of female shopfloor workers’ collective identity in the Global... more This thesis explores the formation of female shopfloor workers’ collective identity in the Global South. It raises the question of why female shopfloor workers in Sri Lanka’s apparel industry are called lamai (little ones) and what role HRM plays in this process – of (un)doing the workers’ collective identity as lamai. It revisits the identity construction process by locating it beyond the organizational actors’ work-identity narratives. By (re)conceptualizing HRM as a ‘web of texts’it problematizes the rhetoric–reality dualism in HRM and so dissects the role of the language(s) of HRM in the formation of work identities. For this the thesis embarks on a reading journey, informed by poststructuralist discourse analysis, and renarrates (un)doing the lamai identity as in different texts which it generates in multiple research settings in Sri Lanka’s apparel industry. During this journey it shows how (un)doing the lamai identity becomes a ‘collective burden’ of actors in both wider soci...
Culture and organization, Mar 5, 2024
It was a sunny morning in May in a small village 30 kilometres off Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was in t... more It was a sunny morning in May in a small village 30 kilometres off Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was in the human resource manager’s office of an apparel company, a congested partitioned room without a door. The left-side wall of the room was covered by a large poster of a few smiling factory women—‘the employees of the year’. A thoughtful man in his early thirties, the human resource manager, was in his comfortable office chair. He was a graduate of human resource management and was supposed to be a participant of the fieldwork of my doctoral project. I began my dialogue with the manager, a semi-structured interview conducted in Sinhala. The interview was aimed at understanding managing factory women, if not (female) shopfloor labour in the company and Sri Lanka’s apparel industry. The manager narrated: There is a policy in our company to treat everyone equally. Even if our director 1 comes, there is only one canteen to eat. Even lamai [little ones] eat there. We don’t have separate transport [for workers]. We have the same buses [for everyone]. Employees come in those buses. And lamai also come in those buses. That is a value that ChillCo [pseudonym] appreciates.
Philosophy of Management, Jan 6, 2023
Advances in electronic government, digital divide, and regional development book series, 2018
Systemic manifestations of women's subordination, such as the glass ceiling, are still a reality ... more Systemic manifestations of women's subordination, such as the glass ceiling, are still a reality in organisations. Yet, the glass ceiling effect in the Global South is often conceptualised vis-à-vis (white) women's experience in 'gendered organisations' and women's domestic role in the Southern societies. In this context, this chapter, based on a fieldwork research conducted in Sri Lanka's apparel industry, critically examines the glass ceiling effect of glass ceiling on women's career advancement in the Global South. Alongside the notion of 'universal' patriarchy, it problematises the 'universal' structure of the glass ceiling. And it shows that (un)doing factory women's collective identity-as lamai (little ones)-and the glass ceiling intermingle in the process of women's subordination in the apparel industry. The chapter concludes that, in the apparel industry, the role of managerial women -as well as of men in (un)doing factory women's collective identity-is crucial in keeping the glass ceiling in place.
Human resource management (HRM) is the predominant apparatus for people management across the wor... more Human resource management (HRM) is the predominant apparatus for people management across the world. Since its inception, HRM has nevertheless been subjected to critical scrutiny. This work has produced a corpus of literature now referred to as ‘Critical HRM’. This book on Critical HRM traces the development of the critical scholarly tradition in people management. It analyzes, organizes and synthesizes the various perspectives, ideas and arguments that constitute this critical tradition. The book identifies the current status and future trends of Critical HRM and explores its ethico-political role in contemporary organizations, especially in the context of widespread public concern about making business more ethical. Incorporating under-researched and emerging issues of people management, such as the Global South and Critical HRM, with more established themes of Critical HRM, this book introduces Critical HRM’s critique of mainstream HRM and its underpinning assumptions. It illustrates how interventions have the potential to transform organizational policies and practices of managing people at work. The book will be of interest to professionals, researchers and academics focusing on critical issues in people management across the Global South and North.
Proceedings of International Conference on Business Management, 2005
This text recounts our pilgrimage-an attempt of [re]reading ‘the cult of the Goddess Pattini’, my... more This text recounts our pilgrimage-an attempt of [re]reading ‘the cult of the Goddess Pattini’, mythical symbol of wifely devotion, and motherly fertility and nurture to explore and play the glass ceiling impact on the female labour under the banner of ‘HRM’ in contemporary work organization, Sri Lanka. We argue that the Goddess Pattini, ‘a thing’ that signifies the collective unconscious of women and men of ‘the ideal womanhood’, is still a powerful cue when idealizing ‘female labour role’. The cult therefore, is reread with a view to penetrating the passiveness of the women-the female labour under the banner of ‘HRM’ to the glass ceiling, when reached. Though ‘HRM’, from a modernist’s sense is regarded as a value free-dispassionate symbolic process of managing employment, its real disposition in work organizational milieu discourses is indeed ‘HRMism’. With this sensibility, we locate our [re]reading in a leading manufacturing organization in Sri Lanka, and discern that texts of HRMism not only signify ‘gender prejudices’ but also the manner men-the male labour satisfy their collective unconscious of the ideal womanhood. We therefore, argue that the passiveness to the glass ceiling is per se the manner that women-the female labour are satisfying the collective unconscious of ‘the idealized role of woman’. Keywords: Collective unconscious, Female labour, Glass ceiling, Goddess Pattini, HRMism, text. For full Paper: [email protected]
In this paper, I make a case for the Buddha’s moral philosophy, especially his philosophy of exis... more In this paper, I make a case for the Buddha’s moral philosophy, especially his philosophy of existence, in the study of organisational space vis-à-vis Western process thought such as that is proposed by English philosopher Alfred Whitehead. For this, alongside Western process thought, especially that of Whiteheadian, I examine the ‘spatial turn’ in organisational research and the processual understanding of (organisational) space in which the re-production of space in Southern organisations as well as employing ‘Sothern epistemologies’ continues to be scarce. I show how Whiteheadian process thought is inclined towards Western dualistic thinking—the noun/verb dichotomy—although it proposes a comprehensive systematic approach in understanding the processual nature of (organisational) space. Against this backdrop, I examine the Buddha’s nonsubstantialist epistemology, which avoids the two-valued system or dualistic thinking, and show, alongside such an epistemology, the way in which th...
Social Science Research Network, 2017
In the present moment of global capitalism, the marketisation of higher education is a reality in... more In the present moment of global capitalism, the marketisation of higher education is a reality in the Global South and North. Yet, the Southern experience of marketisation differs from that of the North. This article examines how market-based development in Sri Lanka since the economic liberalisation of 1977 has reshaped Sri Lankan university education. It revisits the historical evolution of “free (higher) education” and critically analyses the influx of global brands into the country’s “education market”. Using the “MacBurger” as a metaphor — for “posh” food in Sri Lanka — the article shows how the influx, together with the rise of fee-levying non-state (and state) universities, endangers the legacy of Sri Lankan (university) education as a “public good”. In conclusion, the article emphasises the widening educational inequality in the country and argues that higher education cannot be left to the free market in the peripheral countries of the South.
Organization Management Journal, 2014
This article examines human resource management (HRM) in Sri Lanka's apparel industry vis-à-vis i... more This article examines human resource management (HRM) in Sri Lanka's apparel industry vis-à-vis its role in the management of women shop-floor workers in the Global South. Informed by poststructuralist notions of language, it analyzes the rupture of HRM that appeared at the moment HRM emerged in the industry in the 1990s. The article suggests that this rupture led to the formation of two (apparently) antagonistic sets of labor management practices: "doing" and "undoing" HRM. Along with the language of HRM, the article examines these two practices, and shows that HRM in the apparel industry appears or unfolds a "web of texts." It further shows that HRM in this context problematizes a rhetoric/reality distinction. This work concludes that the "antagonism" between "doing" and "undoing" HRM is the means by which HRM maintains its continued existence in Sri Lanka's apparel industry.
le.ac.uk
Abstract: Inspired by the Derridian notions of writing and violence, this paper explores the ethi... more Abstract: Inspired by the Derridian notions of writing and violence, this paper explores the ethicopolitical issues of bringing the Other‟ s realitymultiple realities of the third worldinto West. The paper argues that at this moment of global capitalism the unity of writing and ...
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Papers by Dhammika Jayawardena
Design/methodology/approach– Inspired by Judith Butler’s notions of performative acts and performativity, the paper uses poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyze data– oral and written texts generated through a fieldwork study conducted in an FTZ in Sri Lanka.
Findings– Performative acts and the performativity of the occupants in the FTZ demarcate the boundary of the zone and articulate the identities of its occupants. Furthermore, the study shows that, in this process, such performativity and performative acts function as a form of “glue” to amalgamate the places of the zone space as kalape, a complex socio-geographical landscape in flux.
Research limitations/implications– This study provides a new insight into the relationships between discursive-performative acts, place-making and identity formation of (factory) women in the neoliberalized (zone) space(s) of the Global South.
Originality/value– By articulating the FTZ as a (neoliberalized) space in a perpetual present, the study provides new insight into the relationships between performative acts, place-making and identity formation
(of factory women) in the zone space.
Design/methodology/approach– Inspired by Judith Butler’s notions of performative acts and performativity, the paper uses poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyze data– oral and written texts generated through a fieldwork study conducted in an FTZ in Sri Lanka.
Findings– Performative acts and the performativity of the occupants in the FTZ demarcate the boundary of the zone and articulate the identities of its occupants. Furthermore, the study shows that, in this process, such performativity and performative acts function as a form of “glue” to amalgamate the places of the zone space as kalape, a complex socio-geographical landscape in flux.
Research limitations/implications– This study provides a new insight into the relationships between discursive-performative acts, place-making and identity formation of (factory) women in the neoliberalized (zone) space(s) of the Global South.
Originality/value– By articulating the FTZ as a (neoliberalized) space in a perpetual present, the study provides new insight into the relationships between performative acts, place-making and identity formation
(of factory women) in the zone space.