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Offers a detailed and entertaining analysis of the daily interactions between managers and employees in creative knowledge intensive organizations. Based on vivid examples, the book shows how both managers and employees entertain contradictory understandings of their mutual commitment.

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List of Tables Introduction Desire, Discovery, and Disillusionment in Modern Working Life Affective Labor and Post-bureaucracy Setting the Scene - Analytics of Compassion Methods - The Solidarity of Detachment Contractuality and Authenticity - the Dual Discourses about Work Captain or Comrade - What Employees Expect from their Managers Predictable or Pioneering - What Managers Expect of Employees Coping with Contradictions - Tensions, Double Binds and Hybrids Conclusion Shaking Analytical Habits - an Empirical Quest for Compassion Appendix Methodological Details Bibliography

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SUSANNE EKMAN is Assistant Professor at the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. She holds an MA in Anthropology and a PhD in Management. She is primarily interested in the complex relationship between freedom and ethics and has recently pursued this issue ethnographically in the context of contemporary knowledge work.

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