The Powers in PowerPoint: Embedded Authorities, Documentary Tastes, and Institutional (Second) Orders in Corporate Korea.

Microsoft PowerPoint is both the bane and banality of contemporary South Korean office work. Corporate workers spend countless hours refining and crafting plans, proposals, and reports in PowerPoint that often lead to conflicts with coworkers and overtime work. This article theorizes the excessive a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:American Anthropologist Vol. 121; no. 2; pp. 350 - 363
Autor principal: Prentice, Michael M.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell May2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: The Powers in PowerPoint: Embedded Authorities, Documentary Tastes, and Institutional (Second) Orders in Corporate Korea.
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        au: Prentice, Michael M.
        affil: Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University, Waltham MA, 02454, USA
      su:
        South Korea
        Microsoft PowerPoint (Computer software)
        Labor
        Authority
        Technology
        Offices
        Clerks
        Expertise
      sug:
        subj:
          Labor
          Authority
          Technology
          South Korea
          Offices
          Clerks
          Expertise
          Microsoft PowerPoint (Computer software)
      ab: Microsoft PowerPoint is both the bane and banality of contemporary South Korean office work. Corporate workers spend countless hours refining and crafting plans, proposals, and reports in PowerPoint that often lead to conflicts with coworkers and overtime work. This article theorizes the excessive attention to documents in modern office contexts. Where scholars have been under the impression that institutional documents align with institutional purposes, I describe a context in which making documents for individual purposes and making them for work exist under a basic tension. Based on fieldwork in corporate Korea between 2013 and 2015, I describe how Korean office workers calibrate documents to the tastes of superiors who populate the managerial chain. These practices leave little trace of real "work" on paper, but they are productive for navigating complex internal labor markets and demonstrating a higher order value of attention toward others. These findings suggest that institutional and individual authorities are not competing projects inside organizations but become entangled in increasingly complex participatory encounters, even as they are channeled through a seemingly simple software like PowerPoint. [documents, expertise, authority, technology, South Korea]
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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