Managerial Image, Social Capital, and Risk in a Czech Engineering Enterprise

Abstract

High tech Czech enterprises have faced a transformation, which is shared with similar enterprises throughout the developed world. The value of manufacturing has declined while the value of highly skilled and educated workers has grown. This has placed new demands on workers and managers. Previous research indicates that Czechs harbor considerable doubt about the honesty of their political and economic system. One response to this perceived dishonesty has been disengagement from their work and public life. This behavior has proven problematic for the managers who have aggressively pursued strategies to control perception of risk, create trust, and build engagement in work. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at a Brno engineering firm, this chapter will analyze these strategies and their results, and suggest how the understandings developed in this case might be more broadly applied.