El poder en Foucault: bases analíticas para el estudio de las organizaciones

This article is the result of an initial concern about the existing concept of power in organizational studies as a tool for understanding the dynamics of today’s business organizations. Approaches to the power in such organizations suggest its appropriation from an instrumental and pragmatic perspective, since attention has focused on issues related to how to gain power and its use efficiently and strategically from the directors and management. With this background, the research intends to show a theoretical analysis of the notion of power in Michel Foucault as a reference to overcome the traditional boundaries of organizational thinking. For this purpose, we performed an analysis and synthesis of the approaches of Foucault about power, particularly in the works Governmentality, The Subject and Power, Microphysics of Power, Discipline and Punish and The Will to Knowledge, through literature review and systematization of the development of prominent writers who have concerned about the concept of power in the organizational context. The last part of the text is devoted to reflection and problematization of power in business organization, of its efforts to establish a control and a discipline to organize and regulate workers, and so get them its maximum contribution to achieving organizational objectives. Finally, Foucault allows understanding how disciplinary power is integrated into the daily life of the organization, its processes and social relations between its members, thus shaping a possible alternative study of organizations, of how subjectivity breaks -and suffers the pounding of- the power relations creating individuals that reproduce the conditions of which they are subjected.Este articulo es el resultado de una primera inquietud en torno a la concepcion del poder existente en los estudios organizacionales como herramienta para comprender la dinamica propia de las organizaciones empresariales actuales. Los planteamientos sobre el poder en dichas organizaciones sugieren una apropiacion de este desde una perspectiva instrumental y pragmatica, en tanto se ha centrado la atencion en asuntos relacionados con como se obtiene el poder y su uso eficiente y estrategico desde los centros directivos y de gestion. Con este antecedente, la investigacion propone realizar un analisis teorico de la nocion de poder en Michel Foucault como referente que permita superar las fronteras tradicionales del pensamiento organizacional. Para este proposito, se realizo el analisis y sintesis de los planteamientos de Foucault en torno al poder, concretamente en las obras La Gubernamentalidad, El Sujeto y el Poder, Microfísica del Poder, Vigilar y Castigar y La Voluntad de Saber ; mediante la revision documental y sistematizacion de los desarrollos de destacados autores que se han ocupado del concepto de poder en el medio organizacional. La ultima parte del texto esta dedicada a la problematizacion y reflexion del poder en la organizacion empresarial, de sus esfuerzos por establecer un control y una disciplina que ordenen y regularicen a los trabajadores y asi obtener de ellos el maximo aporte para el logro de los objetivos organizacionales.