Performance-based practices and coeliac disease: an analysis of the lived experiences of employees in intellectual labour in the UK

Many contemporary organisations are alike in their prioritisation of and dependency on performance-based quantification practices that aim to boost profits through efficiency gains. But how do employees engaged in intellectual labour experience these organisational practices, which are typically rooted in numerically oriented discourses? To extend critical accounting management research investigating this question, this thesis analyses the experiences of employees living with coeliac disease, an autoimmune disease that is triggered by the protein gluten. This thesis reports empirical research conducted through an in-depth critical case study (Glynos and Howarth, 2007) of such performance practices and their effects on employees with coeliac disease. Adopting a three-tiered analytic approach that examines employee experiences (micro level), organisational practices (meso level) and wider policy context (macro level), the case study examines workplace practices relevant to employees with coeliac disease. I draw on the lived experiences of 17 employees in the United Kingdom, supplementing their oral accounts with references to secondary materials. The analysis is grounded in the post-Marxist discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, as well as in Glynos and Howarth’s Logics of Critical Explanation (LoCE). The thesis narrates the employees’ experiences of the workplace environment through their personal life stories. It also prompts further debate on performance evaluation processes and the emancipatory transformation that is required to humanise the workplace. The thesis makes an empirical contribution to critical management accounting literature on employees’ lived experiences with respect to performance measures, while also contributing to debates on methodology and post-Marxist theory. More specifically, the thesis expands the scope of the application of the LoCE to a new area— employees with coeliac disease— while critically assessing dominant trends in contemporary organisational practice. In its understanding of performance as a hegemonic practice, the thesis also contributes to the wider effort to integrate accounting practices into theories of society’s political nature.