Leaving and moving on from the corporatized workplace: An emotional and feminist economic geography of tension and conflict at work

Abstract

Employers have a vested interest in understanding why people leave. Feminist economic geographers have extensively researched the culture of the corporatized workplace, though they have rarely explored why people leave. This research examines the stories of people who left the corporatized workplace to start businesses oriented to positive social and/or environmental change. It explores what these stories can tell us about (i) the culture of the corporatized workplace, (ii) why people leave, and (iii) the pathways to starting a business oriented to positive change. Rather than looking at the workplace through the lens of identity, this research examines the workplace through the lens of care and affect theory. This research applies qualitative research design principles and uses narrative inquiry to collect partial life histories focused on why people leave the corporatized workplaces to start businesses oriented to positive social and/or environmental change. I did not provide criteria for what constituted businesses oriented to positive social and/or environmental change in any recruitment information. Participants were left to self-select into the study based on their own assessment of their business. I conducted 26 unstructured interviews where participants were asked to share experiences of three places: (i) the corporatized workplace, (ii) the liminal between leaving the corporatized workplace and starting their own business, and (iii) the business they viewed as oriented to positive change. The research applies affect theory using the work of Sara Ahmed and Lauren Berlant as analytical tools. It also relies on Gibson-Graham’s work in creating alternative economies. The research addresses why people leave the corporatized workplace at two scales: i) the systemic and ii) the personal. It then addresses the movement from the corporatized workplace to the business that participants defined as a positive change business. Many described that movement as a journey. At the scale of the system, the research identifies how the gameboard (the structure and ethos of the workplace), the Kool-Aid (the stated culture of the workplace), and the game (the lived culture of the workplace) press against those that care creating a care ceiling. A care ceiling is an invisible barrier to professional advancement for those who embody ethics of care. At the scale of the individual, I applied Ahmed’s definition of emotions to determine what was pressing against the participants, causing them to leave the corporatized workplace. The main factors in their leaving are (i) the manufactured urgency of the corporatized workplace that causes participants to behave in ways that are contrary to their values and (ii) value conflicts that occur with others in their workplaces. Those value conflicts cause slow wounding in the form of moral injury, which causes many participants to feel alienated and ultimately to leave the workplace. Many leave feeling burnt out, like they have lost pieces of themselves. The liminal is a journey of what bell hooks refers to as “remembering myself” and is driven by curiosity. It involves encounters that open possibilities, finding belonging, exploring Gibson-Graham’s (2006) “other possible worlds” (p. xii), and creating reparative stories. For those that complete the journey, it ends in a different way of being, where participants embrace species being, which can be defined as a place of owning themselves. The journey parallels the process used by Gibson-Graham to guide communities to alternative economies. This research contributes to the literature of economic geography, particularly feminist economic geography, including research on workplace culture and reparative approaches. It applies Marxist concepts of alienation and species being to the modern workplace. It also contributes to human resource management literature on why people leave their workplaces. Finally, it contributes to our societal understanding of how the culture of the corporatized workplace is reproduced, how challenging it is to transform, and provides insight into what people in the corporatized workplace are being asked to “lean into,” a neoliberal and individualistic framing popularized by Facebook (now Meta) former COO Sheryl Sandberg.