Taking care of business: self-help and sleep medicine in american corporate culture.
This article argues that corporate management in the United States has expanded its scope beyond office walls and encompasses many aspects of workers' daily lives. One new element of corporate training is the micromanagement of sleep; self-help books, newspaper reports, magazine articles, and consulting firms currently advise workers and supervisors on optimizing productivity by cultivating certain sleep habits. Although consultants and self-help books make specific recommendations about sleep, most medical research is inconclusive about sleep's benefits for human performance. Using the ideas of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze as a philosophical backdrop, this article examines the complex and often contradictory links between self-help, medicine, and corporate governance.
Department of English, Pennsylvania State University, 117 Burrowes Bldg., University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-6200, USA. mcb225@psu.edu
Megan
M
Brown
D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000639:trends*; D005544:Forecasting; D006184:Habits; D006266:Health Education / Q000639:trends*; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D015279:Organizational Culture; D016134:Organizational Policy; D010559:Personnel Management / Q000639:trends; D012648:Self Care / Q000639:trends*; D012890:Sleep; D014481:United States