From stress to resistance: Challenging the capitalist underpinnings of mental unhealth in work and organizations

Abstract

The worldwide spread of work-related mental unhealth suggests that this is amajor problem affecting organizations and employees on a global scale. In thispaper, we therefore provide a thematic review of the literatures that address thisissue in management and organization studies (MOS) and related fields. Whilethese literatures examine how employee mental health is affected by organiza-tional and occupational structures and managed by organizations and employ-ees, they have paid relatively little attention to the capitalist labour relationswhich underpin the unhealthy conditions of contemporary working life. Theyhave paid even less attention to how these conditions may be resisted. To helpfuture scholarship in MOS challenge this state of affairs, we draw on some of themost basic but central notions of exploitation, alienation and resistance in classicand current critiques of capitalism, optimistic that this may help strengthen thefield’s capacity to confront mental unhealth in settings of work and organization.