Work Alienation in Emerging Countries: An Analysis of Practices and Mechanisms in Peruvian Companies

Pasco-Dalla-Porta M.M.; Del Aguila Marchena L.; Postigo J.C. · Journal of Labor and Society (2026) · DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10218

Resumen

Neoliberal policies have disrupted work relationships across the world, intensifying their subordination to productivity and profit imperatives, turning them increasingly uncertain. Although companies have developed a rhetoric of concern for workers’ integration and sa2tisfaction, many workers experience the workplace as an alienating environment. Research on work alienation has been given limited scholarly attention in the management sciences. Drawing on the perspectives of critical theory, organization studies, and business ethics, we analyzed the dynamics of alienation in large and medium companies in Peru, based on information coming from 53 in-depth interviews with workers in different industries. We examined practices of alienation along four dimensions (powerlessness, meaninglessness, self-estrangement, and social isolation), and elucidated the variety of reproduction, feedback, and resistance mechanisms through which alienating relationships are reinforced and contested. In the neoliberal world of work, alienation has become an increasingly sophisticated feature, which makes it particularly difficult to identify and criticize. © Mario Marcello Pasco-Dalla-Porta et al., 2026. Published with license by Koninklijke Brill BV. This work is published by Koninklijke Brill BV. Koninklijke Brill BV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill BV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill BV.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú