I am writing an MA thesis on cultural conflict between engineers and management. I would suggest reading works from the field of CMS - critical management studies. You can find lots of articles available, with no paywalls, through google scholar. I would start with Alvesson's work on CMS.

We've actually used CMS to improve recruitment and retention of engineers in an organization. I subscribe to hard realism. We can't pay like FAANG, and we can't promise a fast career track. What do we offer? Oh, lots of things that don't cost money but are highly valued by engineers. Honesty. Transparent culture - who gets paid more, promoted, and why. Engineering excellence - management does not decide on tech choices, all decisions are negotiated from the principle of compromise between excellence, financial viability and short-and long-term benefits. Not dictatorial "transformational" leadership, with "agile" on top.

Guaranteed no overtime for engineers. Flexible schedules. The opportunity to participate, in an active, self-determined, ethics-steered way, in creating tech solutions that impact millions of humans positively, with no moral gray areas.

This particular org is honest about not giving "fuck-you money", but it also guarantees not bidding on military contracts, manipulating people to the lowest denominator, or engaging in surveillance capitalism.

From the earliest recruitment communication, we make it clear that we don't do corporate cringe. No inspirational coaches. No transformational coaches. No coaches, period. We don't do "teambuilding" exercises. We do send people to conferences, on the company dime, and have the option of on-the-payroll personal project, for those that want it.

  Surprising how easy it is to compete for talent with idiot companies that expect "loyalty" that they translate as "blind obedience through fear".

A lot of those things are hard to achieve - we would all, I think, like to hear more about how.

I have been running an experiment for the last year, and will also be interviewing professional developers, outside of my circles, as part of my research. Management and engineering cultures have been described as orthogonal, and the standard approach may be characterized as getting engineering to conform to management values.

Leadership has to be realist enough to understand that a) tech talent has other options b) managers have to commit to transparent dialogue and culture that is attractive to engineers, or pay talent higher than competitors.

With the fix-and-cheat in software fiascos such as Boeing 737 Max crashes and Volkswagen emission scandals,to name just two, this is a serious concern. With software eating the world, it will continue to grow in global magnitude.

Treating people with respect is not hard, it's just often not done in the corporate environment.

Right now I am consulting my university as to what would be appropriate to do the research anonymously, as close to truly as possible, to protect the sources, yet still have academic rigor.

My problem is that early on, I was interviewing engineers at a well-known San-Francisco company. That company had engaged in paranoid spy-craft, such as having developers followed, as well as the standard emails read, etc. My email was under continuous attacks and several trojans were sent to my personal phone (which I had not published online, nor had linked to my name in any records). So it looks like I have to protect my identity as well, to protect my sources. This is one of my current challenges.

Do you have a mailing list? :-) SIgn me up and keep me updated please :-)

I'll ping your comment once I set something up, thanks for your interest. The problem for me right now is making sure the people I interview are safe from corporate repercussion, due to their participation.

Voicing ethical concerns about management is a firing offense for many, it seems.So I have to make sure the blog / mailing list is set up so that the website, list, etc doesn't expose people.

"/sub."

;-)

> We've actually used CMS to improve recruitment and retention of engineers in an organization.

Would you mind revealing which organization? And how long have they managed to sustain these values? It would be super interesting to learn more about their industry, the size of the engineering org, how much product features get built in a given year etc.

thanks for your interest. I can't at this time, as the research is ongoing. The org would have to approve publishing their name. That's the only part up to them as far as affecting what I publish. The experiment has been ongoing for about a year. I don't think it's anything new, but apparently, if it is bringing results, then at least it's not widely practiced.

I would summarize the idea as "If you can't promise and pay developers "fuck-you" money, at least don't fuck them instead".

I will be writing more on the topic, but I aim for about 2 years for the experiment, as that would be the minimum to establish success in retaining talent.