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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to suggest a frame of reference about the relations between the responsibility and the commitment of employees on the one side and type of organization on the other. The basis is a discussion of the tension between docility and freedom.Design/methodology/approachResults from earlier empirical studies of disciplinary practices among teachers and warders form the starting point. In this paper the phenomenon of hedonism is added. Hedonism is investigated from a psychological perspective and applied to work organizations with the help of attribution theories, theories on coping and motivation and theories on the conflict between the individual and the organization, i.e. of power, culture and coherence.FindingsThe paper has developed a typology on coping strategies in work contexts, which describes four possible "ideal" roles an individual can take, referring to three dimensions, the dichotomy between freedom and docility, the individual's locus of control as external or internal, and the coherence between individual and organizational values.Practical implicationsThe model can be used for empirical studies and contribute to the development of work organizations where people feel committed enough to take responsibility both for monotonous and dull everyday tasks and for exceptional and acute unique problem solving situations.Originality/valueMost studies on disciplining and docility focus on the painful side of coping. Few studies focus on what people do in order to cope with commitment and responsibility. This paper considers the different power struggles embedded in the work context, and give varying interpretations of them.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to put forward examples of disciplinary practices, i.e. to interpret Foucault's ideas with data collected from today's working‐life in schools and prisons. Besides describing disciplinary practices the intention is to describe how individuals cope with the dilemmas that follow. On the grounds of the analysis a discussion about the tension between freedom and docility and different individuals' strategies for coping with this tension is also promoted.Design/methodology/approachData are collected from teachers in schools and warders in prisons. The empirical question relates to how disciplinary practises are expressed and the dilemmas that follow. In the analysis the concepts of Foucault, time, space and visibility, as relations of power, are used.FindingsThe article shows examples of disciplining and the dilemmas following from disciplining, both at individual and organisational level. Encountering new demands in their work, teachers tend to stick harder to their profession while warders tend to freely use their life experiences to develop their work. One conclusion is that freedom may be easier when individual values and organisational values are in coherence with one another, and docility is more often used when they differ.Originality/valueThat there are tensions between individuals' striving for freedom and organisations' striving for their disciplining is no news but on the grounds of the empirical data dilemmas and how teachers and warders cope with them in their work are described. The data also encourage further discussion while it brings findings of different ways of coping, for example when it comes to professionals and non‐professionals.

The business model concept has moved business research closer to the conceptual structure traditionally applied in military studies. Missing a concept with a function similar to military doctrine we suggest that an equivalent concept, dubbed business logic, may facilitate our understanding of change in relation to strategy and business models.