Resistance: Would Struggle by Any Other Name Be as Sweet?
http://mcq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/387
  access restricted (by the publisher) to members/subscribers/customers only
  peer-reviewed

Deetz, Stanley
Management Communication Quarterly
2008

Abstract:

Management in professionalized workplaces is often characterized as Mtrying to herd cats. Having grown up on a dairy farm, the characterization never made much sense to me. Cows and sheep earn our disparaging remarks because they are easy to push around. Their occasional resistance seems counter to their character. But cats are also easy to herd; just have milk. Cats may walk by themselves, but they quickly all choose to walk in the same direction following the pail. Cats may quickly resist getting pushed in common directions, but they are easily pulled there. Got milk, got cats. Are cats more autonomous than the herds? Has resisting cats led us to overlook how easy they are to herd? Resistance comes to us as a term growing out of workplaces that tried to push and direct. Resistance was at least a pushing back; sometimes it was an organized pushing for another direction.