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A Description of Modernism and Postmodernism in the Context of Organisation Studies and Thinking about Management
A Description of Modernism and Postmodernism in the Context of Organisation Studies and Thinking about Management
Carlene Boucher School of Management
Carlene Boucher is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Management. She can be contacted as follows: Phone: 9925 5914 Email: cboucher@netspace.net.au
Abstract
Writing about organisations from a postmodern perspective has proliferated in the last ten years (for example Calas 1987; Barratt & Strauss 1989; Hassard & Parker 1994; Boje, Gephart & Thatchenkery 1996), as has criticism of applying postmodern thinking to organisation studies (Tsoukas 1992). This paper attempts to identify, for the person not familiar with the literature on postmodernism, the fundamental tenets of this approach and the main criticisms made of it. The paper also describes some of the most interesting challenges postmodernism creates for thinking about organisations studies and management.
Postmodernism defies definition. In fact to attempt to define it is to transgress many of its basic tenets. Writers do agree however, that postmodernism represents some kind of reaction to, or departure from, modernism (Barratt & Straus 1989; Burrell 1988; Callinicos 1989; Cooper 1989; Cooper & Burrell 1988; Flax 1987; Harvey 1989; Kritzman 1988; Martin 1990; Parker 1992b; Yeatman 1991). Yeatman (1991 p 6) also identifies the dependency of postmodernism on modernism. Without modernism, postmodernism would never have come into existence.
1981; Flax 1987; Fonow & Cook 1991; Stanley 1990). "Postmodernism is a medicine, a specific cure for certain kinds of intellectual arrogance" (Yeatman, 1991, p 17, quoting Connell). The decentring of human beings Similar to the way Gaileo replaced the earth with the sun as the centre of our system, (and perhaps with a similar level of profundity) postmodernism once again challenges the notion that human beings are at the centre of the world. Whereas the modernist project is based on the implicit assumption that a rational, 'understandable' world exists and is waiting to be known by humans, postmodernism insists that it is human beings who put themselves at the centre and from this position see an ordered world because to not see one would be too anxiety producing (Cooper & Burrell 1988). "Postmodernism therefore decentres the human agent from its self-elevated position of narcissistic 'rationality' and shows it to be essentially an observer-community of the world, their interpretations having no absolute or universal status" (Cooper & Burrell 1988, p 94). Discontinuity, fragmentation and chaos As mentioned earlier, postmodernism totally rejects any notion of the world as a rational, ordered and 'knowable' place. Postmodernism harks back to the deep chaos in modern life and its intractability before rational thought and treats chaos, disorder, lack of closure and indeterminacy in positive ways. Lyotard has defined postmodern discourse as "the search for instabilities" (Cooper & Burrell,1988, p 98). By questioning the existence of any type of certainty, postmodernism can be seen to threaten all that appears to hold our organisations together, value systems, authority, tradition. But it also opens a possibility "...of a democratic politics of voice and representation, where the ideal state is not the overcoming of domination once and for all but the ongoing imaginative and creative forms of positive resistance to various types of domination" (Yeatman 1991, p 8).
Postmodernisms
At least four different postmodernisms seem to exist. Yeatman (1991) and Parker (1992b), although coming from very different political positions, both distinguish between postmodernism as a positivistic stance (the idea that modern institutions have qualitatively altered and have entered a post-modern age) and postmodernism as a critical stance (a new way of viewing the world). Both argue that while it is true that the nature of the world and organisations has changed, postmodernism is a state of mind, "... a condition where there is no operative consensus concerning the ultimate or transcendental grounds of truth and justice" (Yeatman 1991, p 116). In Harvey's (1989 p 42) terms they would argue that postmodernism is a style rather than a period.
The other two postmodernisms are probably best expressed as being two ends of the same continuum, or what Tsoukas (1992 p 648) refers to as soft and hard versions of postmodernism. Adherents to the hard version, which he describes as being "...in danger of descending into solipsism..." (Tsoukas 1992, p 648), are strident in denying the existence of universal truths and vigorously dispute the notions of rationality and reason. A softer version recognises the ontological existence of the social world (Tsoukas 1992, p 648), however precarious and fluid it may be, and "...has a strong relationship of continuity with modern traditions of emancipatory discourse... In respect of its intellectual expressions, it may be termed postmodern critical theorising" (Yeatman 1991, p 8).
already be over in architecture (Harvey 1989) and that in other areas is undergoing a subtle evolution, perhaps reaching a point of self-dissolution into something different. New alternatives are already being offered such as a new romanticism, a new realism, ethics, renewal of historical materialism, renewal of enlightenment project, a return to classicism or a return to modernism. Rajchman (in Parker 1992b, p 14) suggests that postmodern theory "..is the Toyota of thought: produced and assembled in several different places and then sold everywhere". If postmodernism is such a flawed, disreputable and outmoded notion, why study its application to organisation studies and management? Because like many writers cited in this paper (Burrell 1988; Calas 1987; Cooper 1989; Cooper & Burrell 1988; Martin 1990; Parker 1992b; Yeatman 1991), my experience of organisations as irrational, chaotic and unreasonable resonates with the postmodern project. Modernism explains how organisations should be, postmodernism is the experience of how they are.
Organisation as a coping mechanism Building on the work of Foucault, postmodernists place subjects (not objects) at the beginning of the organising process (Cooper & Burrell 1988). Therefore, organisations do not exist, but are created in the minds of people as a defence against anxiety (Cooper & Burrell 1988; Foucault,1973; Menzies Lyth,1988).
Organizations do not first pre-exist and then create their relationships, they occur in existential gaps which lie beyond knowledgeable discourse....Organized rationality, far from originating in beau-ideals and consummate logics of efficiency, is founded on sleight of hand, vicious agonism and pudenda origo (shameful origins). This is the revisionary lesson that postmodernism brings to organization analysis" (Cooper & Burrell 1988 p 108) .
This represents a fundamental conceptual shift in the way we think about organisations. The role of rationality and reason A fundamental challenge postmodernism offers to organisation theorists is its displacement (and outright rejection) of any notion of rationality or reason in organisations. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, postmodernism suggests that organisations do not actually exist. Thus it destroys the hope of discovering or creating a knowable order in organisations. This has many significant implications for what has been largely unquestioned organisation assumptions. If organisations are not rational then how can we talk about people having prescribed roles in organisations (Cooper & Burrell 1988). Organisation theory is premised on the assumption that organisations have rational goals and act to attain them. If the truth is that action is in fact automatic, not linked in any way to goals, but justifiable in terms of them (Cooper & Burrell 1988, p 103, quoting Mayntz, Merton and Gouldner) then traditional business planning processes are nothing more than emotionally reassuring rituals. Recent advances in business planning technology, such as information theory, cybernetics and decision theory become nothing more than bright new toys, fun to play with but useless. Destruction of meta-theory If we dispense with meta-theories as a way of understanding organisations, then organisation studies must undergo a transformation (Willmott in Hassard & Parker 1994). From a postmodern perspective what is analysed is "the production of organization rather than the organization of production" (Cooper & Burrell 1988, p 106). Research will focus on attempting to ...open up the indeterminacy that modern social science, everyday conception, routines and practices have closed off (Alvesson in Clegg, Hardy & Nord 1996, p 210).
New understandings of concepts such as power must be developed. No longer can power be understood as something that is possessed as a result of personality or position (Gergen in Reed & Hughes 1992). New voices must be listened to, the minority voices of those whose experience of organisations has traditionally been silenced (Calas & Smircich in Clegg, Hardy & Nord 1996). Postdisciplinary approach Cooper (1988) points out that most contemporary organisation theorising occurs within the fairly strict boundaries of various academic disciplines (economics, accounting, organisation behaviour) and suggests that one benefit offered by a postmodern approach is that it 'frees up' the sources and types of knowledge that can be bought to organisations. Traditional academic specialisations have resulted in a set of representations of organisations (theories and models) that we attempt to master and then make organisations fit (Cooper & Burrell, 1988). Postmodernism offers the opportunity to see organising and organisations as processes that happen within the wider body of society and to bring to their study, the knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines previously considered irrelevant such as literature, culture, art and music. It also opens up for discussion the question of who has knowledge of organisations (and for that matter what constitutes knowledge). Another challenge presented by postmodernism deserve mention. If, as Foucault suggests, it is only from the site of the human body that the power of resistance (to the status quo) can be released (Harvey 1989), then we need to rethink the ways we approach organisation change, because all change is a form of resistance (Bradshaw in Hassard & Parker 1994).
On the one hand Parker (1992b) and Tsoukas (1992) suggest that postmodernism has little new to offer, that it is a distraction, that it is simply a reworking of contingency theory, control vs commitment, Taylor vs Mayo. On the other hand a number of writers (Burrell 1988; Calas & Smircich 1991; Cooper 1989; Cooper & Burrell 1988; Flax 1987; Martin 1990; Turner 1990; Yeatman 1991), while unclear about how postmodern notions will influence thinking about organisations focus on the possibilities. Burrell (1988 p 231) suggests that a Foucauldian analysis of organisations would "... focus on the multiplicity of factors involved in describing organization life and events. It would emphasise the complexity, contingency and fragility of organization forms as transitory manifestations of relationships of dominance, subordination and as mere embodiments of an underlying relationship of forces...", and points to the challenge of developing a new discourse (a discursive ferment) of organisations without developing new disciplines.
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