FROM MODERN TO POSTMODERN ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS

The terms 'modern' and 'postmodern' have become common currency in intellectual debates within organization studies. The postmodern is variously interpreted as an 'epoch', a 'perspective', or a new 'paradigm' of thought. In this paper the author argues that what distinguishes the postmodern from the modern is a 'style of thinking' which eschews the uncritical use of common organizational terms such as 'organizations', 'individuals', 'environment', 'structure', and 'culture', etc. These terms refer to the existence of social entities and attributes within a modernist problematic. This is because a modernist thought style relies on a 'strong' ontology (the study of the nature and essence of things) of being which privileges thinking in terms of discrete phenomenal 'states', static 'attributes' and sequential 'events'. Postmodern thinking, on the other hand, privileges a 'weak' ontology of becoming which emphasizes a transient, ephemeral and emergent reality. From this thought style, reality is deemed to be continuously in flux and transformation and hence unrepresentable in any static sense. Debates about modernism and postmodernism which do not address this ontological distinction miss critical insights which postmodernism brings to the study of organization. Adopting a postmodern mode of thinking implies radical consequences for rethinking organization studies. Instead of the traditional emphasis on organizations, organizational forms and organizational attributes, what is accentuated is the importance of examining local assemblages of 'organizings' which collectively make up social reality. A postmodern style of thought, therefore, brings with it a different set of ontological commitments, intellectual priorities and theoretical preoccupations to bear on the study of organization.