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* Academy of Managem ent Review1999, Vol. 24, No. 4, 64 9-671 .

PAST POSTMODERNISM? REFLECTIONS ANDTENTATIVE DIRECTIONSMARTA B. CALASLINDA SMIRCICH

Univers i ty o f Massachuse t t s a t Amhers tIn this article we first reflect on the significant and positive impact of postmodernismfor organizational theorizing during the past decade. Through several examples wepoint to contributions that poststructuralist perspectives have brought to the field.Finally, we consider four contemporary theoretical tendenciesfeminist poststructur-alist theorizing, postcolonial analyses, actor-network theory, and narrative ap-proaches to know ledgea s heirs (apparent) of the postm odem tum for organizationaltheorizing past postmodernism.

Since the late 1970s, the social sciences, in-cluding organization studies, have been influ-enced by diverse theoretical perspectives call-ing for reflexivity toward the constitution of"theory" and the insti tutional, social , and polit-ical aspects of such constitution. "Postmodern"has been used to identify many of these per-spectives, for they appear to share some fea-tu res , including a concern for language and rep-resen tation a nd a reconside ration of subjectivityand power.More recent ly , the "pos tmodern turn" hascome und er inc reasin g scrutiny, even by some ofits adv oca tes a nd supp orters (e.g. , Butler & Scott,1992; Leitch, 1998). Insofa r a s postm od ern per-spect ives a l low for ques t ioning convent ionalapproaches to theory development , the argu-ment goes, they provide incisive analyses show-ing the inner workings and assum ptive b as is ofthose theories. At the same time, however, theelus iveness of theory under pos tmodern pre-mises prevents those who ar ticula te pos tmodernperspectives from theorizing other, alternativeviews, because they do not have any "solidground" from which to speak.A typical respo nse to an e ncoun ter with apos ts t ructura l is t analys is or a decons truct iverea din g in our field is "Yes, b u t. . . ." That is ,"Yes, I see how the langu ag e in the text rep eatswhat i t seeks to suppress and excludes a deval-ued other" (upon reading Martin Kilduff's, 1993,"Decons truct ing Organizations"; Joanne Mar-

We thank three anonymous reviewers and Special IssueEditor Dave Whetten for helping to make this a much betterarticle.

tin's, 1990, "Deconstructing Organizational Ta-boos"; or Dennis Mumby and Linda Putnam's,1992, deconstructive readings of Simon's conceptof bounded rationality), or "Yes, I see how pow-er/knowledge works in the unfolding of humanresource m an age m en t (HRM) practic es and stra-tegic management frameworks" (upon readingBarbara Townley's , 1993, or David Knights', 1992,Foucau ldian ta kes on HRM or s t ra tegic m ana ge-ment, respectively). And then, "But once you'vedeconstructed, then what? How can we recon-struct, or get anything positive from this?"We are sympathetic to this reaction, comingas it typically does from a desire to make adifference with our scholarship. Yet, we wouldnot share the sense of "nothing positive fromthis." Instead, we would emphasize the impor-tance of the postmodern turn for transformingcontemporary theorizing in the social sciencesin general and organization studies in particu-lar. That is , we wish to mark the importance forcontemporary theorizing of having gone throughthese inte l lec tual currents .Thus, in this article we discuss the impact ofpos tmodernism as a s ignif icant and pos i t ivecontribution to organizational theorizing duringthe last 10 yea rs or so. Its s ignificance, w e arg ue,resides iri the opportunities it has offered forreflecting upon the production of theory as agenre and as an insti tutional and cultural activ-ity. By calling attention to the textuality of or-g a n i z a t i o n a l t h e o r i e s , p o s t m o d e r n i s m h a sopened a space for a different form of criticism(e.g., Fo nd as, 1997; Gold en-Bid dle & Locke, 1993;Van M aan en, 1988, 1995a,b). View ing theo ry a s a

representa t ional form places decis ions regard-84 9

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850 Academy of Management Review Octobering "for what" and "for whom" we are going tospeak in the core of our scholarship (e.g., Deetz,1996; Ferguson, 1994; Hatch, 1996; Putnam, 1996;Van M aan en, 1996; Wicks & Fre em an, 1998).Questions such as "Who is the subject of organ-izational theories?" and "What is representedand what i s not represented in organiza t iona ltheorizing?" can now be asked as issues to beresolved in the textua l conf igura t ions them-se lv es (Mum by & Pu tna m , 1992; Nkom o, 1992).Perhaps more important , these quest ions havegiven way to different forms of writing theoryand have allowed different theoretical "voices"to emerg e . The postmodern turn has o pened " themargins" of organization studies to be "writ ten"by and for others whose theoretical voices havese ldom been represented in our scholarship(Ca lds & Smircich, 1991; Sh alle nb erg er, 1994).We expand the above reflections as follows.First , we locate the entrance of postmodern per-spec t ives in to organiza t ion s tudies dur ing thelate 1970s an d ea rly 1980s, con necte d to wr iting sabout the multiparadigmatic status of the field.Second, we review key preoccupations of post-modern theor iz ing and observe the ways inwhich they are evident in organization studies.By referring to sev eral ex am ples , we point to thecontributions that postmodern and poststructur-alist perspectives have brought to organizationstudies as the field stands today. Finally, weconsider four contemporary approaches to or-ganizational theorizing and their current andpotential contributions to organization studiesin light of the issues raised above: (1) feministpos t s t ruc tu ra l i s t t heo r i z ing , (2 ) pos tco lon ia lan al ys es , (3) actor-netw ork theory , and (4) na rra -t ive appro ache s to knowledge . These , we c la im,may be considered as heirs (apparent) of thepostmodern turn, each offering specific contri-butions to organizational theorizing after post-modernism and each not yet sufficiently mate-rial ized.Before we proceed, we must ackn ow ledg e th atwe are writ ing from a North American and busi-ness school location. This placement no doubtinf luences how we understand some issues inorganization studies. As well , as we write theselines and the rest of the art icle , we are strug-gl ing wi th the sam e problems of representa t ionand form we discuss below as postmodern top-ics. At the most immediate level , writ ing thisart icle as a commentary and a chronicle of somerecent past and current issues in the field is

writ ing in a modernist form that betrays ourassumed loca t ion as postmodern in te l lec tua ls .As commenta tors , we a re taking the author ia lposit ion as narrators of this "knowledge." At thesame t ime, the act of writ ing for this part icularjournal, under the premises of this special issue,already defines some l imits of our writ ing. Wecan a lso ant ic ipa te for our read ers tha t we hav enot found a "way out" of these multiple contra-dictions, but, as postmodernists, we were cer-tainly not expecting that we would.Our modest hope is that , through this art icle ,we wi l l be ab le to sus ta in a conve rsa t ionthrough a different kind of engagement thatdoes not require arguing for the superiori ty ofour views in relation to those of others. In Bar-bara Townley's words, following Foucault , some

of what this entails is for authors to specify theaspects of the world with which they are tryingto eng ag e and why; to s i tua te know ledge and sode-reify it; to speak in a way that takes owner-ship of. their argum ents ; an d to be ac cou ntab lefor the choices m ad e. "It po sits a different ba si sof engagement, one which is reciprocal not hi-erarchical. It is a call for writing in friendship"(Townley, 1994b: 28).

POSTMODERNISM AND ORGANIZATIONSTUDIES

Much has been wri t ten about postmodernismand posts t ruc tura l ism in the soc ia l sc iences(Baum an, 1992; Fe ath ers ton e, 1988; Rose, 1991;Ro sen au, 1992), an d w e canno t review it all her e.Our aim, instead, is to highlight those argu-ments and issues, such as the incredu lity to-ward metanarratives. the undecidability ofmeaning, the crisis of representation, and theproblematization of the subject and the author,that were part icularly influential in organiza-tional theorizing as it turned into more reflectiveknowledge making.A central concern of those w ho star ted to ex-periment with the postmodern turn in organiza-t ion studies is what Lyotard identifies as "incre-dul i ty toward metanarra t ives" (1979 , quotedhe re from En glis h e ditio n, 1984: xxiv). For Lyo-tard, the modernist view about the universali tyof the true, the good, and the beautiful is nolonger tenable . Other compet ing v iews have a p-peared that question not only the veracity of theE n l i g h t e n m e n t p h i l o s o p h i e s b u t a l s o t h e i r

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1999 Calas and Smircich 651"grand theory" style of theorizing that promotesa unitary vision of science and society.Lyotard, following Wittgenstein, positions cur-ren t cond i t ions o f knowledge a s " languagegam es ." As long as these ga m es are played withthe intention of annihilation or cooptation, theyforce an agreement toward a dominant viewwhere there can be none. Rather, Lyotard pro-poses , legi t imate knowledge under pos tmoderncondi t ions can only res ide in "pet i t rec i ts ."Knowledge can only be produced in "small s to-r ies" or "modest narratives," mindful of theirlocality in space and time and capable of adapt-ing or disappearing as needed. If recognized asthe creation of small stories, theorizing thus be-comes a t empora ry l anguage game tha t a s -sumes responsibility for its rules and its effectsas power.Lyota rd ' s " s to ry" has an uncanny re sem-blan ce to how conditions of knowled ge in organ -ization stud ies we re chan gin g at the t ime. Atabout the t ime of his writing, early argumentsappeared about the existence of multiple onto-logical and epis temologica l parad igm s in organ-ization al a na ly sis (e.g., Astley & Van de Ven,1983; Burrell & M orga n, 1979; Eve red & Louis,1981; Ritzer, 1975, 1981), an d stro ng inte res t sur-faced in organizational culture and symbolism,as well as qualitative research (e.g. . Administra-tive Science Quarterly, 1979, 1983; A llai re & Fir-sirotu , 1984; Ca rte r & Jackso n, 1987; Frost, Moore,Louis, Lundberg, & Martin, 1985; Gray, Bougon, &Donellon, 1985; Journal of Management, 1985;Pondy, Frost, Mo rgan, & Dandridge , 1983; Turner,1986). T h e d o m i n a n t p a r a d i g m p o s i t i v i s m ,funct ional ismwas chal lenged by other lan-guage games: in terpre t ive and cr i t ica l perspec-t ives.Nonetheless , the appearance of compet ingparadigms, per se , does not change the condi-tions of knowledge from modern to postmodern.Insofar as each paradigm remains as a compet-ing view in the search for foundational knowl-edge, i t grounds a whole edifice of universalunders tanding tha t t ranscends cul ture and his -tory (e.g., Bernstein, 1983; Chia, 1996). Multipara-digmatic awareness s imply fac i l i ta tes a s t i l lvery modern, meta theore t ica l d iscuss ion aroundthese issues: What philosophy of knowledge isbehind "truthful knowledge"? Each paradigm isa /oundafionai claim (a metatheory) about thepossibility of true knowledge. Each offers a waytoward a more complete understanding, or ex-

planation of the world in which we live. Eachclaims to be the best view of the world "outthere." None accounts for the language game inwhich they a l l may be embedded.

Edging Toward ReflexivityYet, these shifting conditions in organization-a l knowledge ant ic ipated the appearance ofpostmodern theorizing as several scholars in thefield turned their gaze inward. Conversationsabout which paradigm was the most truthful ormost legitimate transformed into a more reflec-tive concern. What was the significance of hav-.ing mult iple para digm s in organiza t ion s tudies?As we see it, the importance of this turn is that itencouraged reflexivity regarding the "knowl-edge-making" enterprise i tself (e.g. , Whitley,1984).Firs t , se l f-ref lec t ive awareness of the re-searcher/theoretician's complicity in fhe consfi-tution of their objects of study s tar ted to appear .Kuhn's (1962) focus on scientific communitiesand changes in sc ient i f ic paradigms becameparticularly influential . More important, organi-zational culture and symbolism research, withi ts phenom enologica l o r ienta t ion, needed to ac-count for the researched/researcher re la t ion-sh ip , given its social constructionist ontologicalpo siti on ing (Mirvis & Louis, 1985; Pes hki n, 1985;Van M aan en, 1988). Possibly, it wa s this schol-arship that pointed most clearly at the constitu-tive character of the research activit ies in rela-tion to the phenomena they were purported tostudy. Studies in the sociology of science alsoplayed an important role in this regard (e.g. ,Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Woolgar, 1988).Second, arguments about the interes ted na-ture of knowledge making also surfaced (Con-nell & Nord, 1996; Rao & Pasmore, 1989; Stablein& Nord, 1985). The so-called pa ra di gm w ar s is agood indication of these, for what is at stake isnot s imply the adequacy of particular theoriesbut how the truthfulness behind those theoriesgets constituted by the different "contenders"(Donaldson, 1996; Hinings et al., 1988; Martin &Frost, 1998; O rga niz atio n, 1998). Fur ther , t hepragmatics behind reducing the number of "ac-ceptable" paradigms has been debated. Not ice ,for instan ce, tha t recen t w riting s by Pfeffer (1993,1995), Van Maanen (1995a,b), and McKinley andMone (1998), among others, are not so muchabout which paradigm is right. Rather, they are

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652 Academy of Manag ement Review Octoberabout why it is good for organization studies tolimitor nottheir proliferation and how to dosuch a thing. All of these actions, and the writ-ings that exemplify them, represent a reflexiveunders tanding of fheoriz ing in organizationstudies as a political process rather than merelyas a neutral, truth-seeking operation (e.g., Can-ne lla & Paetzold, 1994; Ka gha n & Phillips, 1998;M artin & Frost, 1998; Sch erer , 1998; Sp en de r,1998).

Another reflexive concern appeared as well .How does the specific constitution of our writ-ingstheir textualitydefine the nature of ourknowledge? Wha t are "the poetics" o f knowl-edge making (e.g., Astley , 1985; Gold en-B iddle &Locke, 1997; Hatch, 1997; Jermier, 1985; Martin,1992; Martin & Frost, 1996; M auw s & Phillip s,1995; Van M aan en, 1988)? In our view, this latterconcern completed the required cycle of reflec-tion, but i t was the emergence of all these re-flections, taken together, tha t marked a radica ldeparture in knowledge making within the field.An ontological/epistemological leap had hap-,pened which opened the space for postmodern"theoriz ing." Anyone interes ted in th is leapcould observe, for exa mp le, differences betw eenthe special forum on theory building in theAcademy of Management Review of 1989 andthe same journal 's special issue on new intel-lectual curre nts in 1992. Org anization studie sw a s , indeed, experiencing "the postmodern con-dition."

From this perspective, postmodernism offeredan important contribution from the humanitiesto contemporary social sciences and organiza-tion studies (pace Zald, 1998). The contributionwas that of an occasion for reflexivity that al-lows for a critical examination of the way mod-ern (paradigmatic or foundational) knowledgehas been constituted, without needing to providefor an alternative knowledge.Poststructuralism: "No Solid Grounds" forKnowledge?

Nonetheless, reflexivity alone may not changemuch, especially if the reflections ar e e xpre ssedunreflectively. That is, at the very moment thecomplicity of language in the constitution ofknowledge becomes part of the "conversation,"the "tone" of the conversation has to change.The issue becomes how to articulate the opera-t ions o f modern knowledge wi thou t be ing

caugh t in unref lec t ive repre senta t io nal we bsthat hint of modernity. Poststructuralism pro-vided approaches for such articulations. It isthrough the tenets of poststructuralism that or-ganization studies, l ike many other social sci-en ce s, anth rop olo gy (Clifford & M arcu s, 1986),socio logy (Ro senau , 1992), psy cho log y (Shotter&Gergen, 1989), political science (Connelly, 1993),and even economics (McCloskey, 1986) havebeen able to fully engage in the postmodernconversa t ion.Rela t ionships between pos ts t ructura l ism andpos tmodernism have been expressed in severa ldifferent ways (see, for instance, Bauman, 1992,an d Fo ster, 1983). For our purp os e w e preferHuyssen ' s unders tanding of pos ts t ructura l ismas a theory of modernism at the stage of its

exhaus t ion:But if poststructuralism can b e seen as the reve-nant of modernism in the guise of theory, thenthat would also be precisely what makes it post-modern. It is a postmodernism that... in somecases, is fully aware of modernism's limitationsand failed political ambitions (1986: 209).However, we would like to further specify theimportance of the "post" in poststructuralism.Huy ssen's reference to poststru cturalism as atheory that highlights modernist exhaustion re-fers to expectations in French humanities and

social theory that a new paradigm derived fromstructural l inguisticsthat is , s tructuralismwould provide the strong "scientific s tatus" thatthe huma n sc iences had lacked. This hope a rosefrom the view of language offered by Saussu-re an ling uistic s (Sa ussu re, 1916; Ga de t, 1989).Semiology, as Saussure 's science of signs be-came known, displaced l inguis t ic approachesthat focused on substance or meaning to focuson language a s a structural system of relationsand differences. Independence of structure frommeaning while still accounting for their rela-tionship became a genera l s t ruc tura l is t ins ightthat transferred from linguistics to several otherdisciplines during the 1950s and 1960s. Fromanthropology (Levi-Strauss) to literature (Bar-thes) to philosophy (Althusser), structuralism of-fered a very specific response to the excessivesubjectivism and intentionality of phenomenol-ogy and existentialism, as well as to the exces-sive social and economic determinism of con-ventional Marxism. However, the expectationsof scientific legitimation to be achieved bys tructura l ism in the hum an sc iences w ere never

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1999 CaJds and Smiicich 853

fully realized. Scientific interest soon gave wayt o a n o t h e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of s t r u c t u r a l i s m ,known as posts t ruc tura l ism.Posts t ruc tura l is t ana lyses demonstra te howsignification occurs through a constant deferralof meaning from one l inguist ic symbol to an-other. At its most basic, poststructuralist ap-proaches suggest tha t there is no stable or orig-ina l co re of s i g n i f i c a t i o n and, t h u s , nofoundation, no grounding, and no stable struc-ture on which meaning can rest. This insightaffects, in par t icular , meanings tha t c la im to beun ive rsa l or that claim to be progressively mov-ing toward universali ty, such as the Enlighten-ment concept ions of knowledge and science.For example , consider search ing for m e a n i n gin a dictionary that always refers you to ano the rword, in a neverending movement from word toword and with no f ina l meaning to be found tostop this process. From this example it is possi -b le to rethink the common-sense unde rs t and ingof a world of objects ornot ions exis t ing indepen -dent ly of the l inguist ic symbols signifiersthrough which we address them. Rather, objectsand not ionswhat we pay attention toare al-ways a l ready media ted through s ignif ie rs andtheir capabil i ty to differentiate. There is no es-sence on which to ground meaning; there areonly d i f fe rences be tween meanings.

Quite profoundly, these ideas subvert all pos-sibility of const i tu t ing legi t imate knowledge int h e m o d e r n ( p a r a d i g m a t i c ) s e n s e . M o d e r nknowledge (or theory) is presumed to representsome form of stable phenomena exis t ing outs idethe ir rep resenta t ion . For instance , as we read ajournal art icle , we assume tha t it rep re sen t sphenomena tha t exis t e lsewhere , whether em-pirically observed or spe culate d upon. Yet, post-s t ruc tu ra l i s t a rgumen t s con tend tha t all weh a v e as knowledge is the representa t ion itself,such as the mater ia l i ty of the text in which"knowledge" is written. Further, textual repre-senta t ions have no f ixed meanings. The text isconsti tuted in signifiers whose referents coulda lways s l ide to other referents. Words could al-w a y s be reinterpreted through other words.M odern knowledge a l so p re supposes tha teven if disputes over interpretations occur, onea l w a y s has recourse to the author i ty of thewriter. One could a lways ask, "What were theauthor ' s in tent ions; what did he or she m e a n ? "From a poststructuralist perspective, however,the notion of au thorsh ip is suspec t as a reposi-

tory of stable meanings. Authorship is suspec tfirst on the matter of intention. Skepticism to-ward the author 's intention derives from a post-modern cri t ique of modern philosophy's notionof subjectivity. Modernist philosophy assumestha t human be ings are autonomous subjec ts ,whose in te rests and des i re s are t r anspa ren t tot hemse lves and independent from the in te restsand des i re s of others . If one den ie s the auton-om y of the "self," one may quest ion whose in-tent ions are rep re sen ted in the author 's text .In posts t ruc tura l ism "the author" is under-stood as e m b e d d e d in a social context and inrelation to othe rs (e.g., a communi ty of scholars).He or she is an "author-function" (Foucault ,1977), wh ose n am e m erely op erate s to authorizeanother version of the tradit ion within that com-munity. Thus, invoking "intention" mostly acti-va te s a chain of signifiers, which are the seve ra lau thors and wri t ings tha t s tand behind tha t tra-dition. These signifiers, a lready interpreted andreinterpreted, may not have much to do with theac tua l body or possib le in tent ions of the "theauthor" tha t s tands now as the end of the chain .Rather, these multiple interpretations have al-ready consti tuted the author . To underscore th ispoint , consider, for example , the function of ci-ta t ions in the consti tution of theory and the mul-t ip le in te rpre ta t ions tha t have been imputed tothe works of often-cited authors.For poststructuralism, the posit ion of the au-thor is a lso in quest ion in re la t ionship to m e a n -ing. Insofar as the author is crea t ing his or herwork for others, the minu te the work leaves theau thor ' s hands it becomes a publ ic documentwhose s t a tus as work stands only in relation-ship to the possibil i ty that it will be read . Thedocument is meaningful only because it can beread by others , and once th is happens, the au-thor becomes just one in te rpre te r among otherreader s . Even if the author w ere to conve rse w ithreade rs in order to clarify what he or she mean t ,tha t in i tself would consti tute another textalsosubject to more interpretation. Think of the mul-t iple texts that are produced by commenta r i e sabout any author 's work, including the author ' sre sponses to those commentar ies . Rather thanput t ing an end to in te rpre ta t ion abou t the m e a n -ing of the original text , recourse to the au thorproduces more and newer mean ings .Despite all these specula t ions, one may con-tend, we are surrounded by meaningful texts ofknowledge , whose authors ga in accolades for

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654 Academy of Manag ement Review Octobertheir ideasideas that may be put into practicein the "real world." How is this possible, if alltha t const i tu tes such knowledge is unstable lan-guage , i l l u so ry rep re sen ta t ions , and au thor -functions? This question brings us back to an-other i ssue regarding the opera t ions by whichsignification is at tained. As discussed above,the basic l inguist ic insight that gave way tost ruc tura l ism, and la te r to posts t ruc tura l ism,was that language is a system of differences. Ifwe observe how we say what we say , we area lways making choices be tween the words wewrite or speak and those we do not write or saybut that are "the other" (i.e., the difference) ofwhat we are saying. For instance, r ight now aswe wri te these m arks on the page , we are t ry ingto construct something meaningful for a part ic-ular community of readers. We do this by leav-ing behindby leaving unwri t tena ser ies ofother poss ible m arks tha t m ay not (yet) belon g tothis community.

It is interesting to observe which marks be-come expressed and which do not. The unex-pressed ones also consti tute our text by theirabsence, since they make i t possible to put al imitto containwhat we are saying. In thisway i t is possible to consider how fixing signi-fication occurs. Fixing significationthe opera-t ion that permits assert ing the truthfulness ofour exper t texts and authors occurs a s what i ssaid c once als i ts otherthat is, wh at is not said .In other words, as we (any of us) write, we en-gage in a l inguist ic play that eventually consti-tu tes a h ie rarchica l a rrangement : tha t which isvisible (and that appears in the text as self-susta in ing) and tha t which the v is ib le makesinvisible (but without which the visible cannotappea r ) .And so, as we m ake ch oices to rende r this textreadable for a part icular community, we arealso not saying several other things that maymake i t unreadable for that community. As wesuppress these words and use o thers , we con-tribute to the perpetuation of this cycle: we areclosing the poss ible voc abulary of the field, a ndwe are exc luding other meanings. Thus, a t themost basic and immediate, i t is possible to seehow the stabil ization of meaning is consti tutedwithin a system of power relations a system ofinclusion and exclusion which defines as ac-ceptable or not the marks that will appear on fhepage as knowledge. We all, as we try to signify,part icipate in the activation of these power re-

lat ions . Who we ar e, how. we know o urselv es,what we say to others, and so onit is al l theproduction and effects of power/knowledge.In the paragraphs of the past few pages, wehave been pa raphra s ing seve ra l themes tha thave become well known in the parlance ofpostmodernism and posts t ruc tura l ism: fhe en dof metanarratives, the undecidability of mean-ing, the crisis of representation, the problemati-zation of the subject and the author. Each ofthem and the i r re la t ionships to one anotherpoint to the operations of legit imating knowl-edge and theory, which are consti tuted throughan unstable system of signification. Our "com-mon sense" of knowledge production is no com-mon sense at all, but a lot of hard work forcontroll ing signification.Equa l ly impor tan t , and pe rhaps l e ss f re -quent ly admit ted , i s tha t these i ssues a re a lsolinked with the insti tutional poli t ics of knowl-edge making. As noted by Lyotard, the questionof language in the consti tution of knowledge isnot only a question of aesthetics or epistemol-ogy. It is also a question of the relations be-tween the insti tutions that define what knowl-e d g e i s a n d t h e l a n g u a g e t h r o u g h w h i c hknowledge gets made. The reflexivity over theconsti tution of knowledge that permeates thepostmodern condi t ion has he lped to a r t icula te

these re la t ionships. Posts t ruc tura l ism has con-tributed to showing, however, that these rela-t ionships a re ne i ther de termined by some st ruc-tural imperative nor defined by some higherorder of power or auth ority. Rathe r, they occur a swe all continue to signify and resignify our so-c ia l mi l ieuxover and over aga in .Poststructuralist writ ings bring forward theseissues, not through commentary in "plain lan-guage," as we are doing (or trying to do) here,but, rather, by violating the norms and destabi-l izing how and what is possible to say. In Lyo-ta rd ' s words.The text [the postmodern writer] writes, the workhe [sic] produces, are not in principle governed bypreestablished rules, and they cannot bejudged ... by applying familiar categories to thetext or to the work.... Hence, the fact that workand text have the ch arac ters of an event (1984: 81).

Postmodern Organization TheorizingP o s t m o d e r n i s m a n d p o s t s t r u c t u r a l i s m a r e

now well represented in organization studies. In

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1999 C alds a n d Smircich 655seve ral books, articles , an d book chapte rs schol-a rs describe these inte l lec tual tendencies anddiscuss how they might perform and what mightbe the implications of their performance (e.g.,Baack & Pras ch, 1997; Boje, Gep har t, & Thatch-enkery, 1996; Burrell, 1988; Calds & Smircich,1997a; Coo per, 1989; Co ope r & Burrell, 1988; Has-sard , 1993; H ass ard & Parker, 1993; Jackson &Carter, 1992; Jeffcutt, 1993; Kilduff & Mehra, 1997;K rein er, 1992; Le tich e, 1992; Li ns tea d, 1993;Schultz, 1992). As imp ort ant a s th es e ar e for fa-miliarizing our scholarly community with theprimary ideas behind the pos tmodern, we areparticularly indebted to poststructuralis t analy-se sworks and texts with the character of anevenf^for challenging the field to think and dodifferently. By wa y of illustration , we ha ye se-lected articles that represent genealogical anal-yses, following Foucault's work (1979, 1980), anddeconsfrucfions , insp ired by De rr ida ' s work(1974, 1982), for the se a re t he ap pr o ac he s tha tappear more often in organization studies. Wewill highlight how these examples perform aspoststructuralis t analytics within these two dif-ferent approaches .

We are aw are tha t we are walking a very thinline here. Singling out these "exemplar works"is also an exclusion of others that performequally well . At the same time, we would befurther "fixing signification" if our commentar-ies were to be read as making the case tha tthese are examples to follow, rather than asencouragement for others to write outside themargins . Perhaps more dangerous , some mayexpect that we would articu late a "method": howto do genealogies or deconstructions. However,a l thoug h there are cer ta in aspe cts of these ana l-yses that could be called methodological, theissue of method as a guarantee of getting theright data to prove a point is, precisely, part ofthe modernist logic that poststructuralism ad-dresses. To clarify, the issue is not that in theseanalyses "anything goes ," because they are in-deed very carefully crafted textual arguments;ra ther , the issue is tha t these analyses arecrafted in relation to the specific critique theywa nt to raise, and, a s such, they are ex ercises ofthe theore t ica l imaginat ion. Common denomi-nators , such as theory and method, conceptualor em pirical, are not appl icab le to these kind s ofwri t ings . Thus , readers beware tha t we mightnot tell you what you might expect.

Genea log ica l ana lyses . Foucau l t ' s genea lo -gies are a "history of the present," which tracesconnect ions among the arbi t rary ra ther than thei n t e n t i o n a l , t h e a c c i d e n t a l r a t h e r t h a n t h eplan ned , in the historical constitution of contem-porary prac t ices . These connect ions denatura l-ize everyday activit ies and insti tutions that wetake for granted. At the same time, the connec-tions are not presented as determined by, say,the dominant over the dominated, as a crit icaltheory analysis would do. Rather, they are pre-sented as webs of practices, discourses, and in-sti tutions that have been adopted, imitated, andt rans formed to the po in t tha t they be com eknowledge and common sense and are repeatedby many without recollection of their originalpurposethus, the notion of power/knowledge.For instance, one may ask, "What do a prisonobservat ion tower and tota l qual i ty manage-ment (TQM) practices have to do with one an-oth er? " (e.g., Sew ell & W ilkinso n, 1992). Or, o nemay ask, "What does a popula t ion census haveto do with HRM practices?" (e.g., Townley, 1993).In both cases one may answer that the prison'stower and the census have contributed to theap pea ran ce of a part icular kind of contem porarysubjectivity. It is only because we, in our society,take for granted such understanding of "self"that i t is conc eivable to us that there is a nyt hin g

normal about HRM or TQM.Sew ell an d W ilkinson (1992) retell th e story ofjust-in-time (JIT) m ana gem ent an d total qualitycontrol (TQC) m anag em ent not as ad van ced de-velopment of more efficient production practicesbut in re la t ion to the survei l lance logic ofBentham's 1700s panopticon. Foucault (1979) de-scribes the panopticon as a tower in the centerof a prison, with cells built around it. From thistower the guard could always observe withoutbeing observed. Key here is that the cells wouldalways be backlighted in relation to the towerso tha t pr isoners would behave because theycould not tell whether the guard was there ornot. As Foucault notes, the panopticon was onlya very concrete case among many others follow-ing the logic of surveillance, which encouragedpeople to exercise self-discipline, whether thedisc ipl inarian was observing them or not .Tracing this logic to contemporary organiza-tion practices that are claimed to give workersmore control over their work, Sewell and Wilkin-son argu e that JIT an d TQC ma ke the w orkersmore visible to the control of the organization.

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858 Academy of Manag ement Review Octoberwhile making the mechanics of control moreinvisible. The more open architecture of theplant, the team work that creates a certain kindof peer pressure, the apparent decentralizationthat is at the same time displaced to more de-tailed instructions and computerized monitor-ingall these have substituted for the hierar-chy, the supervisor 's gaze, and any buffering(e.g., inventories or down time) from or throughw h i c h w o rk e r s w e r e o n c e a b l e t o " h i d e . "Throughout these changes , power a lso has be-come more dispersed and invis ible .

But, asi de from the pano pticon, priso ners werealso ma de doci le through a more imme dia te dis -ciplinary practice: a codification of knowledgethat, l ike a census, permitted their distributioninto c lasses , making them more governable byothers and by themselves. Thus, a prisoner clas-sified as more dangerous was likely to be sub-jected to more frequent observation and mademore self-aware that such might be the case. InFoucau l t ' s words , "Disc ip l ines cha rac te r ize ,c lass i fy , specia l ize ; they dis t r ibute a long ascale, along a norm, hierarchize [sic] individu alsin relation to one another and, if necessary, dis-qualify and invalidate" (1979: 223; also quoted inTownley, 1993: 530).

Townley (1993) analyzes HRM from this per-spective. Her work takes the reader on a tour ofthe common sense behind HRM (see also Town-ley, 1994a), em pha sizing the connection betw eenFoucaul t ' s inves t iga t ions and HRM as a n aca-demic discipline and as a practice of power re-lations in the workplace. In very minute detailshe provides a genealogy of the emergence anddevelopment of personnel prac t ices as devicesthat, l ike the census, had no clear logic behindthem, other than a belief in the classificatoryand normalizing power of modern science.Town ley defam iliarize s HRM so that it can beobserved as a very strange set of practices thats imply accumulated over t ime, whi le becomingmore believable as they became more specificregarding their abili ty to transform individu-alstheir minds and bodiesinto "subjects of(the) discipline." Like the cens us, HRM ma kes usbelieve that we can be told apart , as well asbelieve in the possibili ty of being distributed towhere each of us belongs. Because of these be-liefs, we are wil l ing to behave in cer ta in waysand not others , and we hope tha t those behav-iors will take u s wh ere w e asp ire to go. Like the

prisoners, we are watching over "our selves" toensure we are on our bes t behavior .This very short excursion into Fou cau ldian ge-nealogies , v ia two organiza t ional s tudies ar t i -cles, also i l lus t ra tes genealogy 's re la t ionship topos ts t ructura l ism, as discussed above. Geneal-ogies des tabi l ize meaning ; they give us an otherway to think about our common sense withoutpre tending tha t the genealogica l s tory is thebest story. As distinct from "history"a narra-tive of origin, cause, and effect with fairly cleardirec t ional arrowsgenealogies show that h is -tory is possible only because we do not tellourse lves other s tor ies tha t would make thelogic of origin, cause, and effect suspect. Gene-alogies also decenter "the subject" that we be-lieve "we are" in relation to our insti tutions.Rather than being the origin, our subjectivity isembedded as producer and effect of a compli-cated network of narratives and practices, some-t imes more vis ible than others and a lwa ys moreuns table than we may think.

Othe r exce l l en t examples o f ana lyses in -spired by Foucaul t ' s genealogies inc lude DuGay an d S ala m an (1992), on consum er culture;Sakolsky (1992), on labor processes; Pye (1988),Knights (1992), Willmott (1992), Jacques (1996),an d Jacobson a nd Ja cque s (1997), on m an ag e-ment knowledge and manageria l prac t ices ; Fox(1989), on man ag em ent learnin g; and Hollway(1991), on organizational behavior.

Deconstruction. Jacques Der r ida ' s wr i t ingspartake of poststructuralis t sensibili t ies regard-ing meaning, representa t ion, and authorship, asdiscussed before . However , h is approach isquite different from Foucault's. The historiogra-phy that characterizes much of Foucault 's workis not present in deconstructions. Rather, decon-s t ruct ions are phi losophical medi ta t ions del in-eated in very close readings of particular texts .These readings a t tend to the language in thetext and to those areas where language betraysitself. For example, deconstruction often paysattention to what authors put "on the margin,"such as footnotes that are set aside as not inte-gral to the central point of the text. Yet, it isusual to find the main text contradicting its cen-t ra l points exact ly on these marginal spaces .And, thus, in characteris tic reversal, the marginbecomes the center (of attention) in Derrida 'sanalyses. At the same time, the style of decon-struction is not conv entional crit icism, s ince th atwould imply that the critic "knows better" (that

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1999 Calas and Smircich 657he or she has foundational knowledge) than thewriter whom the critic is criticizing. Rather, de-cons truct ion disassembles textual i ty to showhow, despite careful control of textual repre sen-ta t ions , language a lways exceeds the wri ter ' scontrol.Deconstructive analyses follow certain gen-eral "rules." They identify areas of the textwhere a particular word or phrase is privilegedas ce ntral to the m ean ing of the text. The an alys tlooks for "another term" an opp ositethe priv-i leged term may have concealed, and bringsthat term to view. This operation decenters thesupposedly self-sustaining central term. Eventu-a l ly , the analys t makes both terms undecidableso that other mea nin gs could be constituted overthe text. For instance, we wrote in the first sen-tence of this section the word "partake." As welook for synonyms in our computer 's thesaurus,we find that i t means both share and divide. Aswe contemplate these two meanings , what is i tthat we are saying? That deconstruction comestogether with others into the fold of poststructur-alism to sha re with that intellectual comm unity?Or that deconstruction disjoins the intellectualt endenc ies known as pos t s t ruc tu ra l i sm suchthat there are no common grounds to form acommunity? Or is it both?

Martin Kilduff's (1993) "Deconstructing Organ-izafions" is an excellent and very sophisticatedi l lus t ra t ion of th is approach in organiza t ions tudies . His rereading of th is famous bookshows how the text works to position itself asfilling a void in the literature. In this particularins tance , the text regis ters complaints aboutTaylor 's scientific management and claims tosubs t i tu te the mind less mecha nica l worker witha rational decision maker. Yet, Kilduff soon fo-cuses on the play of presence and absence iden-tified by Derrida as a necessary operation in thecomposition of a credible text (whether literary,scientific, or any oth er gen re). Kilduff sho ws howMarch and S imon exclude previous wri t ing,such a s the Hawthorn e Studies, that offers otherconcept ions of working people . In Kilduff ' swords ,Organizafions makes no mention of Roethlis-berger and Dickson's (1939) definitive account of12 years of experimen tal work. To acknowledgethe existence of this text would be tantam ount toadm itting that the gap MS claim that they arehoping to fill has alrea dy been plugged (1993: 16).

Kilduff emphasizes how Organizations a l w a y sreturn s to wh at i t de nie s. The textual productionof the rational decision maker is positioned asthe opposite of Taylor 's employee as machine.Yet, the deconstruction shows how the text bothdenou nces and ce leb ra tes the ma chine model tofinally reinscribe the hierarchical model of theorganization. Organizafions ' move has been tosimply substitu te one me cha nica l notion of workwith another , through the language of "pro-grams," such that the worker continues to berepresented as incapable of handl ing anythingbut simplification.

Al though no t a s popu la r a s the ana lysesbased on Foucault 's work, deconstructions haveap pe ar ed in texts of accoun ting (Arrington &Fra nc is, 1989; Co ope r & Puxty, 1994; Nelson,1993), informat ion m ana gem ent (Beath & Or-likowski, 1994), marketing (Firat & Venkatesh,1993; Fischer & Bristor, 1994), an d org aniz ationtheory , mo re g en er all y (Boje, 1995; C al ds , 1993;C al d s & Sm ircich, 1991; Coo per, 1986, 1989; Ger-gen, 1992; Martin, 1990; Martin & Knopoff, 1997;Mum by & Putn am , 1992).Now, wh at is the va lue of all this to organ iza-tion studies? We argue that the problematiza-tion of foundational theorizing posed by post-structuralis t analyses offers pause and a goodspace for reflecting over the constitution ofknowledge in any disciplinary field. In particu-lar , pos ts t ructura l is t analyt ics permits us tothink "the unthinkable," to move, as i t were,"outside the limits," and to consider taken-for-g ran ted knowledge-making ope ra t ions undervery different premises. At their most startling,these analyses promote a temporary s ta te of"disbelief," which can make us conceive ofknowledge and knowledge making as a verydifferent enterprise altogether"the end of in-nocence" in Flax's (1992: 445) words. Genealogi-cal analyses, offering very detailed historicaldocumenta t ion of what otherwise may have be-come naturalized, offer important ways to re-think current issues in the organizational l i ter-a ture . Genealogies wil l not resul t in be t tertheories if judged un der ins t rume nta l p rem ises .What genealogies do best is to reposition con-vent ional wisdom and to show how what pa sse sas knowledge is an entanglement of power re-lations, in which m any ar e implicated . From thisperspect ive there is no way out of power/knowledge. That is, as we are all "effects" of thepower of discourse, we all move from one dis-

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658 Academy of Manag ement Fieview Octobercursive network to another, always producingpower relations. Genealogies, nonetheless, dooffer possibilities for resisting theories (i.e., notrecognizing "our selves" in certain discourses ofknowledge) and, thus, for reconceiving a theoryor a research area in unexpected ways, bringingdifferent insights into the field.

Similarly, deconstructions, as close readingsfor understanding the constitution of textualknowledge, work on the blind spots that we allreaders and writersare unable to control aswe write theory. We may be surprised or irri-tated to read academic papers that, for example,analyze marketing's notion of exchange rela-tionships as pervaded by power relations andpatriarchy (Fischer & Bristor, 1994); that demon-strate how charismatic leadership in organiza-tion studies is a surrogate for bureaucracy(Calds, 1993); that reveal how a systems devel-opment text ostensibly advocating user friendli-ness reinscribes relationships of control and de-pendency (Beath & Orlikowski, 1994); or thatdemonstrate the "great books" of the field ofmanagement to be complicit in exclusionaryknowledge practices (e.g., Calds & Smircich,1991; Martin & Knopoff, 1997). We might thinkthese authors are excessive in their interpreta-tions. Yet, deconstructive readings attend to lan-guage so carefully, it is hard not to read differ-ently, or listen differently, after one's usual wayof interpreting/reading has been so unsettled.The effectiveness of much of this work comesfrom fhe effects it has on us as we experiencefamiliar language as unnatural. At a minimum,we would say, deconstructive writings providean approach for learning and teaching the innerworkingsthe mode of existenceof conven-tional theorizinghistorically, rhetorically, andpoliticallyand for showing how we are all ex-isting "inside" these.

In general, postmodern analyses help us tounderstand the exclusions on which writersneed to rely in order to represent "positiveknowledge." More important, they make us allmore aware of those exclusions and of thepossible consequences of apparently innocenttextualizations. By decentering "true knowl-edge," these analyses can help us accept thepossibility of "other knowledges," which oth-erwise may be ignored or deemed illegiti-matethat is "marginal." Further, a particu-larly important contribution of theorizing donein this fashion is that it provides a different

language with which to address conventionalissues (e.g., Gergen, 1992). As such, it makes itpossible to "see" conventional theories in adifferent light and, further, to write knowledgein a different form.

On a more "practical" note, perhaps the mostsignificant for us academics in the business ofknowledge making, poststructuralist analysescan work directly on the taken for granted of theinstitutions in which we laborthat is, "thehouse of knowledge." Both historically and rhe-torically, the arguments that we hear todayabout "the way it is" in the university (e.g.,D'Aveni, 1996) require close analyses to showthat "the way it is" is not necessarily so (e.g.,Bensimon, 1994); "it" can be interpreted other-wise. We all, as organizational scholars, are inan excellent position to genealogize and decon-struct the "logics" of our institutions, for the con-struction of institutions is the primary object ofour theories. In the process of doing so, all of uswould be learning how to teach others to do thesame for their own organizations: an immediateintegration of theory and practice, if ever therewas one.

In our view there is still much work to bedone in organization studies through postmod-ern analytics, but perhaps it is now too late.Some commentators consider that postmod-ernism has become at least partially ex-hausted (e.g., Eco, 1992; Kaplan, 1988; Leitch,1996; Parker, 1993). Thus, organizational stud-ies may have gone past the "post," with veryfew achievements. Not too many writings inorganization studies have actually engaged inthe serious play intended by these analyses,especially when it comes to extending the con-sequences of the reflexivity so achieved. Weeven wonder up to what point the "post" hasbecome a career maker for traditional knowl-edge-making bodies, and up to what point ithas become a \yay to reclaim the field formarginal voices to speak. Still, the possibilityof asking and trying to answer these questionscould be an important legacy of the "post" fororganization studies, as it seems to be forother fields. Further, it is conceivable that themajor contribution of postmodernism is, pre-cisely, that it has become partially exhausted,for this exhaustion has opened space for othertheoretical approaches to appear.

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1999 Calas and Smircich 859RECLAIMING GROUND: AFTER THE "POST"

IN ORGANIZATIONAL THEORIZINGDespi te concerns about unstable grounds fortheory, or perhaps because of them, the post-mode rn tu rn ha s p rovoked new theo re t i c a l

approaches in the soc ia l sc iences and the hu-manities, such as feminist poststructuralist the-or iz ing , postcolonia l ana lyses , ac tor-ne tworktheory , and narra t ive approaches to knowledge .Some of these app roach es a r e respo nses to lim-i ta t ions in postmodernism. Others , bear ing afamily resemblance and benefit ing from the in-sights of poststructuralism, are reclaiming some"ground" on which to build their projects. Yet,most of these approaches are specific in theircri t iques of postmodern analyses for their lackof strong poli t ical engagement and for their re-moteness from "the real world."Be they in supp ort of or distinct from postm od-ern ana ly t ics , these theore t ica l tendenc ies sharethe following con cerns. First , they all e mp has izethe relationship between "power" and "knowl-edge" at the inception of "theory." That is, eachof these approaches a r t icu la tes re la t ionshipsb e t w e e n t h o s e w h o d o k n o w l e d g e a n d t h eknowledge tha t ge ts made; each poin ts a t thesubjectivit ies that get consti tuted through the-ory; and each takes seriously the poli t ics ofknowledge making and incorpora tes in to the i rwrit ings those reflective concerns. Second, theya l l share a preoccupat ion and an ambiva lenceabout the way "other 's knowledge/other knowl-edges" can be represented , whi le emphasiz ingthe need to do so. The problems of representa-t ion and formthe poetics of knowledge mak-ingbecome the focus of textual experiments.

Insofar as these are also concerns of post-structuralist writ ings, there may be not muchdifference betw een th e "heirs" an d their "par-entage." However, here the family resemblanceends . These approaches a l so sha re ambiva -lence about the antiessential ist tenets of post-structuralism and the implications of these te-nets for creating theories that could eng ag e withthe world "outside the text." Finally, each con-siders i t necessary to adopt an ethical postureas par t of the knowledge-making enterpr iseaspart of writing theory. At a minimum, they allask, "Whose interests does theory serve? Forwhom is i t good?" Such a posture would bedifficult to sustain on more "shaky" poststructur-a l i s t grounds.

More genera l ly , these theore t ica l tendenciescrea te br idges be tween " the text" and " theworld." However, the world they re-present ma ybe very different from the one encountered byo r g a n i z a t i o n t h e o ry b e f o re p o s t m o d e r n i s m .Some of these writ ings may be classified asconceptua l and o thers as empir ica l ; however ,these t radi t iona l def in i t ions a re d i f f icul t tomainta in . Note tha t we cont inue to emphasizethe term analysis since that is the focus of allthese approaches. Their "evidence" may comefrom the words in another text, from a literaturereview, from ethnographic accounts, from ques-t ionna ires, from lab oratory e xpe rim ents, or fromall of the abov e, and still oth ers. Yet, they al l u sethe evidence to produce interpretations and cri t-ica l commentar ies tha t dena tura l ize more con-vent iona l v iews and tha t may even br ing aboutsocial activism. That is their theoretical po sture.Below, we briefly review these approaches, em-phasizing their current intersections with organ-izational theorizing.

Feminist Organizational Theorizing andPostmodernismIronically, feminist theorizing in organizations tud ie s may have ga ined momentum in the

1990s ow ing to the pop ularity , mo re gen eral ly, ofpos tstru ctur alism (e.g., Ca ld s & Smircich, 1992,1997b; Ca lve rt & Ra m sey , 1992; Fo nd as , 1997;Hearn & Parkin, 1993; Martin & Knopoff, 1997; seealso a new journal, enti t led Gender, Work andOrganization). Feminis t theor ies a re a lways po-li t ical theories, regardless of the philosophieson which they stake their claims. Whether l ib-eral , radical , Marxist , socialist , psychoanalytic ,or so on, feminist theories have been mostlyabout how and why the exclusion or oppressionof women hap pe ns and how to provide rem ediesfor this situation (for recent reviews of this liter-ature, see Alvesson & Billing, 1997, an d Ca ld s &Sm ircich, 1996). Sev eral of the se th eori es ha vebeen around for more than three decades with-out receiving much attention by organizationalscholars. Specifically, despite the emphasis ongender in the wom en-in-manag ement l i te ra ture ,most of this l i terature has skirted the issue ofgender-specific theory development, and schol-a rs have carr ied on the i r research agenda sus-ta ined by t radi t iona l organiza t iona l theor ies(Cald s & Jac que s, 1988).

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660 Academy of Managem ent Review OctoberPoststructuralism, however, opened the spacefor considering gender theoretically, indepen-dent from partic ular se xed bo dies. The linguisticturn moved the concerns of feminist theory fromthe body of women to the body of the text, andthe effects of this change were felt in organiza-tion studies. For example, one could now ask,"How is gender written in organization theory?"(e.g., C al ds & Sm ircich, 1992) an d p ay (decon-structive) attention to how the language of ourtheories would construct understandings of theworld that represented the interests and con-cerns of certain populations and not others , de-spite organization theories ' mantle of neutrali ty(e.g:, Mart in, 1990; Mu mb y & Pu tna m , 1992).Equally important, i t became possible to theo-rize "gender relations," to observe how both men

and women, together , cons t i tu ted "genderedcondi t ions" tha t produced very entangled websof power/knowledge.Organiza t ion s tudies scholars may have beenmore welcoming of feminist poststructuralis tanalyses than of other feminist theory tenden-cies, but many feminist scholars outside of or-ganization studies were not so accepting of theconjunctions of feminism with poststructural-ism. The separ ation of "sex"a biological mark-erfrom "gender"a social, discursive, and in-s t i tu t ional cons truct ionbecame suspected of

weakening any pol i t ica l agenda wri t ten on be-half of women. The gendering of theories couldresult in an interesting and sophisticated aca-dem ic exercise, but how would this contribute tofighting the oppression of "real people"? Wasthis not another elitist posture more typical of" the patr iarchs"? Some, even more defiant ,ques t ioned why pos t s t ruc tu ra l i s t ap proa cheswere gaining ascen danc y a t the same t ime morecritical ferriinist theories were, at last, taken se-riously in the academic milieux.In summary, the relationship between femi-nis t theories and pos tmodernism has been, a tbest, uneasy. Poststructuralis t feminists acceptthe merits of deconstruction and genealogiesbecause they make explicit the devaluation ofthe feminine in "universal" theories and in dis-cursiv e p rac tice s (e.g.. Flax, 1987). In p artic ular ,they apprecia te the ways in which the marginsinterrogate "the center" through these analyti-cal approaches. The crit ics , however, point atthe depolit icizing effects of these antiessential-i s t approaches when i t comes to c la iming

agency and empower ing represen ta t ion . The

problematics of the subject and the undecidabil-i ty of meaning stand in the way of positive po-litical a llia nc es (e.g., Alve sson & Deetz, 1996;Nicholson, 1990).These issues have not escaped the notice oforganizational scholars interested in feminismand postmodernism. In a very powerful argu-ment that deconstructs "organizational taboos,"Joan ne Martin (1992) em br ac es the "lingu isticturn" and produces an incisive analysis of thetraps in the speech of a CEO who claims to besens i t ive to female employees . At the sametime, she notices the l imitations of deconstruc-tion, and even of her own "reconstructions," ifshe were to stay simply at the level of the text.Thus, she reconnects concre te organiza t ionaland social issues with the deconstructed text.She not ices how task segregat ion and genderpay inequalit ies become reified rather than al-leviated by small organizational reforms, andshe calls for "a fund am ental realig nm ent of gov-ernm ent policies conce rning both the family an dthe marketplace" (1992: 356). Also, she noticesthe complicity of her analysis in s ilencing othervoices in her text, for she privileges the story ofa high-ranking female employee. Deconstruc-tion alone is not sufficient for analyzing "theintersections of gender and class with race andeth nic ity " (1992: 354).

Co nce rns of this kind, of which M artin's reflec-tions are a good example, are now possible toaddress . Severa l processual approaches to fem-inist theorizing have emerged from the encoun-ters of socialist feminist theories, black femi-nism, and pos ts t ructura l ism. These approachesshare the critique of subjectivity in poststructur-alism but concede to a less dispersed, sociallyconstituted "subject position," enacted throughhis tor ica l and cul tura l locat ions , as wel l asthrough power re la t ions . In these approachesscholars have recons idered the separa t ion ofsex from gender in theorizing, concluding thatthe ant iessent ia l is t pos ture a lso permits inc lu-sion of other forms of social oppressions in thea n a l y s e s .The intersections of gender, ethnicity, race,c lass , and sexuality figure prominently (e.g. ,Hu rtado, 1989). The em ph as is h ere is not sim plyon the bodies that constitute these intersectionsbut on the subjectivities that get formed andtransformed within these social markers. Fur-ther gender in these analyses is not aboutwom en anymore . One can now talk about "m as-

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1999 CaJds and Smiicich 66 1culinities" or about "queer theory" as productiveana ly t i ca l approaches for unders tand ing spe-cific conditions of different people in the world(Butler, 1990; G ra ha m , 1996). This a ls o a pp li es tothe conditions we help crea te in the world withour scholarship . The more genera l ques t ions ,these texts address are as follows. How wouldthe ana lyses he lp us think differently aboutthose with whom we re la te? How would writingabout these intersections contribute to better un-ders tand ing and changing oppress ive re la t ion-ships? But ask ing these ques t ions is not in-t e n d e d to p ro v i d e p e rm a n e n t and u n i v e r s a lanswers . Ins tead, the a n s w e r s are l i t t le narra-t ives, in tended as in tervent ions for changingspecific oppressive conditions that may be ex-perienced by some at the present .

Organiza t ion s tudies have a l ready been in-spired by some of these theoretical intersections(e.g.. Bell, Denton, & Nkomo, 1993, on race andgender; Calds & Smircich, 1993, on gender , race ,c l a s s , and global iza t ion; Calvert & Ramsey ,1995, on whiteness , pr ivi lege , and gender; Col-l inson and Hearn, 1994, on working-c lass menand masculinities; Nkomo, 1992, on the racializa-tion of theory; Shallenberger, 1994, on profes-sionalism and sexuality; see also Organiza t ion,1996). Thus, as one may assess, feminist theoriesmore genera l ly , and feminist crit iques of post-m o d e r n i s m in p a r t i c u l a r , h a v e c o n t r i b u t e dstrong interdisciplinary theories that lend mul-t iple theoretical lenses and methodologica l ap-proaches to the study of organiza t ions .Postcolonial Analyses

T h e s e t h e o re t i c a l t e n d e n c i e s , now r e p re -sented both in the humani t i e s and in the socialsciences, emerged directly from Third Worldscholars extending the ins ights of poststructur-alism to its logical consequences (e.g. , Bhabha,1988; Radhakr i shnan , 1996; Said, 1989; Spivak,1988). If Western modern knowledges (i .e . , theEnlightenment not ion of knowledge and sci-ence) have silenced the voices of "the margin-a l""the others"what would happen if thoseothers were to speak back as "knowledgeable"?More directly, poststruc turalism is, in genera l , acrit ique of Western epis temology as a system ofexclus ions . But pos ts t ructura l is t analyses arealso crit iques of modernity in the West by theWest and, of necessity, themselves exclusionaryof other forms of knowledge .

At their most immediate, postcolonial (or, ac-cording to some, neocolonia l) analyses sharewith feminist poststructuralis t theorizing objec-tions about the decenter ing of subjectivity andthe problems of representation. But, in re sponse ,they pay attention first to the w a y s in whichWestern scholarship crea tes ca tegories of a n a l -ysis that, even at their most critical, are blind tothe i r own e thnocen t r i sm (e .g .. Ch am be rs &Curti, 1996). For example, even crit ical catego-ries, such as gender , race , and class , may as-s u m e an unproblem atic universa l ism often as-sociated with the idea of "a core humani ty ."Wha t if categories such as c la s s have no coun-terpart in other societies? What if race as asocia l marker is i r re levant? What if g e n d e rs t a n d s for a universa l ized "woman" who onlyexis ts , conceptual ly , as the body of ce r ta inwomen from the West?

Postcolonial crit iques also extend to nar ra -tives of "origins" in Western theories. They mayretell the story of "the other," who was a l readythere from "the beg innin g," and who might havebeen excluded or deva lued in the Western ver-sion of the theoretical "tale" through such mark-e rs as "traditional," "primitive," or "less devel-oped." At the sam e t ime, these are not nos ta lgicna r ra t ives of a return to a bet ter pr imordia lworld. Rather, these are closer to Foucaul t ' s ge-nealogies , which give us a different "history ofthe present" (and its configuration in power/knowledge) , as part icular re la t ionships between"the West" and "the Rest."Further, in postcolonial s tudies scholars ana-lyze the in tersec t ions of Western theories andWestern insti tutions as a polit ics of knowledge .Concepts such as, for ins tance , moderniza t ionprocesses conceal other social formations andi s sues of va lue for the popula t ions tha t theseconcepts claim to represent. Postcolonial s tud-ies counter these conceptualizations by offeringanalyt ica l ca tegories and represen ta t iona l ap-proaches for the others to represent themselvesin "their own terms." For example , conceptualnot ions such as hybridi ty and hybridiza t ion(Garcia-Canclini, 1990; Pieterse, 1994) make bothc o m p re h e n s i b l e and unique wha t "Wes te rneyes" (Moh anty, 1991) often d es cr ib e as "unevendevelopment" or the "paradoxical moderniza-tion" of several Third World countries . "The bor-der" and "borderlands," both as geography andas metaphor, have become product ive spaces ,rather than dividing lines, for theorizing compli-

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882 Academy of Mana gement Review Octobercated subjectivit ies and social relations in re-sponse to dominant ideologies (e.g. , Anzaldiia,1987; Sald ivar, 1997). And "di asp ora " an d "d is-placement" have become articulations of the ex-periences of immigrants from "the rest to theWest" and of the politics of ethnicity that evolvearound issues of cultural and national identity(e.g., Gilroy, 1993).

Severa l of these approaches have addressedthe issue of represe ntatio n in rega rd to the loca-tion of the researcher. Different from argumentsabout subject position in feminist theorieswhere the scholar claims no more than to beable to speak from her or his own positional-i tyin pos tcolonia l analyses researchers mayfirst consider the position of privilege alreadyoccupied by the Third World scholar and, thus,his or her responsibili ty to use that space onbehalf of others . Yet, sh e or he m ust als o rem em -ber that in giving voice, she or he is s ilencingmany other voices. Thus, a second representa-tional move is on the question of s ilence. Whatother voices are there that the scholarly voice,no matter of what persuasion, cannot represent(e.g., Spivak, 1987)? Some experimental textsbreak the l inear s tyle with images, prose, po-etry, and so on, which produce "interstices ofsilence" in the text (e.g., Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1989)in order to represen t the absence of other vo ices.As these pa rag rap hs i l lus tra te , pos ts tructura l-ist concerns about mean ing, representa t ion, an dsubjectivity s ti l l surround postcolonial theoriza-t ions. Nonetheless, much of this work has beenab le to recover poststructu ralis t decon structionswith aff i rmat ive conceptual iza t ions . Perhapsone of the most creative is "strategic essential-ism" (Spivak, 1987), wh ich pro m otes recl aim ingthe essential identity of a group as a temporarystrategic gesture in the interest of agency forstruggle, no matter how dispersed the identit iesof the members. Also, Haraway's (1985) conceptof affinity has been invoked to signify the pos-sibili ty of all iances among peoples who may notshare a common heritage, ethnicity, gender, orso on, but who find themselves in agreement oncertain crit ical issues that should be voiced.Who speaks for whom in this case is not theissue; the issue is that somebody has to be ableto speak up for all in some cases. Further, bypay ing a t t en t ion to pop u la r cu l tu re , soc ia lmovements, and testimonial writings, postcolo-nial theorists represent what other scholarlyvoices may be silencing, for, some argue, it is in

these s i tes tha t par t icular configura t ions ofident i ty , agency, and organiza t ion appear andt rans form under con tempora ry g loba l iza t ionpro cess es (e.g. , Alvarez, Dagnin o, & Escobar,1998).What is the re levance of these analyses andconceptualizations for organizational s tudies?In our view, globalization processes, at theirmost convention al, belong in the province of ourdisciplines. Concerns with ethnocentrism in our" internat ional" management theories have a l -rea dy b ee n voiced (e.g., Boy acigiller & Adler,1991). However, up to what point is scholarshipin organization studies ready to accept "the oth-er 's" strange knowledges? For example, up towhat point is the assumption of worldwide con-ve rgence in management knowledge an a s -sumption that pays attention only to a cosmo-politan elite who is not that different? Whatdifferences are not represented in these as -sumptions? How many people in the world arelef t out of our theories? With what conse-quences?Further, what is the complicity of Western or-g a n i z a t i o n a l a n d i n t e rn a t i o n a l m a n a g e m e n ttheories with t ransnat ional ins t i tu t ions whosepolicies and practices impact the material con-ditions of millions of people in the world, both

"at home" and "abroad" (e.g., Appadurai, 1990;Dirlik, 1994; Ha ll, 1996)? Th ere is a n in cr ea si nga w a re n e s s t h a t W e s t e rn u n d e r s t a n d i n g s o fglobalization, development, and the market areclosely aligned with the interests of global cap-i ta lthe same global capi ta l to which organi-zation theories attend and for which they speak.Yet, even "global capitalis ts" and such insti tu-tions as the International Monetary Fund arenow ambivalent about pol ic ies they supportedin the past and question their long-term impacton the survival of a reasonable capitalis t world(e.g., Soro s, 1998). How, the n, co uld w e th ink dif-ferently about these issues?The stories we have written in much organi-zation theory, our concepts and representations,no matter how global (or precisely because ofthis), represent the ways of thinking of certainpeoples and not others . These theoretical repre-sentations have been profoundly implicated inbl inding us to current global c i rcumstances .Thus, if we are to really engage in a globalconversation, postcolonial theories are an excel-lent place for us to start learning how to write intheoretical voices that allow spaces for "the

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1999 Caids and Smircich 663Other" to "speak back" (e.g., Alvarado, 1996;C al d s, 1992; Mir, C al ds , & Sm ircich , 1999;Radhakrishnan, 1994).Actor-Network Theory and After

Better known now by its acronym, ANT, actor-network theory firs t appeared in the social s tud-ies of science and technology (e.g., Callon, 1980,1986; La tou r, 1987, 1988a, 1993; Law, 1994), ye t ithas been transformed over the years and con-tinues today to be debated (e.g., Callon, 1997;Ca llo n & Law, 1995; Latour, 1997). As di sc us se dmo re rec ently by Law (1997a,b; see als o Law &Hassard, 1999), ANT has become an a s semblageo f m o d e s t s t o r i e s w h o s e n a r r a t i v e s h a v echanged from great s tories with a chronologicalordering to many small s tories that form a pat-tern with no possible chronology. However, inLaw's view, such is precisely ANT's current the-oretical value, for, despite much trying, actor-network "theory" has never been able to coa-lesce into a coherent theoretical perspective inthe modernis t sense .ANT origins ar e mixed, includ ing semiotics/s t ructura l ism, phenomenology, and e thnometh-odology, to name a few, but one may find now inANT some simila rit ies w ith Fouc ault 's notion ofpower/knowledge as power re la t ions are pro-duced through "actants" who perform the avail-able discourses and practices. Even the notionof author-function may be invoked, except thatin this case the "authors" are both human andnonhuman (e.g., Latour, 1988b). Concurrently,such notions as rhizomes, deterritorialization,nomadism, and the l ike in Deleuze and Guattari(1988) can be associated with the idea of "net-work" as a very dispersed a nd dece ntered chainof ongo ing a nd m utan t ac tivitie s (e.g.. Lee &Brown, 1994). Thus, "network" is ap pr oa ch ed a stopography and as performance, ra ther than asa final or original s tate.Early ANT comprised ideas of network as an-alytical s tructures, where the structure was ac-tually constructed by the analyst. These struc-t u r a l i s t a n d c o n s t ru c t i v i s t n e t w o r k s w e remater ia l ly heterogeneous and inc luded socia l ,technical, and n atu ral actors . All elem ents of thenetwork were actors , s ince they were capable ofacting upon one another. Also, authors of earlyactor-network studies had more interest in un-derstanding how things got centered, how theywere drawn together, and how they were or-

dered as a network. More recently, scholars arepaying attention to how things get both centeredan d d ece nte red (e.g.. Single ton, 1996) an d to themovements and oscillations that occur. The con-cept of ontological choreography captures thislatter idea (e.g., Cussins, in press).ANT highlights at least two issues. First , theactor and the network are not just things outthere to be seen or apprehended by the re-searcher. Rather, actor-network is in itself theconceptual f ramea way of unders tanding so-cial and technical processes. Second, thinkingin networks requires conceiving of relationshipsamong things in part icular ways . Some actor-network studies are also explorations of ways todevelop a vocabulary for conceptualizing thosere lat io ns hi ps (e.g., Akrich & Latour, 1992). TheANT scholar conceives of networks as consti-tuted by scripts . For instance, machines havescripts prescribing roies that others in the net-work must play. Yet, the network is precarious,for it takes much effort to maintain the "enrol-ment." Thus, from this perspective, netw orks areprocesses or achievements , ra ther than s tablerelations or s tatic s tructures. Transiafion repre-sen ts the ne two rk's m ove s (Callon, 1980; Law,1997a).

It is difficult to des crib e ANT a s a theo retica ltendency without a lso emphas iz ing i ts method-ological aspects . ANT is reflexive, because i tboth constitutes and describes its object of in-terest . The studies may be conducted throughethnographic research in a laboratory, for in-stance, but both the way "things out there" arelooked at and the way they are reported backcontribute to the constitution of those samethings "in here." There is irony behind this. Crit-ics of positivism, many social constructionists ,and all poststructuralis ts would say that such isexactly what any other empirical s tudy does.Yet, ANT scholars do not hide that such is thecase. Rather that is their point of departure, aswell as their end. ANT, thus, provides a verygood way of tell ing stories about "what happensout there" that defamiliarizes what we may oth-erwise take for granted. Latour's (1996) Aramis,in which he tells a heterogeneous story of atechnological project that includes the technol-ogy's "voice," an d Bowker and Star's (1996) ana l-ysis of classification and standardization as apolitical project of technoscience are good re-cent examples in th is regard.

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664 Academy of Management Review OctoberThese approaches are not much seen (yet) inorganiza t ional journals in the Uni ted S ta tes .However , ANT ' s theore t i ca l t endenc ies andmethodolog ica l a rguments have been repre -sented in organizational sociology and organi-

zational studies in Europe for several years (e.g..Brown, 1992; K ag ha n & Ph illip s, 1998; Latour,1986; Lee & Brown, 1994; Star, 1995; se e al soh t t p : / / w w w . c o m p . l a n c s . a c . u k / s o c i o l o g y / a n t .html#ear for an excellent annotated bibliogra-phy).If nothing else, ANT, with its focus on irreduc-tionism and relationality, rather than facts andessences, may become a very useful exercise tocounter convention al "theoretical tales" in organ-ization studies. More immediately, as organiza-tional s tudies face contemporary technologies

in a reconfiguration of the time/space of organi-zations, as "the Web" and "virtuality" becomepart of our everyday mode of existence, and asour in terac t ions with machines incrementa l lydefine our l ife experie nces, ANT provid es wa ysto navigate and represent these (dis)locationswhile displac ing more convent ional "organiza-tional" thinking. In Law's words.How to deal with and fend off the simplicitiesimplicit in a world in which: "Have theory, willtravel" makes for easy intellectual and politicalprogress. How to resist the singular ities so com-monly performed in the acts of nam ing an d know-ing. How to defy the overwhelming pressure s onacademic production to render knowing simple,transparent, singular, for m ula ic.... W ell, the "af-ter" in "actor-network and after" holds out prom-ise (1997b: 7).

NOT QUITE AT THE END (OFPOSTMODERNISM)

Discuss ing these three theore t ica l tenden-ciesfeminist poststructuralis t theorizing, post-colonial analyses, and actor-network theoryreturns us to the opening theme in our accountof postmodernismthe incredulity toward metaor ma s ter narra t ivesa nd to a cont inuing ques-tion of how to write legi t imate knowledge inpostmodernity. For Lyotard, and for many of thescholars discussed in the above sections, legit-imate knowledge can only be written in smallstories or modest narratives (see also Haraway,1997), mindful of their locality in space and timeand capable of disappearing as needed. Legi t i -mate knowledge would be in the form of tempo-ra ry l anguage games , recogn ized a s such

games tha t "assume" respons ibi l i ty for the irrules and effects as power. This leads to per-ha ps th e most radica l notion in all of this article.Should we not all start writing our theories dif-ferently? Should we not all explicitly recognizethe textual ity of knowledge m aking an d becomereflective narrators in/of our theoretical stories?

Whereas we would not argue that every or-ganiza t ional researcher should s top what he orshe is working on and begin to do poststructur-alis t feminist theorizing, postcolonial analysis ,or actor-network theory, we wouid like each ofus to follow the example of these theoreticaltendencies and problematize the constitution ofour theories at their most immediate: in the waywe wri te and the language we use .How would those writings look? They would

surely look different. Whether we are involvedin e thnography or s ta t is t ics heavy research,whether we are writing about insti tutional the-ory, population ecology, organizational justice,corpora te mergerswhatever , no mat ter whattopic or area or what methods we usewe areall producing orderliness in our writings, se-quences o f re la t ionsh ips (p lo t s / s to ry l ines /models /cause maps) , put t ing pieces together ,picking and choosing to pay attention and ig-nore. No matter who "we" might bemen orwomen, from the Third World or not, trained inthe sciences or the hum ani ties or neitherin ourwriting we are fixing signification; excluding,inc luding, conceal ing, favoring some people ,som e topics, some q uestio ns, som e forms of rep-resenta t ion, some values . Can w e do our wri t ingin a way that is "self-conscious" of our "choices,"and, at the same time, can we recognize that wedo not even exis t as independent autonomousselvesthat we are only products of multipleand competing discourses, and pretty lucky ifwe ever get to be author-functions? And whyever would we want to write in such a differentway?

To someone, a reader who wishes to remainanonymous, i t suggests an infinite regress as Ithink about myself thinking about my thinking... I'll be paralyzed. In response, we can referhere to Karl W eick's suggestio n in his "drop yourtools" allegory for organization studies (Weick,1996). As the story goes, some firemen in perilfailed to drop their heavy tools in order to rununburdened. They perished in s ight of safety.The message "drop your tools" ran counter totheir practice and identity.

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1999 Calas and Smiicich 885For us academics, one of our most importanttools is writing the key to success a nd identity.Dropping my (mo st favored way of) writing, thetools I spent so many years learning how to use... I might be rendered speechless. Ma ybe that

wouldn't be so bad, take a time out. ... Are youkidding, slow down my production? Now that's atruly dangerous suggestion. Gotta publish morenot less, standards are tightening, tenure p res-sure's increasing, gotta make full professor someday. and now there's even post-tenure review!Linda Putnam sets out the challenge of writ-ing differently very well:Organizational researchers need ways to openup text for multiple reading s; to decenter authorsas authority figures; and to involve participants,readers, and audiences in the production of re-search. One venue for achieving these goals is toseek alternative ways of presenting research re-portsones that challenge conventional modal-ities, ground research in historical processes,promote reflexivity, and open up our text to aninfinitude of meanings (1996: 386).

In other words, can we write in a way that "fixessignification" tentatively, leaving room for oth-ers? Wou ld it still be called research?Writing while incorporating undecidabili ty ofmeaning, the cris is of representation, and theproblematization of subject and author locatesthe moral respo nsibili ty of the scholar, who c an-not claim innocence from the representationalforce that she or he brings to the text (Czar-niaswka, 1995, 1997, 1998). It also means revamp-ing our notions of authors-ourselves as agents ,attending to the ways in which our theoreticalnarratives are embedded in ins t i tu t ions tha twrite us as much as we write them. Along withCzarniawska, there have been others wri t ingabout narra t ive approaches to knowledge in or-ga niz atio na l stu die s (e.g., Barry & Elmes, 1997;Deetz, 1996; Hatch, 1996; Polkinghorne, 1987; Put-na m , 1996; Ric har dso n, 1994; Van M aa ne n, 1996).We know of some experimental writings thatblur the boun daries be tw een theory and method(e.g., Burrell, 1997; Calds, 1987; Goodall, 1989;Ja cq ue s, 1992; Ric har dso n, 1998; St. Pierre, 1997)and some that present i l lusions of multivocality(Linste ad, 1993; Lin stea d & Graf ton -Sm all, 1992).Many of these draw an explicit thread betweenthe exclusion of ethics and power relations inthe language of our theories and the conven-tions of "writing theory," for it is behind theseconventions that the ethics and values of our

institutions hide. It is behind these conventionsthat the interests of a few are presented as thereality of many. One of our favorite attempts tobring the ethica l closer to hom e is Denny Gio ia 's(1992) story of his employment as a recall man-ager for Ford Motor Co., in the era of Pinto fires.Shall a Pinto fire be represented in a seques-tered photograph, or in the calculations of acost-benefit analysis? Can we, should we, useour cherished theorie s to exp lain our own (in)ac-tion?If we start writing and talking differentlywhat difference? If we start writing and talkingdifferently what else is there?At the beginning of this text, we promised topresent four contemporary appr oach es to organ-izational theorizing, the last being narrative ap-proaches to knowledge. But as the reader mayhave gathered, th is las t approachin this moreor less self-exemplifying part of our textaswell as a l l the others, conta ins the m essa ge wemost wanted to convey in this article, the ap-proac h w e felt most comp elled to write. How a rethe issues of representation and form implicatedin sus ta ining the power re la t ions behind ourtheories and our institutions? As we see it, find-ing ways to answ er this ques t ion represen ts im-portant work that we all can do past postmod-ernism.We hope our many pages, written in friend-sh ip , have presented an opt imis t ic and produc-tive face for moving past postmodernism in or-g a n i z a t i o n s t u d i e s . W e h a v e d i s c u s s e d t h econtributions of the postmodern turn as bringingreflexivity to our knowledge-making enterprise,as well as the contributions of poststructuralismthrough the analyt ics of Foucaul t' s gene alogie sand Derrida 's deconstructions. We have brieflydiscussed, as well , some contemporary theoret-ical perspectives that, influenced by postmod-ernism but also crit ical of some of i ts argum ent s,offer other positive conceptualizations and rep-resentational forms for organization studies.On e more gener al point, however, is that post-m o d e rn i s t , p o s t fo u n d a t i o n a l i s t p e r s p e c t i v e shave already touched many of us in organiza-tion studies. Perhaps some of us have been tour-is ts in the land of postmodernism and may notwish to sett le there permanently, but "we" havebeen "effec ted"changedby the meet ing. Wecannot erase the unset t l ing tha t has occurredbecause of these encounters . They have lefttraces in how we consider theory and ourselves.

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666 Academy of Managem ent Review OctoberConnell and Nord (1996) say that what has hap-pened is that practit ioners of organization stud-ies are now more ready to accept uncertaintyand to recognize that interests or values havebeen and continue to be major factors in shap-ing what constitutes knowledge in the field. Wehope they are right.We are also aware that i t is possible to writethese words now, and in this location, becauseour ins t i tu t ions a lso have been changing. The"pos tmodern conversa t ion" has affec ted ourjournals , the curricula of our programs, andeven the way we think about ourselves as schol-ars and educators . Some col leagues may s t i l lde ba te how to preserv e "the purity of our knowl-edge," but if they look around, they will noticethat, in the university, the boundaries betweendisciplines are already fallen. We all are effectsan d prod ucers of the postm odern, an d it is show-ing (e.g., Aronowitz & Giroux, 1994; Read ing s,1996).

In sum ma ry, our who le text conce rns the ques -tions "Can we do theory differently? How do wedo that?" In that sense, our aim toward rele-vance has been focused on "doing theory" as thespecific practice of our own community, withouta direct interest in articulating the content oftheories for some other constituency. However,given the type of argument on which we havebeen focusing, this exercise has also been ourway to call attention to the absences of certainvoices and issues in our theories. Ours has beenan argument about the "power(s)" of theorizing.How do we address and deploy the powers ofour community? Under whose ethics, and underwhose values, will we continue the practices ofour insti tutions? These are questions that, in ourview, organizational theorists cannot avoid ad-dre ssing any further. Thus, at the end, ours is nota theory (or a proposition) intended to be tested;if is fhe telling of a very small story tha t we hoperesonates with others .

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culture. Organization Studies, 5: 193-226.Alvarado, F. 1996. Con cerning p ostm odernity and organiza-t ions in the Third World: Open ing a d ebat e and sugges -tions for a research agenda. Organization Science, 7:667-681.Alvarez, S. E., Dag nino , E., & Escob ar, A. 1998. Cultures ofpolitics/politics of culture. Boulder, CO: Westview.Alvesson, M.,& Billing, Y. D. 1997. Understanding gen der andorganizations. London: Sage.Alvess on, M., & Deetz, S. 1996. Critic al th eory a nd postm od-ernism approaches to organization studies. In S . R.Clegg, C. Hardy, & W. Nord (Eds.), Handbook of organi-

zation studies: 191-217. London: Sag e.Anzaldua, G. 1987. Borderlands/la frontera: The new mestiza.Sa n Francisco: Aunt Lute Boo