postmodernism, reflexive rationalism and organizational studies a reply to martinmmmm parker

7/28/2019 Postmodernism, Reflexive Rationalism and Organizational Studies a Reply to Martinmmmm Parker

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Post-Modern Organizationsor Postmodern Organization Theory?Martin Parker*

Martin ParkerDepartment ofSociology,Staffordshire

Polytechnic,Stokc-on-Trent,U.K.

Abstract

Postmodernism is beginning to enter organization studies. After introducing thecontours of the debate, some of the earlycontributions are critically reviewed andthen subjected to sympathetic scrutiny. A distinction between the periodizationpost-modern and a postmodern epistemology is explored in terms of its conse-quences for writing about organizations. Each position is shown to have diffi-culties attached to it and the political ramifications of these are explored.Sometentative suggestions are made to explain the rising popularity of the post withinorganizational writing.

Introduction

Why do we find it congenial to speak of organizations as structures but notclouds, systems but not songs, weak or strong but not tender or passionate? Is itbecause organizations physicallyresemble one but not the other, that we some-how discern through the clamorous hurly burly something that is structural, butnot cloudlike, systemic rather than rhapsodic, strong but not tender? What kindof structure could we have in mind that the continual movement of bodies,papers, electronic blips and so on should bear a physicalresemblance? And arethose who think they observe structure simply blind to systemic process, andthose who spy process insensitive to obvious signalsof strengthand weakness?

(Gergen 1989: 1).

This paper addresses the recent rise of interest in the relevance of the

postmodernity debate for organizational analysis.Over the last few yearsthere have been a number of attempts to re-focus the study of organiza-tions towards concerns that it has traditionally marginalized. Thus therehave been writingsfrom Blyton et al. on time and social organization(1989),Clegg on circuits of power (1989), an explosion of interest inculture and symbolism (for example Turner 1989), Morgans writing on

metaphor (1986) anda

focuson

sexualityand gender (Hearnet

al. 1989)that can be seen to have moved organizationalanalysis away from itsimage as a grey collection of managerialist typologies.Whilst versions offunctionalism are still commonly accepted as dominant, the area hasbecome increasingly sensitive to concerns and concepts developed inother fields. The most recent of these injectionshas been postmodernity,and certain writers are making claims for its importance that deserve


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careful scrutiny. My intention here is to outline some of these claims andthen briefly attempt to evaluate them.Postmodernity was first popularized as an architectural term whichreferred to a reaction againstthe monolithic modernist structure in favourof reflexivity, irony, artifice, randomness, anarchy, fragmentation,pasticheand allegory(Ryan 1988: 559). It found clear grounds for appli-cation in literary criticism and appears to have entered English-speakingsocial science via those interested in European writingson philosophyand culture. Since then, and most particularlyin the last five years, it hasmoved with increasing rapidity into areas of interest to organizationtheorists. The term is now widely used in popular discourse about cultureand much debate has been stimulated about its usefulness, or otherwise,as a tool for explaining emergent features of contemporary societies

(Lash and Urry 1987; Connor 1989; Harvey 1989; Lash 1990). It wouldseem likely that this connection between postmodernity and culture helpsto explain its importation into organization studies. Though those work-ing in the area have been interested in the climate, atmosphere orpersonalityof organizations for many years, the publication of Petersand Watermans In Search of Excellence ( 1982)has heralded an explosionof literature on explicitly cultural issues. Whilst much of it has been ofthe managerial quick fix variety, there have also been a number ofattempts to avoid normative prescriptions and focus attention on

language, myth, symbolism, ritual and so on. Given these currents it washardly surprisingthat postmodernism began to be discussed by those whowere interested in alternative perspectives on organizations. After all, ifour culture is being transformed then so may our organizations.

A second area of influence has undoubtedly been the increasing concernwith the flexible firm and post-Fordism. The suggestion that organiza-tions are being transformed has led to concern about the nature of thattransformation. This particularpointwill be explored in more detail laterin this paper. These two heritages - culture and flexibility - have led

to two kinds of question. First, how dowe

recognize a postmodernorganization? Second, can we use a postmodern analysisto see organiza-tions in a different way?Though these questions are related, I will arguethat they must be seen as analyticallydistinct. To collapsethem, as someauthors are in danger of doing, will lead to confusion on both counts.Before elaborating on this critique, I will first outline some of the currentwritingon postmodernity from within organization theory.

Postmodernityand

OrganizationTo define postmodernity, postmodernism or postmodernization wouldappear to be a futile task. It is not one school and since many of itsadherents refuse the language and logicof definition in the first place, itis difficult to summarize it to their satisfaction. Instead, I shall simplyindicate some of its concerns as they seem relevant to this essay, without


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functionally flexible, with no clear centre of power or spatial locationwould therefore be an instantiation of the class postmodern. A similarexample is illustrated by Whitaker (1989), in which the author documentschanges in the world of work, backed up with statistics and references,and proceeds to suggest that we may be seeing the emergence of apostmodern form of structure. Aronowitz suggests that the dispersalanddeterritorialization of production is one of the features of societythat hasled to the postmodern shift in sensibility (1989: 47) and Alvesson notesthe coincidence between postmodernist forms of thought and the increas-ing importance of images and pseudo realities in understanding con-temporary organizations (1990). -Many of these themes are reiterated in Stewart Cleggs recent bookModern Organisations ( 1990)which is, at the time of writing, the mostfully developed analysisin this area. It is subtitled Organisation Theoryin the Postmodern World and is a clear attempt to ground the notion of apostmodern organization in empiricaldata. He argues that there areforms of emerging organization that bear little or no relation to modernistvariations on the theme of bureaucracy. These organizations are de-differentiated (see Lash 1990), flexible, niche marketed and have amulti-skilled workforce held together by information technology net-works and sub-contracting (Clegg 1990: 181). Clegg backs up thisassertion by supplying international evidence on the development oforganizational forms with high labour responsibility,process variabilityand product innovation (1990: 218). Clegg clearly sees postmodernorganizational forms as arenas that are, as yet, relativelyunexplored eventhough they bring the possibility of progressive opportunities for thedevelopment of industrial democracy and the enhancement of skill inlabour - as in Sweden. There is, however, also the possibility of post-modern organizations being seductive, yet essentially repressive andexclusive. These organizations would rely on a segmented labour forcewith a clear stratification of privilege - as in Japan. Against the There IsNo Alternative tendency of organizational developmental logic, Cleggargues that there is a choice in the development of new forms that bestsuit the needs of a postmodern world (1990: 58, 235). Postmodernityrequires management. Organization does not simply fade away. (1990:17).On a more self consciouslytheoretical level, in 1988, Robert Cooper andGibson Burrell began publishing a series of papers in OrganizationStudies which were an explicit attempt to show the relevance of post-modernist concerns for the study of organizations.These papers deserveexamination in some detail. Three papers in a projected series of fivehave appeared so far (Cooper and Burrell 1988; Burrell 1988; Cooper1989). I will examine them in chronological order.In the first paper, Cooper and Burrell (1988) begin by outlining thenature of the modernist-postmodernist debate. A central feature of theirargument is that it reflects a return to Webers concerns about the ironcage of rational bureaucratic organization.Whilst they see Weber as


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expressing the processual and fragile nature of organizational life, hiswritings have been reread by organization theorists throughout most ofthe century as being a descriptionof a system that is discrete and subjectto control. The notion of an observer who is capable of constructing ameta-language is central to this kind of modernist project. By gainingknowledge, we acquire power over organizations; we can design themand be experts on them. From Comtes systems theory onwards, they seea continued attempt to produce prescriptionsfor a scientificallydesignedorganization.The aim of this expertise follows the grand narrative ofprogress which is manifested within organizations as a concern for effi-ciency, minimization of conflict and profitability. The increasingcom-plexity and texture of industrial societies is brought under control byorderingsocial relations according to the model of functional rationality(1988: 96). Thus, for the system to control inputsand outputs, it must beable to structure the world, both as its employees and its environment.The modernist projecttries to facilitate this control - to allow confidentpredictivestatements to be made about organizations.In contrast, if we rule out the possibility of a superior objectivestand-point or explanation, then interpretationbecomes central. Any study oforganizationsis thus as good as any other, the main difference is inmotivation, in the interests of the observer-participant. The objectiveofthe postmodernist is not to totalize, because that is a futile endeavour.Instead s/he recognizes the fundamental instability of organization,thesense in which language and action are never final, but are only moveswithin a game that leads to further possibilities. The postmodern projectattempts instead to disrupt our sense of normality - to make strangewhat is familiar. Answers to problems about organizational systemsshould thus get turned into problems about answers. Language isevidently central here, but it is no longer simply a bare object languagethat communicates facts about the world. Instead, it is seen as discoursethat constitutes our sense of the world in order to exercise power over

it. The postmodernist must attempt to reveal these power relations inorder to expose the fragility of organizational life and the myth of itsstability.Cooper and Burrell then draw on these characterizations to suggest thatmuch of the writingon organizations has been prompted by the reactionto problems defined by the modernist project. Organizations, workersand managers are defined as bounded entities with certain functionalcharacteristics. In contrast, postmodernity would focus on the produc-tion of organization rather than the organization of production (1988:

106).The implication of this strategy is thatwe

must rid ourselves of thenotion that organizations are created and that they continue, of their ownaccord, to structure relationships.Instead, the role of the analysisshouldcontinually be recognized in creating a discourse on organization as averb. The formal/informal, officiaUunofficial distinctions commonly madeby organization theorists become clear for what they really are, moralimperatives that presuppose objectsin order to capture them and exclude


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other Immoral activities. For postmodernists, the informal, small scaleand continual attempts at making meaning work within organizationbecomes all that we can really observe and participate in. A furtherimplicationis that academic work must be recognized for what it is -more as

words ina

competing babble of voices withno

voice havinga

particularclaim to priority over the others.Burrells paper (1988) attempts to suggest areas in which Foucaultswritingsmay be of use to organization studies. He suggests that it mightbe fruitful to consider the sense in which the disciplineof organizationsconstructs the individuals within them. However, this is not simply aversion of the dominant ideology thesis, but a far more embracing formu-lation. Expanding the metaphor of the prison, organizations are siteswithin which power constitutes all subjects. Moreover, we cannot simply

stepoutside the

institution,since our social world is constructed

by them;we are members whether we like it or not. All organization does this, allorganizations are total in the sense that the prison is what gives us ourindividuality. The use of decision theory and information technologysimply refines the process of capture; we are watched and we watchourselves. From the factory to the polytechnic, the capillaries of powerstructure our meanings and our actions. Any simplistic distinctionbetween coercive and liberal organizations should therefore be treatedwith extreme caution.

Coopers paper (1989)on Derrida

exploresa

theoryof

languagethat

underlies much of the postmodern project. Derridas conception oflanguage as being inherently undecidable suggests that our attempts toreduce it to communication are highlysuspect. In the name of a grandnarrative, we attempt to halt the endless flows of meaning in containerslike organizations.Writing, formalizing,administrating are all ways tomanage languge, but they contain within themselves contradictions thatcan be revealed by means of deconstruction. This is no simple strategy forexposing a false consciousness, rather it is a continual process of evadingthe concrete. When we write organizationwe must see it as a process/verb that needs disorganization in order to exist. Thus things out theresuch as the market, employees and customers are called into being bylanguage, and not by pre-existingobjects in a relation to the observer andto each other, that simply needs to be understood. Most writing onorganizations evades this problem by recognizing a model and a methodas the organization itself. If you look for a system, you will find one.Writings on bureaucracy summon up the object of study but they alsoinvoke subjectivitieswhich are subordinated to it. Once we use the termas our frame of reference it becomes a necessity, but it brings with it itsopposite to undermine its concreteness. In terms of power, there are clearparallels with Foucault in this account. The professions of organization,management, accountancy, personnel and so on invoke their objects ofcontrol through their writings.Divisions of labour and institutional logicsare made self justifyingthrough discourse. Deconstructing these discour-ses can reveal this. Within the specificcontext of organizational analysis


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(...) this means that the writingof organization must be overturned infavour of the organizationof writing. (1989: 501)Whilst Cooper and Burrells papers have consciously avoided being pro-grammatic, a recent paper by Kenneth Gergen (1989) is much lesscircumspect. He argues that organization theory has been shaped so farby the twin discourses of romanticism and modernism, but that thesediscourses are beginning to be exhausted. In Gergens view, the emergentdiscourse of postmodernism is replacing them and he suggestivelyoutlines the possibilities that this new language opens up within organiza-tion theory. For Gergen, the romantic discourse is centrally constitutedaround the notion of a deep interior to the individual. This soul is whatgenerates our needs for creativity, self-expression,sociabilityand a moralattitude towards other unique persons. Within organization theory it is

reflected in the work of the human relations movement, psychoanalyticapproaches, hierarchy of need psychology and writingson managementand leadership that stress creativity and commitment. In contrast, themodernist discourse gains its sustenance from a central belief in thepower of reason to produce a meta-language for predicting what theworld will do next. Intellectual work is progressive in that, if done scien-tifically, it brings us ever closer to the truth and thus to the possibility forcontrol. Within this discourse, there is also a great reliance on machinemetaphors - descriptionsof the world that posit systematic causal con-nections between events. For organization theory this has resulted inscientific management, systems theory and a psychology which assumesthat individuals have predictable patterns of behaviour that can bestudied to help them to connect with the organization in productive

. ways.For Gergen, both these discourses are still alive, particularlythe modern-ist one, but they are being increasinglychallenged at the margins. Witt-gensteinian philosophies of language, ethnomethodological approaches,feminist critiques, semiotics and deconstructionism have all combined to

make these older discourses look increasinglydogmatic. Gergen is carefulto avoid the suggestion that postmodemity, therefore, has greaterexplanatory power. He says simply that it resonates more closely withthe intellectual and cultural Zeitgeist (1989: 2). The postmodern spiritof the times is one that brings representationto the fore instead of reality,and acknowledges that it is not possibleto rectify or avoid the problem oflanguage. Moreover, there is a stress on the collectivity of the represen-tational practices.The discrete individual is a fiction that we can better dowithout. The final, and most contentious, part of Gergens formulation of

postmodernity is the importance of reflexivity and self-criticism. He sug-gests that since we can no longer pretend that what we are pursuing is. truth, we recognize instead that what we are engaged in is serious play.

The view of knowledge making as a transcendent pursuit removed from the&dquo;

trivial enthralments of daily life, pristinely rational, and transparentlyvirtuous. becomes so much puffery. We should view these bodies of language we call


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knowledge in a lighter vein - as ways of putting things, some pretty and otherspetty - but in no sense calling for ultimate commitments, condemnations, orprofound consequences. We should be rather more playful with our sayings.(1989: 14)

The only criteria for judging a theory is whether we feel it lends itself topatterns of social life that we like or dislike; whether we feel that it haspositive or negative consequences.With respect to organizational theory, Gergen feels that there is somewriting that is beginning to move in a postmodern direction. He cites(among others) Gareth Morgans Images of Organization ( 1986) as anexample. Gergens own substantive contribution, towards the end of hispaper, draws on Cooper and Burrell (1988) and attempts to formulate atheory of power in organizations which is indebted to Foucault. Thisinvolves stressing that the rationalities deployed within an organizationare relative and collective. There is no absolute criteria for truth andwisdom inside or outside any given organization and those truths thatare utilized are continually subject to re-negotiation and re-encoding byothers within the negotiation.Given this continual state of flux, powerbecomes a matter of constraining signifiers to agree on acceptableorganizational aims. One of the key organizational problems to which thisleads is the increasing solidity of local rationalities, accounting, marketingand so on, and their increasing incapacityto speak outside their locallyagreed languages. This results in organizations, and departments withinorganizations, becoming increasinglypowerless to achieve control overthat which is outside their rationality. To restore power, to prevent thisattempt at capturing meaning, requires that organizations must be moreopen to the spillagesof meaning that language contains. Their membersmust be less a part of an organization than participantsin the process oforganizing; continually bringing new rationalities to bear on the process.The ability to continually speak new languages, to use new rationalities is

therefore a pre-requisitefor the postmodern organization.

Discussion

The writingsof Clegg, Cooper, Burrell, Gergen and others are clearlypointing the way forward to a theory, method and object of organizationsthat looks somewhat different from the disciplineas it is currently taughtand researched. In this section, I wish to evaluate the possibilities and

problems of this programme froma

broadly sympathetic standpoint.Theformulation which underlies my critique is the difference between post-modernity as a historical periodizationand postmodernity as a theoreticalperspective. This is similar to Baumans distinction between a sociologyof postmodernity and a postmodern sociology( 1988a,1988b), though Imake very different use of the terms than he does. From here on I willinsert a hyphen in the term when I wish it to be understood as a sociology


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of postmodernity. It should be noted that I have not employed thisdevice in the text so far.The first use of the term that I distinguishis in the sense of a periodiza-tion, post-modernity; after the period of the modern. The ground here isepistemologically fairly stable and involves a search for features of theexternal world that confirms the hypothesis that our societyis movingintoa different epoch. It is important to note that this is an ontology whichassumes some kind of realist epistemology. The world is out there and wesimply need to find the right way of describing it. There is a sense in whichthis post is related to a proliferation of other terms which refer tospecific features of post-modern society. Post-Fordism, post-capitalism,post-industrialismand information society are the most common (Bell1973; Piore and Sabel 1984; Harvey 1989), but Callinicos lists fifteenothers that share this namingof a new era (1989: 25). A common theme isdis-organization,untidyness, flexibility. The structures that we have beenused to since the industrial revolution are fragmenting into diverse net-works held together with information technology and underpinned by a

; postmodernist (sic) sensibility (Lash and Urry 1987: 285). These newtimes are seen to require explanation and codification (see Hall andJacques 1989). If we can understand them, we may be able to exercisesome control over them, and this holds true for those of the political left,just as for those of the right.For organization theory, the implicationsof post-modernity are fairlyclear. First, evidence is needed for a radical shift in organizational struc-ture and functioning and then it can be documented. In essence, thisapproach becomes a process of organizational design - the aim being toprovide a set of prescriptionsfor the organization to help it to survive inthe post-modern era. Texts will be written that suggest methods forachieving this kind of organization and will be taught on M.B.A. coursesas the latest and best method for achieving organizational survival andefficiency. The culturalist movement reflects a move in this direction. At

its boldest, it isa

suggestion thatstructure

is simplya

reflection ofthe

built-in commitment of individuals. Yet a flexible culture will become an

opportunity for excellence and not a problem. The grand (modernist)narrative is still clear. Methods for organizing have to be found in anincreasingly turbulent and complex society.I have contrasted the post-modern periodizationwith postmodernity -without a hyphen. My interpretationof the postmodern perspective reliesheavily on post-structuralistphilosophy and is essentiallyepistemologicalin nature. It is an approach to the question how can we know the world?Since the world is seen as

beingconstituted

byour shared

language,the

answer is that we can only know it through the particular forms of dis-course that our language creates. Moreover, this language and thesesymbols, are in a continual state of flux. Meaningcan never reside withinone term. It is continuallyslippingbeyond our grasp. The task of thewriter is therefore to recognize and expose this slippage, though neverwith the aim of creatinga meta-discourse that can explainall other forms


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of language. If we are to look at organization (as a verb) in this way, wemust continually recognize the impossibilityof the formal structure. Themyth of structure is simply one of the ways in which social life is continu-ally constituted. Instead, the postmodern organization theorist mustattempt to uncover the messy edges of the mythical structure; the placeswhere the organization process becomes confused and defies definition bythe discourses that are used within it. As Power notes -

... the postmodernist perspectiveflows from a denial that there is any single,ultimate or deep language game that is uniquely determinative of organizationalstability. The organization theorist must be sensitive to the diversity and fluidityof the life of organization and no one model will suffice to orientate research.(1990: 121)

What might writingthis postmodernity look like? First, it could be of noobvious practical use to organizers since it would be aimed at illustratingthe limits of their projects. This would include conventional academia,whose attempts at codification and systematization are just as prone tothe myth of the grand narrative of enlightenment. Second, it would bewriting that would seek to undermine all the conventions of administra-tive/academic discourse. It would have to be as disruptiveand difficult aspossible,continually seeking to evade the ground on which it might stand.Once the descent into the maelstrom of indeterminacy has been made,there is no looking back, and no raft of logic to climb onto. Third it wouldmake no claim to be any more than another language game. This kind ofwritingcould assume no prior place as more accurate or truthful thanother accounts of organizational life.If the distinction between perspective and periodization is accepted, thenthe implications are severe. The key pointis that writers on organizationsmust be clear when they are trying to find post-modemity and when theyare being postmodern. I am suggesting that they are incommensurable

language games in the Wittgensteinian sense. One cannot combine anidealist epistemology and a realist ontology and expect to producecoherent theory. If the world is no more than discourse, then variationson empiricism are simply going to reproduce the fictions of the worldunder the name of facts. To be postmodern is a task that requiresacademics to radically rethink their relation to the subject, as it ispresently constituted. Texts like this one, that rely on a linear logicbacked up by reference to a shared discourse, would have to be replacedby something altogether more disruptive.Gergens paper does attempt to

display amore

rhetorically informed version of organizational writing(see the quotation that begins this paper, for example) but none of theother texts I have referenced move away from a recognizably socialscientific discourse. For the authors of postmodern texts, this would beunacceptable, since postmodernity would require that their textual strat-egiesand their motivations for wanting to write at all would come underclose scrutiny, which would be uncomfortable at the best of times.


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If, however, we are looking for post-modernity, then much of the institu-tional and rhetorical apparatus that serves us now, may be useful in thefuture. We should be able to decide when a particular organization orprocess is post-modern and when it is modern, and this will require abelief in the power of rationality that may be flexible, but it is stillbasicallyscientific in the broadest sense of the term. Our language mayrequire cleaning up, but it will not require a radical reconstitution (seefor example Sandelands and Drazin 1989). Furthermore there would beno compelling reason to move away from writingwithin the rules of socialscience, and from publishing those writingsin books and journals thatfind a ready home in the library classification system.

As I have presented them, neither of these alternatives looks particularlyattractive. The postmodern epistemology is certainly theoreticallywater-

tight and provides a bastion from which to ward off dangerous criticism.Terry Eagleton comments that the advantage of this position

... is that it allows you to drive a coach and horses through anybody elsesbeliefs while not saddling you with the inconvenience of having to adopt anyyourself.Such deconstruction is a power game (...) the winner is the one who manages toget rid of all his cards and sit with empty hands. (1983: 144, 147)

All competing positions are ruled out by an all-embracing meta-theory.Power notes that if we take this position to its conclusion it would outlawall talk of organization in any sense (1990: 123).The problem is whetherthis is not simply a retreat into the sophistryof academic speculation.Ifthe real world does not exist in anything other than discourse, then is theact of writingone interpretationof a discourse a worthwhile pursuit?Theproblems of (fictional) individuals in (mythical) organizations are safelyplaced behind philosophical double-glazing and their cries are treated asinterestingexamples of discourse. Harvey suggests that this is basicallyaversion of nihilism (1989: 116) and Callinicos characterizes postmodern-ists as fiddlingwhile Rome burns (1989: 174). The post-modern period-ization is more successful in that organizationsare seen to be realentities with real implicationsfor real people. The theorist has both areason and a method, as long as the full implicationsof the hard post-

, modern epistemological critique are not accepted.Post-modernity thenbecomes another instantiation of the grand narrative of history, bywhich moments are named in a seamless web of time, followed by argu-ments over the distinctions thereby produced. It could be argued that thecritique had simply been incorporated and that the discourse of organ-

izationhad not

really changed, despitethe use of the lexicon of the

post.How are these difficulties negotiated by Clegg, Cooper, Burrell, Gergen,and the others? Clegg, as the most developed representative of the post-modern organizations school, clearly stands within a hroadly rationalistframework. He uses Baumans (1988a, 1988b) distinction to develop a

, sociology of post-modernity that effectively marginalizes the post-


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structuralist heritage in favour of a post-Fordist one. This is, as I haveargued, quite coherent in its own terms, but brings with it assumptions(grand narratives) that are unquestioned in most of the text. Clegg clearlystates that his stress on choice and a broadly conflict-pluralist politicsaugments modernist conventions and does not seek to disrupt them.Rather than constructing a distinctive postmodern organisation studies on thebasis simply of analytical style, one might instead be engaged in developing astudy of postmodernist (sic) organisation and management practice. (1990: 21)

One might indeed, but I doubt whether a post-modernist would concedethat analyticalstyle is a simpledistinction ,that can be so easily brushedaside. His reading of post-modernity is therefore entirely circumscribedby his very modernist assumptions about the place of social science andthe theorist. His reading of Foucault is a case in point (1989, 1990). Heuses Foucaults writingsabout power, but does not embrace Foucaultsinsistence on the undesirabilityof meta-languages. The epistemologicalbaggage is left behind and the modernist project continues unhindered.Of course, this can be seen as Foucaults problem rather than Cleggs,butmy point is that modernism does not solve postmodernism. Instead, itincorporates parts of it and leaves others on the shelf, whilst the integrityof the authors project remains unchallenged.Cooper and Burrell, however, are careful not to argue that there is a post-modern organization. They focus instead on explicatinga postmodernperspective.The difficulty I see with their writings(and to a lesser extentwith Gergen) is that, although they take the deconstruction of organiza-tional narratives very seriously, they do nothing to explore the nature ofthe relation between author, text and reader that is so central to anyonewho aspires to write from within a distinctivelypostmodern paradigm.The notion of an expert writingfrom within an institution in social scien-tific language is one that cannot be sustained if postmodernism isaccepted. If the perspectiveis stripped of this absolute condition of

reflexivity, then it loses its uniqueness. It begins to look as if it is not verydifferent from other radical perspectives such as ethnomethodology,critical theory, hermeneutics or even Weicks social psychology oforganizing (1979).In terms of the distinction between epistemology and periodization,Gergen appears not to recognize a difference. He moves seamlesslybetween applying postmodernism to suggesting that organizations needto find new ways of working in the postmodern age. The problem of thiskind of jump is illustrated in his notion of serious play. If he wishes to

arguethat what he

suggestsabout

organizationalsurvival is

important,then he is participatingin a serious grand narrative, whether he likes it ornot. His work would have to stand within a tradition of organizationaldesign, even if it does look and sound radical. A writer cannot avoidresponsibilityfor the consequences of his writingssimply by suggestingthat they were only vehicles for publicamusement.In terms of the distinctions I have constructed, Clegg and others sit in the


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post-modern camp. Cooper and Burrell follow the postmodernists, andGergen glides between them. All the works are interesting, challengingand raise critical issues for organization studies. However, the implicationof my commentary would be that there are central epistemological, andtherefore textual, issues that have not yet been addressed. Post-modern-ists simply sideline these issues since they are not seen as being relevant tothe debates with which they are concerned. That line of thought isentirely coherent, but it is subject to all the critiquesof meta-narrativesthat postmodernists deploy. On the other hand, postmodernists cannotafford to ignore the textual issues that Gergen begins to raise since theyare central to, and constitutive of, the new understanding of organizationthat they seek.For all the authors, the Foucauldian (1977) notion of a disciplinewouldseem to have some metaphorical applicationhere. In accepting,or con-structing, a disciplinaryarea such as organizational theory/studies/soci-ology the authors discipline their writingto reproduce certain forms ofknowledge. To extend the pun, they also become disciplesto a heritageofwriting.For a postmodernist, this closure would be unacceptable since iterects the barriers they wish to dissolve. Given instead a space for theplayof language without discipline, the postmodernist could then claimtheoretical purity and consistency. Taking this logic to its limit, the starkchoice that remains would therefore appear to be a flawed grand narra-tive, which givesus reasons for writingabout organizations or a compre-hensive critique of all reasons for writingabout anything. The idea thatdiscipline is necessary in order to write, sounds like a piece of sternpedagogic morality, but it may have wider applicationin this context. Inbroad terms, it is as if the presence or absence of the hyphen leaves theorganization theorist in different worlds that may never really meet, iftheir internal logics are followed to the limit (Hebdige 1985: 41). Havingtaken the reader to this questionable conclusion, I am unable to deliver asolution, and offer instead a few closingspeculationson the implicationsof this argument.

Conclusions

There is certainly a sense in which organization theory is jumping on abandwagon. The distinction (Bourdieu 1984) gained by new languageprovides the user with a sense that they are themselves pushing forwardthe boundaries of their discipline - a quest for difference that is notunconnected to the modernist project. This would seem to be particularlyimportant for organization theory in order to giveit an image and sense ofexcitement singularlylacking within the present academic community. Inaddition, there is no guarantee that these currents are as radical as manyof their proponents may like to think. As Featherstone observes

... one strategy for outsider intellectuals is to appear to attempt to subvert thewhole game - postmodernism. With postmodernism, traditional distinctions and


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hierarchies are collapsed, polyculturalismis acknowledged (...) kitch, thepopular and difference are celebrated. Their cultural innovation proclaiming abeyond, is really a within, a new move within the cultural game which takes intoaccount the circumstances of production of cultural goods, which will itself in turnbe

greetedas

eminently marketable bythe cultural

intermediaries. (1987: 69)In a similarly cynical vein, John Rajchman suggests that postmoderntheory

... is like the Toyota of thought: produced and assembled in several differentplacesand then sold everywhere. (Connor 1989: 19)

Within a matter of years, we might thus expectPeters and Waterman tobe writing a book for managers on the use of postmodernism for manage-ment practice, entitled In Search of Difference. Indeed

some

recenttitles of management texts suggest that this may already be happening -see for example Peters Thriving on Chaos ( 1987)and Handys The Ageof Unreason (1989).However, it might be argued that the distinction between postmodernepistemologies and post-modern periodizationsis altogether too glib.There is a danger of preventing discourse taking placebetween valuabletheoretical trends and the everyday practice of those interested inorganization(s).The middle ground may not be acceptable in terms of

complete theoretical consistency,but it

does push organization studiestowards new and interesting ways of looking at the subject, both as adiscipline and as a substance. As I pointed out at the beginning of thetext, this is certainly what is already happening in many areas - time,power, culture, symbolism, metaphor and sexualityare all being prob-lematized. Broadly titled, qualitative and critical approaches are chal-lenging the core assumptions that many of us hold about the process ofproducing organization. In addition, there is an increase of reflexiveinterest in the constitution of the area as a whole.

The body of knowledge that constitutes administrative science is an artifactgenerated from the a priori constructs of predefined theoretical models. Suchconstructs do not just describe the world by classifyingit into analytical cate-gories, they define its epistemologicalconstitution. Rather than approachorganizations as unbiased observers of the facts who passivelyrecord events inneutral theoretical descriptions,we already harbour conceptions of what is to bestudied; our theories determine what will count as a fact in the first place. (Astley1985: 498)

Whilst not all of these works necessarily givepostmodernism a central

place, they are all inspired by the trend that Gergen describes aslanguage losingits role as mere messenger from the kingdomof reality(1989: 11). Given such an interest in the implications of the linguisticturn, it would evidently be premature to simply close down the debate onpostmodern epistemologies with the injunctionthat they are a Pandorasbox that is too dangerous to open.The distinction may be altogethertoo stark, and the possibilities for cross


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fertilization far less dangerous than I have suggested. Indeed, it may beargued (Power 1990) that even if we agree with Derrida that language isundecidable, this does not rule out the fact that we do make decisions ineveryday life. To deconstruct conventional wisdoms is one thing, to statethat we can function without any conventions is quite another. This is theperformative contradiction - can anti-foundationalism exist withoutfoundations? (Turner 1990: 6; see also Clegg 1990: 12). Much of thewritingon postmodernity has been aimed at stressing diversityand dif-ference, affirmingthe possibility of play and resistance within the mostoppressive structures. As Foster observes, it is not necessarilya modernnihilism but a critiquewhich destructures the order of representations inorder to re-inscribe them (1983:xv). This is a characterization of post-modernity to which I feel politically sympathetic, but supporting itrequires careful consideration of its epistemological and political conse-quences. For postmodernism or post-modernism to be useful, they mustbe considered in depth as both social and philosophical theories, and their

. relation must be clearly understood. Furthermore, questions about thetextual responsibilityof the theorist must be approached, or the integrityof the exercise will become highly suspect. This tamingof post-modernity is evident in several recent publicationswhich essentiallysideline the post-structuralist epistemology in favour of a sociological(Bauman 1988a, 1988b; Lash 1990) or materialist (Harvey 1989; Callini-cos 1989) explanation of why postmodernity now? In the terms I havephrased it, the question should be why write now? I hope that a positionmay be found that respects the integrity of both.

A final note on this text. Is it postmodern or post-modern? I have saidnothing about my reasons for writing and have done little to deconstructsocial scientific discourse. Neither have I espoused the notion thatorganization theorists should attempt to advise the inhabitants of a newera. Instead, I have constructed a meta-narrative in which I have

attempted to deploy a rationality which attempts to speak for, and gobeyond, the texts I have used. I am clearlyvictim to the criticisms I haveaimed at Cooper and Burrell. For the phantom postmodernist I havecreated, this is clearly a fiction, and one that begs, in itself, fordeconstruction. For the phantom post-modernist I have created, it is aretreat into an intellectual ghetto which has little relation to the problemsand politics of the real world. What about Martin Parker? Im not surewhere he might fit into this formal strait-jacket of a text, but I am con-vinced that these are the questions that a postmodernist should be asking.The Enlightenment is dead, Marxism is dead, the working class movement isdead ... and the author does not feel very well either (Neil Smith in Harvey1989: 325)

Note B) * Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Changing Culture of Organisationsday school at Staffordshire Polytechnic in February 1990 and the B.S.A. conference at theUniversity of Surrey in April 1990. My thanks go to everyone who commented on it onthose two occasions, particularlyJeff Hcarn and Stewart Clegg. I would also like to thankO.S. and its anonymous reviewers for their extensive comments.


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postmodernism, reflexive rationalism and organizational studies a reply to martinmmmm parker

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