Organization Studies

This paper will relate some of the recent arguments about postmodernism and organization theory to the further development of a critical theory of organiza tions. I will argue that postmodernism is a dangerous, and potentially disabling 'perspective' for critical theorists to adopt and that any emancipatory project is not well served by giving up on notions of 'truth' and 'progress'. Instead, I suggest that 'critical modernism' allows for the relativity of truth claims whilst also providing a reason to write about organizations at all.

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

The deconstruction method was used to analyze a seminal text in transaction cost economics, viz., Oliver Williamson's Economic Institutions of Capitalism. This deconstructive reading revealed that the assumption of opportunism that gives rise to the problem of economic organization as formulated by William son also tends to undermine the proposed solution to this problem. The plausi bility of unified governance as a solution to the problem of opportunism in transaction relations with asset specificity is shown to hinge on the temporary deferment of the assumption of opportunism. Thus, transaction cost economics finds itself in an impasse of thought: actors have to be assumed to be both opportunistic and not-opportunistic if the logic of the theory is to be main tained.

In this article, I argue for the benefits of encouraging the use of novels, short stories, plays, songs, poems, and films as legitimate approaches to the study of management and organization. In particular, I argue that these forms of narrative fiction provide a useful addition to our ways of thinking about organ izations and an indispensable approach to strengthening the connection between organizational analysis as an academic discipline and the subjective experience of organizational membership. I begin by arguing that the division between narrative fiction and traditional forms of organizational analysis is overdrawn — that organizational researchers and writers of fiction share important interests and use complementary methods in investigating social phenomena. In the latter portion of the article I suggest some specific applica tions of the techniques and products of narrative fiction including narrative fiction as a teaching tool, as a source of data, as a method for exploring the applicability of theoretical perspectives, and as a resource useful in embel lishing papers and presentations.

This paper discusses the issue of organizational identity and the role played by marketing in attempts to manage this issue in a complex and turbulent environment. Within prevalent management discourse, marketing is described as a boundary function that ensures a steady conformance of the organization to external expectations and demands. With its strong emphasis on the con sumer and the changing needs of the market, marketing, accordingly, repres ents an attempt to impose and control a flexible identity, that is, an identity without distinctive traits independent of a market-based strategy. In the cultural perspective laid out in this paper, marketing, by contrast, is described as a self-referential system of organizing that enables the organization to establish and maintain a flexible buffer between itself and the environment. Within this buffer, defined by marketing, the organization is able to display a high degree of adaptiveness while upholding and confirming itself. In the marketing- managed organization, identity and flexibility thus become closely inter twined.

The paper is about the alternative ways in which managers and enterprises respond to the contemporary situation in Poland. Adopting a cultural perspect ive and interpretive approach, it first seeks to establish in which ways the social role of manager has changed in regard to the professional dimension and contextual constraints. The main point concerns the current situation, where different ways of enactment of organizations' environments coexist, as do different managerial roles, as representing these different cultures of organ izing. The paper proposes a typology of enterprises and roles, which can be used both in theory and practice, but perhaps more specifically by consultants who intend to introduce important changes in East European enterprises. Taking the differences in responding to change into account would perhaps make the change itself more effective and more realistically aimed.