Individual perspectives produce different types of knowledge. Choose two organisational theory perspectives and critically evaluate how each contributes a different understanding of sustainability within organisations. Based on your selected perspective
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Introduction
Organizational theory is the body of knowledge which relates to analysis and examination of both the interior workings of organizations and their relationship with the external environments. There are different perspectives that brings about different methods of collecting, generating and analyzing the results. The concepts, together with the theories of a particular perspective assign you different thinking tools with which to conduct ideas about organization and organizing. Depending on your intentions, you might note that particular perspectives have a wide variety than the others for your purpose. When you have much knowledge you have upon multiple perspectives and theories, you would have a greater capacity to choose a useful approach in dealing with any situation you are facing in an organization. This essay will go into deep about modern and post-modernist perspective.
Modern and Postmodern perspectives
The postmodern ways challenge the leading assumptions of how we work in this world. This perspective describes the aesthetic and political movements that exist as social, disciplinary and narrative responses to the historical time known as modernity. Modern approaches categorize the society as rational, well-ordered and stable. However, this is different in postmodern approaches since it values counter rational, global, reflexive, other oriented and networked models for organizational study. Different approaches of looking the world portrays different knowledge and in fact, different perspectives come to be related to their own concepts and theories.
The first awareness into the challenging character of this quest is presented by a critical analysis of Scott’s approach in his book that is repetitive in printing; Organizations: Natural, rational and open systems. He discusses three definitions of our subject matter of organization theory as rational system definition, an open system definition and a natural system definition. All these definitions define and demarcate the area of research of organization theories. In addition, they are guided by three different directions. These directions are further said to be the perspectives and in this essay are the two main perspectives where they reflect different assumptions about the nature of an organization (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006).
The modern ontology is objective. It accepts an external reality which is there independently from our information. In a modernist perspective, there is a belief that knowledge is experienced by using scientific methods of observation with reliable and valid measurements where we are allowed to test our understanding of the world. For a modernist, the organizations are real that operates in a real world where it is possible to test ways and techniques to advance the effectiveness (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006). Modern organization theorists’ main goal is to control organization and predict. However, the postmodern organization theory looks to expose the exercise of those with power and encourage self-determination for those lacking voices.
However, to compare the two, you must observe the assumptions favoring each of these perspective. The best area starts with the important philosophical choices of epistemology and ontology. Ontology has a matter to do with how you can choose the real whereas epistemology has to do with how you can form knowledge and come up with criteria for evaluating it. When one thinks about ontology and epistemology is an important area to start because these philosophical directions explain elementary differences between the perspectives of organization theory. Even if there some difficult philosophical agendas, by assigning ontology and epistemology some concern now, you will start to study why different perspectives lead to different methods of theorizing organizations and how modern together with postmodern perspective develop distinctive contributions to organization theory.
Ontology
The work of ontology is to help us to know assumptions about reality. Is there any objective or subjective reality that exists in our minds? In life today you probably consider your assumptions about the things that exists for granted as you can believe you have the idea about the real world. You wake up, got to work, do your job as student manager, attend meetings, establish policy and write reports. You should never have a questions about whether the things are real or rely on you; one is aware that he owns a car because he drives it every day so the car exists. But is your job there when you are not performing it? What about your report is it telling the real thing or it describes your thoughts on what is happening? Theorists sometimes focus on these questions because they attribute existence of reality, rather than unreal. Depending on your perspectives, you will assign some of the things the status to be real, while you ignore others. In this case lead to arguments between those with different perspective and make them to set up separate where it can conflict at time, research communities.
Ontology also deals with question of agency. Do people have free will are fully responsible for their own deeds, or is life predetermined by God or situations? Firm stand at one end of the reality range in their belief about something is there only when you practice it and give it meaning. On the other side, is objectives as we have seen above. From objective point of view, people can make and practice realities in different ways as individuals together with groups have their own beliefs, assumptions, and the two perspectives which lead them to do so.
Epistemology
Epistemology deals with issues of knowing what you need to know. Distinctive questions asked by investigators of epistemology include: how do humans generate knowledge, what about the criteria by which they categorize good knowledge from bad and how should reality be described? Epistemology is somehow similar to ontology because the answers to these questions. The table below shows the key ontological and epistemological difference of modern and postmodern together with their implications for organization theory.
Summary of Modern and Postmodern perspectives of organization theory
Modernism |
Postmodern |
Ontology Objectivism – there is a belief in an objective or external reality where the existence is independent of a person knowledge about it. |
Ontology There is a belief that the world is appearing through language and is set in discourse; meaning what is talked about remains in existence thus everything which exists is a text to be read or done. |
Epistemology Positivism – the truth is discovered through legal conceptualization and dependable measurement that allows someone to test knowledge against global objective. |
Epistemology The issue here is still postmodernism where knowledge won’t be accurate account of reality because the meaning cannot be secure, there is inadequate facts only interpretations thus knowledge becoming to be the power play. |
Organizations are Something objective and real in its entities operating in a real world. When managed and well designed, they are now systems of actions or decisions driven by standards of efficiency, rational and effectiveness for stated ideas. |
Organizations are Area where power is got in relations, irrational, communicative distortion and oppression. Organizations are messages produced by and in language thus, we can rewrite them so that we can be involved from human folly and poverty. |
Focus of organization theory Searching for universal rules, ways and techniques of the organization and control, positive discrimination rational structures, procedure that is standardized, rules and routine practices. |
Focus of organization theory Analyzing organizational messages; undermining managerial ideologies and modernist modes of conducting and theorizing; attempting to reveal oppressed and marginal viewpoints; encouraging inclusive and reflexive forms of theorizing and organizing. |
Positivist epistemology adopts that one can know what truly happens in organizations by categorizing and scientific dimension of people behavior together with the systems. It is also assumed that language mirrors reality, which means reality and its objects might be indicated using language that lacks any meaning or inherent favors. In positivist, better knowledge is got by developing propositions and hypothesis, collecting and analyzing data, and afterwards testing the hypothesis and propositions against the exterior reality represented by their data to see if they are correct. For instance, modernists can come up with general theories which explains a lot of different rationale of one main reality and develop predications about the future.
In addition, positivist epistemology is grounded on the foundational principals that celebrate the values of truth, reasons and validity. Positivist organizations theorists study consider an organization as objective entities and are attracted to the ways adapted from the physical science. The information is gathered using field experiments surveys underlying the measures of behavior that their assumptions provide an objective. Under the supervision of statistical analysis, the collected data using these methods, they impact to theoretical models that they believe to provide factual explanations of how organizations operates.
Furthermore, when the ontology of the organizations has a similar issue significance for the determinacy for an organization together with its studies, then it may only be much-admired that there is an intensive knowledgeable debate about the foundation of the organization studies which goes together with organizational research referred to as the meta-theoretical debate.
In the 80s and 90s of last century, this debate about the foundations of organization theory had been widely useful to researchers who operated from the point of view of positivism. Starting at the middle of the 90s up to now, critical realism is becoming an important member in this debate. The ontology which is a theory of an object, a matter and such things and moreover the social ontology which is an ontology of the social shape, is the core issue of the meta-theoretical debate within organizational research.
Explanatory leaning debates within the social sciences, such as those on agency vs structure or global vs local are part of ontological discussion. This meta-theoretical argument is referred to as ontology-epistemology debates. For instance, this debate is matter related to the constitution of the social world and the impacts of this constitution has for our understanding of social world normally for organizational research. Positivists supporter – to use the terms usually employed in the discourse – the objective epistemology together with objective ontology; critical realists an objective ontology.
Furthermore, according to the characters of positivism, that dominated the discourse on organization in the 60s and 70s, the wonder of organization is to be defined in terms of generalizing concepts, increased by induction. In the case where their content is anxious, the rationality of these concepts rely on their direct or indirect observational verifiability. Thus being reduced to theory neutral observations or normally to observational terms where it is later found to be independent of the researcher an objective reality. In this case of objectivity, the phenomenon of organization is available by itself. Thus why a positivistic ontology preferably understands the ecosphere as a consisting of molecular events of possible immediate sense experience.
Conclusion
The analyses of Scott, Hatch and Cunliffe have made it clear that organization theories are impacted on perspectives and perspectives on several philosophical assumptions, especially on ontological assumptions. Organization studies distinguishes objective substantial from ongoing definitions of organizations. These definitions have insinuations for the methodology of organization theory, therefore, enhancing the knowledge we have on organization (ontological assumptions are real in methodologically). For us to get a better insight into this relevance, we must on the other hand, never interpret the ontological question “what is an organization” in a restricted manner. In the organization classes literature, the ontology problem is normally presented as if the question is, is reality dependent or independent, what are our thoughts about it, focused on studies of organization: whether social marvels such as organizations have their existence and their possessions independent of the concept we have. However, the ontology problem is normally taken also in similar way that the question is, if an organization is the objective entity or a postmodernism construction. The questions are two in number which in Cunliffe and Hatch are conflated lacing reflection, even though answers to them will have implications for each of them. Organizational ontology need to know what organization is, the relationship it has according to our knowledge of it.
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