Assignment

Concepts you should know:

a. Ontology
b. Epistemology
c. Inductive versus deductive reasoning
d. Discourse
e. Objectivist versus subjectivist ontology
f. Reflexivity
g. Truth
h. Normative theory
i. Grand narrative

Discussion questions:

a. What are the ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological assumptions underpinning modernist theories of organisations?

b. What are the ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological assumptions underpinning symbolic-interpretive theories of organisations?

c. What are the ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological assumptions underpinning critical theories of organisations?

d. What are the ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological assumptions underpinning postmodern theories of organisations?

e. ‘The modern perspective provides explanations that afford the analytical frameworks, predictive models, and principles for organising that managers use to diagnose problems and design organisations. Those who adopt the symbolic perspective prefer to study how we construct organisational realities via processes of interpretation, the applications of which lead managers to imagine their main responsibility as the management of symbols and meaning. Taking a postmodern perspective means giving up the structures and social constructions favoured by modern explanation and symbolic understanding, to focus instead on flux and change as modelled by the structures of language in use, which reveal the power relations from which humans should seek liberation' (Hatch and Cunliffe, 2013: 47). Discuss.