The Ontological and Epistemological Assumptions - Essay Example

? Postmodernism Different people use the term, postmodernism, in different ways. Postmodernism explores the convoluted relationships of discourse, knowledge and power that result from the struggles between social groups. This paper opens with a brief commentary on the epistemological and ontological assumptions of postmodernism. The proceeding sections of the paper evaluate these assumptions. The paper documents the contributions of postmodernism in studying and theorizing about organizational communication to demonstrate its application of these assumptions. The paper closes with a snippet review of the criticisms to the theory and possible reactions to these criticisms. Ontology defines the nature of something while epistemology defines the knowledge of something. The epistemological basis of postmodernism demonstrated in this paper is evolutionary. One of the ontological standing of postmodernism elucidated in this paper is social constructivist. This ontological standing moves that the status of entities depends on their involvement or lack of involvement in discourse. It holds that it is only entities constructed or produced through discourse that are real (Baldwin et. al. 2004, p.31). Postmodernism also uses a realistic ontology that uses two realms; discursive and extra-discursive realms. Here, postmodernism postulates that entities can exist in either realm with respect to its relationship with discourse. According to this ontological standing, all entities start from the extra-discursive realism before moving into the discursive realm. The transition into discursive realm occurs when an entity becomes the subject of discourse. In the extra-discursive realism, entities exist as existents and changes into beings when they get into the discursive realm (Crowther & Green 2004, p. 44). Postmodernism believes that identifying an entity is equivalent to changing it from existent to being. It follows that nothing that can be said about existents until they get into the discursive realm. The following sections evaluate these ontological and epistemological assumptions of postmodernism, more so, in organizational studies. Post-modernity is an object of both scorn and celebration in both cultural colloquial speech and intellectual discourses. Its repeated usage and persistent controversies have made it take up several forms. The ambiguity that surrounds the term emanates from people’s diverse usage of the term so as to suite their intention. Typically, though, it denotes the historical period that succeeds modernity. Modernity describes the period between the sixteenth and mid twentieth century (Aritz & Walker 2012, p. 41). It emerged from the death of medieval ignorance and superstition, and the rise of reason and truth. There are a number of elements that characterize modernity. Commentators of postmodernism differ on the basis of their favored side of the proponents of postmodernism. There are postmodernists who welcome and affirm change, albeit there have been critics who observed that the appropriation of this stance is questionable. Other postmodernists are skeptical about change and seek to see the change that challenges modern rationality (Crowther & Green 2004, p.45). Clearly, it is not plausible to dichotomize modernism and postmodernism. Rather, it is apt to appreciate their co-existence in a constitutive relationship that is mutual. The two need each other so as to come out as coherent and distinct. Postmodernism reshapes almost all aspects of life including, work, social relations, politics, communication, education and warfare. The transition period between the twentieth and the twenty first century saw the emergence of several developments. Industrial capitalism declined and gave way to a global information-age economy. This came with an inexorable expansion and consolidation of markets. There were also innovations that resulted from telecommunication technologies and computing. These innovations improved the exploitation of temporary opportunities for the betterment of production. Postmodernism brought changes that inspired people to suspect and reject grand narratives (Kotarba & Johnson 2002, p.46). Contemporary cultures now cherish narratives based on temporary, situated and local experiences. The person is not the referent of communication anymore. The effect of discourse is what constructs and enforces the favored narratives that help understand the world, others and self. This is, clearly, an element of subjectivity. Contemporary organizations influence and are in return, influenced by post-modernity. Early commentators in this area predicted that computerization of information would transform modern industry drastically. The transformation would precede the fall of the manufacturing sector to pave the way for the rise of knowledge workers. Knowledge is intrinsically symbolic and abstract and manifests through communication systems. The prediction is fundamentally relevant for the study of organizational communication (Littlejohn & Foss 2008, p.17). Later commentators confirmed that the prediction was coming true especially as from the periods following 1970s. In these periods, organizations adopted new cultures and structures alternately referred to as postindustrial, postmodern and post-Fordist. In these postmodern structures, lateral relationships, decentralized authority, and localized employee autonomy prevail over modern organizations’ centralized authority and hierarchy. Pyramids lose their iconic dominance in organizational structures to networks. Authoritarian command and control give way to dynamic and collaborative dialogue. In modern organizations, there are predictable strategies, consistent goals, and preference for mass markets. In postmodern organizations, all that changes so that the strategies change to improvised, goals evolve, and fragmented markets predominate. Modern organizations uphold bureaucracy that formalizes procedures, rules and roles (May & Mumby 2005, p.75). On the other hand, in these postmodern structures democratic processes that are emergent, informal, and consensual take preeminence. For these democratic processes, authority goes with the possession of relevant situational knowledge and not position and rank. While modern organizations prefer differentiation of functions, units and identities, postmodern ones reverses this differentiation. This enables the creation of flexible work processes, and holistic and multi-skilled employees. This breaks traditional boundaries into unstable and permeable ones. Modern organizations use standardized reward and punishment mechanisms. On the other hand, postmodern organizations inspire their employees to be proactive through empowerment that continuous and general (Mumby 2011, p.13). Modern organizations require employees to conform to policies and goals. Postmodern organizations, on the other hand, provide employees with complex negotiable relationships. These relationships encourage creativity, reflexivity, and dedication in service. This way, these relationships inspire employees to internalize self-discipline. Unity and similarity pervades modern organizations, whilst diversity and difference, predominate postmodern organizations. Diversity and difference in postmodern organizations is a resource that increases useful knowledge, and effects performance. Technologies that encourage routine operation and mass production are important elements in modern organizations. Postmodern organization retains the aspects of efficiency and competitiveness so as to promote service and responsiveness (O’connor et. al. 2009, p.28). Cultures that stem from custom, tradition and stability, characterize modern organizations. On the contrary, postmodern organizations prefer supple cultures that change in situations of uncertainty and paradox. In these cultures, employees are flexible and can create unique identities to counter emergent chaos. Postmodernism helps in studying and theorizing about organizational communication. It is in the 1980s that organizational studies considered the contribution of postmodernism. The field had just taken up interpretivism. The Organization Studies journal published several articles to welcome the input of postmodernists in the discourse. Following this development, postmodernism was groups of professional including the Academy of Management started discussing postmodernism vehemently. Postmodernists formed informal networks and produced immense volumes of work on postmodernism (O’donnell 2003, p. 40). Organizational scholars debated the possible consequences and significance of adopting postmodernism in organizational studies. These and many other events led to the canonization of postmodernism in organizational texts by the beginning of the millennium. Postmodernism has a number of assumptions that underpin its input in organizational studies. Postmodernism moves that organizations are texts. To postmodernists, discourse is indispensable to every organizational process. Language mediates and constitutes every human understanding and relationship. This is how postmodernists adopted the metaphor of organization-as-text (Corman & Poole 2000, p. 4). This interpretivist metaphor justifies the use of hermeneutics in understanding the significance and nature of communication. It does this by engaging the ways in which it originates and interpreted. Discourse brings out textuality in the way it enables members of an organization clarify, define and modify the situations of their organizational experiences. They use cultural beliefs, values and norms to help them express themselves and make sense of whatever event. This makes organization to be as a text whose surface structure illustrates the determination founded in its deep structure (Powell & Owen 2007, p.18). By implication, this expands organizational communication to transcend the bounds of productivity, situational reference and immediate meaning. This allows the deconstruction of the value of social reality, and subjectivity in the organizational context. To postmodernists, organizational texts are not consensual, stable and singular. Instead, the plausible meaningfulness of these texts is prolific and precarious. Organizational texts engage in unending intercourse of discourse. There are many competing narratives in organizations that are moralized and circulate hierarchically. Postmodernists seek to understand the construction of texts. They volunteer that they result from a combination of enterprise and character. The way these textualities entangle is what demonstrates the inter-textuality of organizational communication. The other assumption held by postmodernists is that organizational cultures and identities are fragmented and de-centered (Putnam & Krone 2006, p.19). Fragmentation becomes apparent after organizational members submit to the narratives dominant in organizations as the means to good performance. These narratives together with their identities are untrue, and their implementers force them on issues of organizational life. De-centralization denotes the fact that human experience is not immediate, pure and direct, but pre-structured. Post-structuralism postmodernists believe that a language’s structure provides a mechanism that organizations use to shape human development. Postmodernists believe that organizational power, knowledge and discourse are inseparable. They agree with Foucault’s ideas when he rejects the notion that history is progressively and coherent. To him, social life comes with repetitions and ruptures. They believed with him that discourse should produce nothing but the truth. Based on Foucault’s ideas, postmodernists moved that power is fluid and pervasive (Putnam & Mumby 2013, p.19). Power manifests in the ability of organizational discourse to create and retain differences and identities that produce items of power relations. The roots that knowledge has in discipline connect it to power. In organizations, knowledge results from normalized and centralized practices. This is what enables certain people to acquire legitimacy and authority over others. By deconstruction, postmodernists believe that the meaning of organizational communication has to be isolated from the many relationships constituting it. Postmodernists claim that organizational communication involves complex relations of resistance and power. There are two modes of power in organizations that intersect. One uses strategic systems to gain influence over voices, thoughts and bodies so as to encourage productivity and conformity. The other mode of power emanates from the inauthentic, temporary, partial and grudging consent to the above strategic systems. By implication, mapping of power is not easily neither is it executed in ways that comply with hierarchies in organizations. The multiplicity of organizational modes of power can clash the scripts that organizational seniors use. States of powerlessness and powerfulness can be experienced multilaterally and simultaneously (Vibert 2004, p. 31). Knowledge of organizational communication as being representational is the other assumption held by postmodernists. Postmodernists reject the notion that symbols have inherent meaning about preexisting items. To them, knowledge results from the ability of discourse to constitute relationships between objects and subjects. They underscore the importance of analyzing organizational language games and examining their guiding conventions and rules. Ability to understand how these elements affect people's claims can result into a mastery of skill. All perceptions about organizational communication borrow from prior texts. This implies that no absolute truth can be known about organizational communication. Knowledge of such truths is only possible through the examination of representations of such things as questionnaires and interview transcripts. The outcomes of these tools are improvisational, dialogic and especially reflexive (Wrench 2013, p.65). Their ethnography incorporates the voices of both researchers and members of organizations. This also serves to present the plurality of organizational communication. Postmodernism has received several criticisms. Postmodernism critics ontology and epistemology in such a way that welcomes any meaning. In their defense, postmodernists use modernist communication theory. They move that communicators’ intentions play a key role in shaping the meaning of communication. Also, postmodernists do not deny the possibility of meaning. They argue that the possible truth is not permanent, neutral, total or universal. Postmodernism seeks to unravel how certain meanings result from arbitrary and interaction between signifiers even in lieu of change in these configurations. References List Aritz, J., & Walker, R. (2012). Discourse perspectives on organizational communication. Madison [N.J.], Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 41 Baldwin, J. R., Perry, S. D., & Moffitt, M. A. (2004). Communication theories for everyday life. Boston, Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. p. 31 - 32 Corman, S. R., & Poole, M. S. (2000). Perspectives on organizational communication: finding common ground. New York, Guilford Press. p. 4 Crowther, D., & Green, M. (2004). Organisational theory. London, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. p. 44-45 Kotarba, J. A., & Johnson, J. M. (2002). Postmodern existential sociology. Walnut Creek, Calif, AltaMira Press. p. 45 - 46 Littlejohn, S. W., & Foss, K. A. (2008). Theories of human communication. Australia, Thomson Wadsworth. p. 16 - 17 May, S., & Mumby, D. K. (2005). Engaging organizational communication theory & research: multiple perspectives. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage. p. 75 Mumby, D. K. (2011). Reframing difference in organizational communication studies: research, pedagogy, and practice. Thousand Oaks, SAGE. p. 13 O'connor, M. K., Netting, F. E., & Netting, F. E. (2009). Organization practice: a guide to understanding human services. Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley & Sons. p. 28 O'donnell, K. (2003). Postmodernism. Oxford, Lion. p. 40 Powell, J. L., & Owen, T. (2007). Reconstructing postmodernism: critical debates. New York, Nova Science Publishers. p. 18 - 19 Putnam, L. L., & Krone, K. J. (2006). Organizational communication. London, Sage publ. p. 19 Putnam, L., & Mumby, D. K. (2013). The Sage handbook of organizational communication: advances in theory, research, and methods. p. 19 Vibert, C. (2004). Theories of macro organizational behavior: a handbook of ideas and explanations. Armonk, N.Y., M.E. Sharpe. p. 31 Wrench, J. S. (2013). Workplace communication for the 21st century: tools and strategies that impact the bottom line. Santa Barbara, Calif, Praeger. p. 65 Read More