ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the arguments and suggestions put forward by critical postmodern organization theorists. It focuses on the theoretical writings of critical postmodern organization theorists because few empirical studies have been carried out in this body of research. The chapter explores the postmodern concept of power/knowledge and organizational control. It describes the concept of power/knowledge and individual resistance. The chapter suggests that critical postmodern organization theory’s power/knowledge critique destroys the basis of moral culture in its attack on the dehumanizing processes of rationalization. Critical postmodern organization theory posits the increasing rationalization of organizational life as a threat to individual choice and well-being. Postmodernists point out that knowledge is not objective, as it is made out to be, but is the product of heterogeneous practices of power. The postmodern critique of modern humanism points out, however, that this boundary is an illusion.
