Postmodernism in
contemporary organisations.

If modernism said "we will discover the universal truth through reason, science and progress," postmodernism says "there is no universal truth — there are only stories about truth, and the powerful stories are the ones we have been told are universal."

Postmodernism is not a theory. It is a cluster of arguments against system-thinking, foundations, grand narratives, and the assumption that knowledge can be objective. For management, the consequence is enormous: most of what an MBA teaches assumes a stable, knowable, controllable organisation. Postmodernism asks: what if the organisation is a story we keep telling ourselves, and the story is unstable, plural, contradictory?

Definitions are slippery — which is itself postmodern. Some of the ones the course uses:

• "Era beyond modernity" — McGregor (2003)
• "Era without a dominant ideology but with a pluralism of styles"
• "Questioning the ideals, principles and values that lay at the heart of the modern mindset"
• "Death of Reason" — Power (1990)

Sim (1998) puts it most usefully: postmodernism is the reaction against modernism and modernity that took shape in the latter half of the twentieth century. It is defined by what it is against — unity, universality, control, single grand truth.

Why postmodernism happened

The twentieth century placed science in the role religion had previously played — reason, progress, enlightenment as the highest values. Then came the trenches of WWI, the rationally-administered death camps of WWII, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, totalitarianism, ecological catastrophe — all in the name of enlightenment values. Postmodernism is, in part, the wreckage of that loss of faith in modernity itself.

Charles Jencks's three-era map is the same one used in Topic 02, but it lands harder here because postmodernism is the era under examination.

The cleanest one-page summary of the contrast. Worth memorising for the exam.

Hatch's four assumptions, postmodern reading

If you only remember four things about the postmodern stance:

• Undermine the ultimate truth — no single overarching account is privileged.
• Sceptic over objective reality — what counts as "real" is always mediated by language, power, and interpretation.
• Anti-foundational — no bedrock principle that other claims rest on.
• Dislike of / flight against established authority — whoever speaks for the universal is suspect.

There is no single theory called postmodernism. There is a collection of arguments developed against system-thinking. That itself is a postmodern feature — it refuses to consolidate into a system.

The intellectual lineage runs from structuralism, through poststructuralism, to postmodernism — each loosening the grip of the previous.

Structuralism / System thinking

The world is a collection of systems; the underlying principles of all systems are similar. If we can understand the system, we can understand the world. Systems are natural, predictable, and knowable.

Poststructuralism

A first crack: systems are unstable, not natural, not predictable. Their order is constructed and maintained by force or convention.

Postmodernism

The deeper claim: no system, no foundation. What looks like a system is a temporary, contestable arrangement of language and power.

Modernist linguistics assumed words and meaning are stable: signifier / signified. The full meaning of a word is supposedly present in the speaker's mind and can be communicated to the listener without slippage.

Postmodernism's response: language has an inherent inability to fully fix meaning. The same word has endless creative capacity to generate new and unexpected meaning. Context shifts the meaning; meaning shifts the speaker; the speaker shifts again with the next conversation. The instability of language is the postmodern problem.

Four philosophers carry the bulk of postmodern thought. Each adds a distinct lever for reading organisations.

Deconstruction in action

From Lyotard's Postmodern Condition (1979), six features of postmodern life:

The thinkers who write about postmodernism do not all see it the same way. There are two camps: those who think it liberates people, and those who think it alienates them.

Both readings are defensible. For exam purposes, you should be able to discuss both, then say which one you find more convincing in the Sri Lankan context, and why.

This is the central postmodern statement about how identity is now formed. Consumption is no longer about utility — it is about creating who you are.

• Symbolic value replaces utility value. The watch is not for telling time; it is for showing what kind of person you are.
• Consumers rebel against planned meanings. They interpret products differently, add their own meanings, divert products from intended purpose. (Crocs as ironic fashion. Heinz ketchup as Korean street-food garnish.)
• The producer no longer fully controls meaning. The consumer is an active link in the continual production of meaning.
• Customisation becomes the norm. Off-the-rack is for the desperate; bespoke is the marker of the postmodern self.
• The consumer is now seeking experience — a constructed symbol of self — not the satisfaction of a pre-existing need.
• The body itself becomes the ultimate consumption object — gym memberships, cosmetic surgery, aesthetic procedures. Self-as-project.

Look at Colombo. Independence Arcade. Marino Mall. One Galle Face. These are not shopping centres; they are the central cultural institutions of the postmodern city. They have replaced the temple, the cinema, the public square. Going there is the cultural activity.

If reality is unstable, plural, and constructed — what kind of organisation can exist on that ground?

• Established organisational discourses no longer valid — "this is how we do things here" cannot survive the next round of staff.
• Plurality of understanding replaces single grand realities — there is no one "way the company sees the world."
• No single grand identity — the organisation is many things to many people, and that is the new normal.
• Global universal vs local experience — both have meaning inside the same organisation simultaneously.
• Informal becomes formal — the WhatsApp group does the real coordination; the company intranet is theatre.

The new anxiety

Modern problem: how to construct an organisation and keep it solid and stable. Postmodern problem: how to avoid fixation and keep options open. Modern anxiety is about durability. Postmodern anxiety is about non-commitment.

For the practising manager — and you are one — a postmodern reading reshapes daily work:

• Reality is constructed — your organisation is increasingly influenced by outside forces it cannot control; employee views are non-consistent and non-loyal.
• Yesterday's production/consumption is over — no more long arc; only momentary present experience. Engagement is now-or-never.
• Communication is about the self — the message is the messenger. Your employees curate themselves continually; your customers curate themselves continually.
• Organisations are disorganised by customer involvement — customers refuse to be the passive end-point. They become co-creators, critics, marketers.
• Consumers become marketers — the user-generated review, the unboxing video, the meme — these now do what the marketing budget used to do.

The postmodern manager must think about cultural practices embedded in the organisation, in multiple ways and means, and be part of an ongoing flow. The old picture — "set the strategy, cascade the goals, measure the KPIs, retain the talent" — is structurally undermined by the postmodern condition.

Postmodernism is one of the most reliable exam topics. Questions typically combine the abstract claims with very contemporary Sri Lankan situations.

The 6-step answer structure

1. Define postmodernism (Sim, McGregor) — reaction to modernism, no grand narrative.
2. Name at least two thinkers — usually Lyotard (grand narratives) and Baudrillard (hyperreality) or Derrida (deconstruction).
3. Lay out 2–3 postmodern conditions relevant to the question.
4. Apply: choose 2 Sri Lankan organisations and read them postmodernly (consumption-as-identity, hyperreal branding, fragmented loyalty).
5. Discuss the implications for managers — non-loyal employees, prosumers, the dissolution of grand strategies.
6. Conclude with Bauman or the liberatory/alienatory tension.