What is managing and organizing after MODERN?

VIDEO: The Global Spectacle - Movie tonight is AGE OF ADVERTISING

NOTE: white type can be hyperlinks that in affirmative postmod fashion may take you to another text. If you need a code and password to get into any of the sites below (use ID=aggie359 PASS=adventure)

CITE this DOCUMENT AS:

The Postmodern Adventure: SEAM and Spectacle of Managing and Organizing

David M. Boje, Ph.D. Last revision, August 30, 2001

http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/503/CTRL1_what_is_managing_and_organizing.htm

INTRODUCTION

POSTMODERN ADVENTURE by my friends Steve Best and Douglas Kellner (2001), gives us some guidance to exploring the question: WHAT IS MANAGING AND ORGANIZING AFTER MODERN?  Table 1 suggests five approaches (columns) to managing and organizing in a global economy.  In each row, I have adapted Best and Kellner, to our quest for knowledge of managing and organizing and to my work on the relation of Spectacle (of the Age of Advertising and Illusion), Carnival (of resistance to globalism), and Festival (alternatives to the duality of the first two).  If you have no background in post-anything, please work through the multi-page, study guide, What is Postmod?, before reading on.

The Five Column Choices:

1. PREMOD - We might revert to pre-modern fundamentalism, spiritualism, ritual, and mythology.
2. MOD - Could be that we have never been modern: Habermas for example argues we have not achieved the promises of the Enlightenment and if we get control of the mechanistic discourse (e.g. Scientific Management) then a more civil and democratic society is possible (pro-modern position); McDonalds is everywhere as is low-wage, robotic-styled, mechanistic job design (anti-modern position). MOD was an epoch-break from the feudalism of Crown and Church,  promising progress for all through science and technology.
3. AFFIRMATIVE POSTMODERN - it is possible that POST is an epoch-break and rupture with MOD (modernity), just as the Industrial Revolution was a breakaway by MOD from the prison of PREMOD feudalism. Spirituality will tame the excess of modern science and western humanism, and predatory capitalism. Close cousin to AFFIRMATIVE POSTMOD is the LUDIC POSTMODERN perspective. Ludic postmods (e.g. The Gergens of appreciative inquiry school) call for formalistic analysis bout surfaces and aesthetic pleasures thereby disarming critical cultural as well as political economy studies
4. CRITICAL POSTMODERN - Or, you can argue that instead of an Epoch Break, what comes after MOD, is a mix of MOD and POST, but one done in a more skeptical perspective. In other words, we are in between MOD (critical theory) and POST (postmod not as epoch-shift, but as skeptical, not myopic affirmative postmod theorizing), and we see its hybridity (i.e. the term critical postmodern). Critical postmodernists do not accept the self-refuting "extremist postmodern" attacks on theory that are advanced by Lyotard, Foucault, Rorty, or Baudrillard. Critical postmodernists are more informed more by Guy Debord and Frederick Jameson than the extremist postmodernists (see Best & Kellner, 1993 & 1997). Please see TAMARA journal of critical postmodern organization science.
5. POSTMODERN ADVENTURE - Finally, in the last column, is the thesis of Best and Kellner (2001), that we are part of a Postmodern Adventure.

Table 1: 5 approaches to Managing and Organizing after Modern

Postmodern Adventure is our embeddedness in the turbulence of a plant fighting hundreds of small wars, cyberterrorism, the unpredictability of global economy, the anti-globalism protests, the metamorphoses of plant, animal, and human given the breakthrough of biotechnology and trans-species gene-reengineering (Best & Kellner, 2001: 1-19). We live in a time of contentious controversies where consensus is no longer possible or even desirable.  The last two columns of Table 1,  the "critical postmodern, and "postmodern adventure" each have "roots in the past and continuities with modernity (B&K, 2001: 7).  As such, critical postmodern and postmodern adventure do not posit epoch-breaks with prior historical roots, as does the MOD break with PREMOD, or the middle column of a sharp break from MOD into POSTMODERN capitalism, science, technology, society, work and consumption.  "The postmodern adventure is only becoming apparent in our story now" (B&K, 2001: 7).

How does Postmodern Adventure answer the question: What comes after modern? "Our studies imply that the contemporary moment is a contradictory amalgam of progressive and regressive, positive and negative, and thus highly ambivalent phenomena, all difficult to chart and evaluate" (B&K, 2001: 10). We live with new forms of war, new Biotechnology, a society of consumption, a politics of neglect and indifference.  "The rigid boundaries constructed by modernity are beginning to unravel like a DNA double helix during reproduction."   We are witness to the Brave New World of Huxley marrying with Orwell's 1984 predictions of a panoptic society of surveillance and totalitarian control.

In Bojkott language, we see the inter-spectacle (S&F, Chapter 8, see Tables 1, 2 & 3), the hybridity of consumer spectacle, eco (disaster) spectacle, tribal (war everywhere) spectacle, and biotech spectacle (genetic reengineering of life as we know it). The inter-spectacle is the inter-penetration and multiplying hybridizaiton of the four primary spectacles into nine combinations, that for me define the contours of the Postmodern Adventure.

We are on a postmodern Quest. A quest is a heroic adventure into our own ethical, ecological and social coevolution. The coevolution of capitalism, science, technology, society, and ecology is the greatest adventure of the millennium. Capitalism is mutating and coevolving with the spectacle of consumption, eco, tribal, and biotech to shift our very mind-set.

SEAM - Socio Economic Analysis of Management (SEAM) has is a research methodology that is between mod and post. SEAM is a way of transforming global corporations (and small organizations) into something more humane and ecological, with an enriched quality of work, while attending to workflow, supply chain and distribution.  SEAM is postmodern in its multiperspectivity, assessing not just the managers (managerialist) monological viewpoint, but the perspective of workers, suppliers, customers, and ecosystem. The multiple perspectives of the metascript of the organization is written down by consultants (and action researchers) in copious field notes, then entered into a qualitative data base for textual retrieval and comparison.  The multiple perspectives (workers, management, staff, suppliers, customers) is retrieved and sorted into the basic SEAM (four-leaf clover) typologies and then presented-back to the client firm, as a confrontive and self-reflective look at the soul and operation of the firm. The ethics of ecosystem, human system, and the organization's worth to its community become discussable. Concepts such as HORIVERT cut through dualities of its horizontal or its vertical, setting up the possibility of a multiperspectivist approach.

SEAM is interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary. Henri Savall, SEAM's founder, is an economist, accountant, and organization theorist. IN particular, the SEAM methodology inter-penetrates social performance, with economics, and finally these with the psychoanalytic aspects of the firm.

See P-SEAM Figure relating Social, Economic and Psychoanalytic.

Action research (interdisciplinary) experiments are jointly co-organized to facilitate progressive social and organizational (and transorganizational transformation.

By documenting and reporting back the metascript of the firm, in postmodern fashion, the organization and transorganizational theatrics are subject to (co-constructed) reconstruction.

In sum SEAM is transdisciplinary and multiperspectivist, situating transformation in a political economy and transorganizational framework.

Here is how some of your other readings fit in.

• Spectacle - postmodernists contend that the spectacle is made to appear more real than reality itself. The spectacle explains the choices away as destiny, evolution, science, or blind market forces. -- "subjugates all reality to appearance, which is now its product" Debord Ch 2 #50
  • See Guy Debord http://www.nothingness.org/SI/debord.html
  • Society of the Spectacle http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4
  • "The spectacle exists in a concentrated or a diffuse form depending on the necessities of the particular stage of misery which it denies and supports" (Ch 3: #63).
• What is Concentrated Spectacle - "The concentrated spectacle belongs essentially to bureaucratic capitalism, even though it may be imported as a technique of state power in mixed backward economies or, at certain moments of crisis, in advanced capitalism" (#64). Concentrated Spectacle amasses and centralizes bureaucratic power. The concentrated spectacle organization is where both production and consumption are constructed in a totalizing self-portrait of power that masks its fragmentation. 
  • "The imposed image of the good envelops in its spectacle the totality of what officially exists, and is usually concentrated in one man, who is the guarantee of totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute celebrity or disappear" (#64).
• What is Diffuse Spectacle - Diffuse spectacle is one of fragmentation and specialization in the global economy, global marketplace, and global division of labor. It is as if concentrated spectacle reverses to background and all the messiness is foreground. The "diffuse spectacle" says Debord, "accompanies the abundance of commodities, the undisturbed development of modern capitalism" as it reaches into every nook and cranny (#64).
  • "Here every individual commodity is justified in the name of the grandeur of the production of the totality of objects of which the spectacle is an apologetic catalogue... different star-commodities simultaneously support contradictory
    projects for provisioning society: the spectacle of automobiles demands a perfect transport network which destroys old cities, while the spectacle of the city itself requires museum-areas. " (#65)

• How do Diffuse/Concentrated spectacles apply to various ideologies?
  • Managerialism Ideology – The viewpoint and voice of management is privileged above all other perspectives.
  • Elitist Ideology – The good boss, good leader, and the good executives work hard, are competent, and exhibit situated qualities necessary to succeed. In both concentrated and diffuse spectacle, the elite view is that the elite were born to power, and those out of power are where they belong.
  • Technocratic Ideology – Technological developments determine the imperatives that management must follow. The mechanistic factory needs its concentrated spectacle to legitimate its form as most suitable to particular environments. The global Internet technology is the march of progress in the diffuse spectacle.
  • Harmony Ideology Harmony is the idea that a complete integration between management and employee psychology is possible. Again, we see this in concentrated spectacles of job enrichment and empowerment programs of the formal organization and in the new cosmology of the global spectacle where labor is now set free from paternalism, to seek independence from full time employment (as the story goes).
  • Late Capitalist Ideology – The late capitalistic or post industrialism ideology of the diffuse spectacle points to the advantages of capitalism, free enterprise, and self-organizing markets

STORY TIME - Today Lek called me at home. She is taking on Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Wal-Mart and other producers of the spectacle in Thailand-Globe Project.

Lek says "the corporations are so big and powerful. We are so tiny."

Lek is visiting Boston and talking to Jeff Ballinger (Press For Change) and the UNITE people. Lek tells me that Trans national Corporations (TNC) have not changed their strategy.  They are pushing production into the informal sector, while claiming their production is done ins a sub-contracted factory.  "Codes of Conduct are pieces of paper" says Lek. It is the labor violations that should be looked at and studies.

 

Nike Labor Practices ("SHAPE")
Safety:	The worker has a workplace where safety is paramount - in equipment, training, management and work practices.
Health:	The worker has access to proper food and water, to a work environment that is healthy, and to proper medical care.
Attitude:	The worker is managed in a manner that is characterized by dignity and respect for the individual, and appreciation of the culture.
People:	Management treats the worker like a valued asset: with vocational and personal training, recreation programs and on-site services.
Environment:	The factory seeks to minimize environmental impact, and emphasize environmental safety.

Informal Sector -  TNC (e.g. Nike, Reebok, & Adidas) subcontracts to a factory and sends in monitors (PWC, GA, Verité, etc.) to verify SHAPE. But, the tactic is to farm out much of the work to the INFORMAL SECTOR of sweatshops where matters are worse:

1. Sweatshops with five to 20 workers
2. Home-sweatshops where workers buy their own equipment and work on piece rates as "homeworkers." (Note: According to the NSO statistics, home based workers accounted for about one million people in 1999, most of them females aged between 25 and 60, and with a low educational background. )
3. Factories whose location is secret (not-transparent).

I promised to try to bring the study groups to Thailand. We would like to do some comparative analysis of TNC subs and informal sector operations.

• See Global Manufacturing and Taylorism Practices of Athletic Apparel Corporations and Their Subcontractors

Working conditions - The Minimum wage in Thailand is $120 a month, but to get workers paid only $0 a month, the sub-contractors sub the work out to the local sector. She is currently tracking Wal-Mart, J.C. Penny and the big three (Nike, Reebok, Adidas).

Unions -  AS workers organize their independent unions, the TNC subcontract to factories in the rural areas or subs move production into the informal sector.

Strategies - One of Reebok's current strategies is to separate its production from Nike and not produce in the same factory.  This way they can better control the news about Reebok.  Both companies cut and run when their practices are exposed. Lek asked by to checkout a recent article in the Toronto Star.

SA8000 is coming to Thailand as is ISO9000 (see also ISO14000) and various strategies suggested by (non) monitors such as Global Alliance.  What is interesting is that the TNCs are forcing the subcontractors to make the changes to get certified and re-monitored, but the costs are coming out of the hides of the workers. 

Planning Quotas & Target Systems - "The adoption of the target rate system at other manufacturers has been decidedly less welcome. The application of strict target rates has made it difficult for even experienced workers to work at a pace that would ensure a minimum wage. It is especially difficult to meet target rates in the stitching section. After the introduction of the target rate system at the Wongpaitoon factory, workers who cut uppers were first expected to cut 2,400 pieces per day. If workers met that target, they would be paid for 8 hours, at the minimum wage, and 2 hours, at an overtime rate. Recently, after a Reebok manager assumed responsibility for managing the Wongpaitoon factory, the calculation of time required to meet the target rate was reduced to 8 hours. Workers often must do overtime just to meet the target rate and to receive the minimum wage". http://www.thailabour.org/docs/CodesReport/LaborProcesses.html

What has this to do with Spectacle?

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Tiger Woods signed a sponsorship agreement in September with Nike for 5 years worth $100 million. With all winnings and endorsement earning this year, Tiger Woods will get $55,000 a day. A Thai worker would have to work for 14,000 days or 38 years to receive the same amount.

• What is Postmod?

Tough question.  There are several basic approaches:

1. The era by era approach (mostly discredited, but there are indications of a postmodern turn).
2. The theory approach. Postmodern is a method and theory, not a historical moment.
3. In organization studies and management
   • Defined as equivalent to chaos theory (problems here).
   • Defined as equivalent to team and TQM and Decentralized approaches (problems here).
   • Defined as an aesthetic or social construction of meaning (problems here too).
   • My approach - critical postmodern. Try TAMARA (problems here too).

• Ch 1 MPW  - Postmodern is
  constructing the stories
  and voices of those
  excluded, marginalized,
  and exploited in the
  modernist project.

STORY: The MAD Story. Boj: My Card reads...
I feel healthy.
I feel happy.
I feel terrific!

My friend Bill came back with a card that read:
I feel manipulated!
I feel alienated!
I feel damaged!

Deconstruct this!

• *Ch 2 PMOT Gephart
• *Intro ROT

• What is Postmod Org Theory? 

This guide moves from undergraduate, MBA to Ph.D. and post doc approaches.

FURTHER READING:

• Chap. 2 S&F Spectacle View One -Knowledge Work & Knowledge Management) 
• Best, Steve & Douglas Kellner (2001) Postmodern Adventure: Science, technology and cultural studies at the Third Millennium. NY/London: Guilford Press.
• TAMARA journal of critical postmodern organization science.