Postmodern Organizational Analysis: Toward a Conceptual Framework

This article discusses a new approach to organizational analysis — postmodernism. We contrast modern and postmodern forms of explanation and explore a family of terms derived from these two concepts. In so doing, we discuss whether postmodernism is best described as an ‘epoch’or an ‘epistemology’, a distinction which underpins current debates. Through reference to the works of Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida and Jean‐Francois Lyotard, we produce an inventory of key concepts for postmodern organizational analysis —‘representation’, ‘reflexivity’, ‘writing’, ‘differance’ and ‘de‐centring the subject’. By explicating the main arguments associated with these concepts — and by developing the middle ground between the epoch and epistemology positions — we lay conceptual foundations for a nascent postmodern approach to organization studies.