The Revolt Against Cultural Authority: Power/Knowledge as an Assumption in Organization Theory

In: Human relations: towards the integration of the social sciences, Band 50, Heft 8, S. 937-955

Abstract

Foucault-inspired organization theory has interpreted the Enlightenment effort to make reason the foundation for human freedom as a failure. Reason is seen as developing into "disciplinary knowledge," which dominates modern organizations and the individuals who live and work in them. In fact, the individual's very identity is the means by which the individual is enslaved. Knowledge is thus seen as nowhere separate from power. In this essay, I will use a concept of traditional authority to examine Foucault-inspired organization theory and its power/knowledge conceptual framework in terms of their ethical and cultural implications. This will include Foucault's influence on both the literature in critical organization theory and postmodern organization theory. My approach will highlight the Foucault-inspired misinterpretation of the effect of the Enlightenment on modem organizations, its rejection of the authority of the past as a basis for moral order, and its impossible attempt to find "freedom" through the destruction of cultural authority.